The everything bagel: mysterious origins? (niznoz/Creative Commons)

Who knew that the bagel with multiple toppings –AKA the everything bagel– is a source of such controversy? At least, the credit for its invention is.

David Gussin, a New Yorker who worked in a bakery in 1980, claims he invented the everything bagel in a burst of inspiration while sweeping out the oven, reported the New Yorker. One day, when cleaning out the charred pieces that had fallen off the bagels –poppy seeds, sesame seeds, salt, etc.– he had an idea.

He made a suggestion to his boss: ‘Hey, Charlie, instead of throwing them away, put this on a bagel and call it the “everything.”‘ Apparently Charlie complied, because Gussin says customers went crazy for ordering it, and a legend was born.

Or was it?

Not true, says marketing guru Seth Godin via his blog, remembering baking everything bagels in the bagel factory where he worked back in 1977. He also says that the seed-sweeping story is “crazy” –that the oven sweepings would be too incinerated to use to top a bagel.

Gussin persists anyway, and has added a line to his website that says “It was the late 1970’s, possibly early 80’s,” moving up the date a bit and building in some flexibility. He’s upset at Godin’s suggestion: “[The bagel] brings smiles to people’s faces. It doesn’t deserve controversy. It’s a nice thing.”

As for me, I’m on the side of an Internet commenter who asked: “Are we really to believe that the world waited until 1977 for the invention of the everything bagel? Somebody’s grandfather in Warsaw is going to be getting a phone call soon.”

The everything bagel is most likely a case of what is known in the trademark world as “simultaneous invention,” that is, something that more than one person came up with around the same time. How could anyone working in a bagel bakery not think of combining the toppings?

It’s like making a suicide at the soda fountain. How many gajillions of twelve-year-old boys can claim they invented that?

Smoked salmon in a cream cheese-y, garlicky sauce.

The everything bagel, regardless of how many people invented it, was my inspiration for this creamy pasta sauce. It has everything I love about bagels: cream cheese, smoked salmon and plenty of garlic, for starters.

Make it even more everything bagel-like by adding more of your favorite bagel toppings. I used poppy seeds, but feel free to add a dusting of sesame seeds, sea salt, or extra bits of roasted garlic.

Slow Cooker Everything Bagel Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, cut into small pieces (regular or reduced fat)
4 oz. smoked salmon, flaked
2 cloves garlic, minced
Ground black pepper
1-2 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. poppy seeds

Directions: Combine first six ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker, stir well, and cook on high for one hour or low for two hours. (For this recipe I used my Rival 1.5 quart mini, which does not have settings. It’s either on or off. It was ready and bubbly hot after about one hour.)

Serve over cooked pasta of your choice; sprinkle with poppy seeds.

If you or someone you know came up with an everything bagel pasta sauce before me, call the New Yorker. We can have a big ol’ Internet feud and rack up some page views.

Slow-cooked black beans are mashed in their cooking liquid right in the crock-pot.

Beans are often overlooked as a gourmet food, or is it just me? That attitude could be the result of my Appalachian upbringing. Where I come from, especially during my childhood, beans were “poor people food.” When money was tight, a big pot of pinto beans could be made to last for days on end, until you couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore.

Or maybe it was all the schoolyard ribbing about beans. Admitting to eating beans was akin to saying you were covered in cooties and your family worships Beelzebub as far as eight-year-olds are concerned, and the ostracism was severe.

Not to mention that when kids recited the rhyme that begins “Beans, beans, good for the heart,” they weren’t touting cardiovascular health.

Whatever the cause, I was a latecomer to the intentional consumption of beans, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of carrying the bean-lovers’ card. Sometimes those who come late to the party are the ones who have the most fun.

Slow cooking black beans, then mashing them right in the slow cooker in the liquid they cooked in seems to impart an almost sweet taste. Even without the literal refrying, the texture is thick and the taste is rich.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to pre-soak. You can if you want to, and reduce your cooking time, but the best thing about a long cook time is being able to slow cook the beans while you go to work, shop, or sleep off a hangover.

The “pre-soaking beans is necessary to decrease gas” thing is overhyped. Yes, some people are more susceptible than others to the musical quality of legumes, but most people who eat lots of veggies and fiber regularly won’t see any significant difference in pre-soaked or non-pre-soaked. I promise!

Rick Bayless agrees with me, and so do Mexican cooks. You won’t catch anyone in Mexico pre-soaking beans, unless they happened to learn their cooking skills in America. Stop pre-soaking. Let your beans cook long and slow in the crock-pot.

No need to pre-soak. Put the dried beans right in your slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Refried Black Beans Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried black beans, rinsed and sorted
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (omit to decrease spiciness –you can let guests control their heat with sauce or peppers later)
Salt and pepper to taste (omit salt if using canned broth)
6 cups water or vegetable broth

Directions: Combine all ingredients in crock of slow cooker and cook on high 6-8 hours, or until beans are soft. Resist the temptation to lift the lid to peek or stir until beans have reached the low side of the cooking time range. After checking for doneness, leave covered as much as possible.

When beans are cooked through, use a ladle to remove excess liquid from the beans and set aside. Use a potato masher (or a clean can) to mash the beans to the desired consistency, using some of the reserved liquid as needed.

You can serve the beans immediately, or save in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. You can reheat the beans in a skillet with nonstick spray or olive oil as you need them, or quick-zap burritos for emergency meals.

The best way to eat these? Straight out of the bowl. They’re that good. And I’m not afraid to tell it to a schoolyard full of eight-year-olds.

Hey, kids! I eat beans! And I like ‘em. (Then I’ll duck, lest I feel the old familiar dodge ball sting.)

Lately it seems like every bar or restaurant has its own upscale version, from steakhouses with rib eye or Kobe beef sliders to San Francisco’s Hotel Monaco with their gougere d’escargot (snail sliders). Mainstream restaurants like P.F. Chain’s and Pepperbee’s have started falling all over themselves to add mini burgers to their menus.

It’s an odd trend considering that the oldest use of the word “slider” in relation to food was less than flattering. As far back as the ’40s and ’50s, sailors in the Navy referred to their greasy mess hall burgers as sliders –in other words, so slippery with grease that they slid right down your throat.

These slow cooker pulled chicken sliders are far from greasy, and you won’t find them in the mess hall, unless it’s in the sailors’ fantasies. Make a crock-pot full of spicy pulled chicken for a party, and keep it warm in the crock all night while folks make their own mini BBQ sandwiches onParker House rolls, mini buns, or tea-sized biscuits.

The combination of white and dark meat results in the best flavor. Some people prefer the light taste of white meat alone, but the addition of the thighs (which have a slightly higher fat content) allows for more moisture and flavor as the chicken slowly cooks.

Tiny, but packed with BBQ flavor.

Slow Cooker Pulled BBQ Chicken Sliders Recipe

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs
2 cups BBQ sauce
1 med onion chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 chopped hot pepper or several hits from a bottle of your favorite hot sauce

Directions: Combine all ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours, or high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Remove chicken breasts to a bowl and use two forks to shred thoroughly, then return to crock and stir to combine with sauce. Keep on warm to let your guests make their own sandwiches onParker House-style rolls or mini sandwich bread of your choice.

Tips: If you’d like to use a homemade sauce, you can adjust or leave out the other seasonings if they’re present in your own recipe. Most commercial sauces need the extra kick.

If you’re not in the mood for a slider –and let’s face it, sometimes you want a big ol’ sandwich– use regular-sized bread, whip up a side of slaw, and pile your BBQ to the sky. Now that’s redneck sushi.

Hairnets not required.

School cafeteria food brings up love/hate memories for almost everyone. On the hate side there were the overcooked vegetables, the gluey macaroni and the rock-hard rolls. Even some of the better choices became loathsome after closer inspection.

My middle school cafeteria was never the same after a knowing girl in Jordache jeans informed us forebodingly : “Never look under the pizza.” We all, of course, simultaneously lifted the crust on our breadtangles and were never the same. I’ll pass on the wisdom: never look under a school cafeteria pizza. Seriously.

Other incidents included a snail shell found in the green beans, the daily disgust I felt at a girl who would only eat the outside of dill pickles (leaving the chewed pickle innards on her plate), and the uproar caused when a friend broke her tooth on –only in a school cafeteria– a french fry.

But then there’s the love side. One of my favorite kindergarten memories occurred when we collectively baked a gingerbread man (our classroom had an actual oven as the building was about a million years old). The gingerbread man “ran away” and we embarked on a cleverly organized tour of the school to find him (he turned up in the principal’s desk.)

"Okay Mr. Matthews, now when you find me, act really surprised."

The highlight of that supposedly impromptu tour was the school cafeteria. I still remember the weird feeling I got as a five-year-old walking into the cafeteria when it wasn’t lunchtime, all quiet and still. But, shockingly, the area behind the food line was a flurry of activity as we questioned the cashier about our runaway cookie. It was the first time it occurred to me that the food didn’t just magically appear.

And some of the food was actually good. Once we discovered the horrors on the underside of the pizza, the Sloppy Joe became the favorite (closely followed by tacos, which are hard to screw up). The Sloppy Joe isn’t pretty, but it’s a classic comfort food, with the tangy sauce leaking onto the soft white bun.

This slow cooker version is a Sloppy Faux, as it uses vegetarian meat crumbles instead of ground beef, and nixes the ketchup base called for in most recipes (ketchup is loaded with sugar). The result is an extremely low fat and low calorie sandwich that you can upscale as much as you like by choosing whole wheat bakery-quality buns, ciabattas, or seeded rolls. If you use white, cafeteria-style burger buns, I won’t tell.

Each serving of the slow cooker Sloppy Faux has only about 100 calories (per 1/2 cup serving/6 servings) or 150 calories per larger 3/4 cup serving (4 servings).

Slow Cooker Sloppy Faux Recipe

Ingredients:

1 12 oz. bag of vegetarian burger-style crumbles (like Morningstar Farms)
1/2 cup green or red bell peppers, chopped
1/2 cup red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups crushed Italian-style tomatoes (14.5 oz can)
1 cup tomato sauce (8 oz can)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
Black pepper to taste
4-6 sandwich buns

Directions: Combine ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour or low for 2 hours. Can be left on low for a few more hours if necessary,or on warm for several hours. Serve over split sandwich buns with pickles and appropriate school lunch-style sides (cole slaw, baked beans, mac and cheese) or with chips. Serves 4-6.

Tips: If you’d like a zestier Sloppy Faux, start with sausage-style vegetarian crumbles and add a chopped hot pepper to the mix.

And don’t forget to return your trays.

Non-loaded Spanish rice, on the side with a chili relleno. (John Tannenberg, Creative Commons License)

Despite being a pretty inventive cook –I hardly ever make anything exactly the same way twice– it was ages before I even considered deviating from my mother’s way of making macaroni salad. To me, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, real mayo, and generous salt and pepper were the only way to make it. It’s still one of my favorite comfort foods, ice cold in a huge bowl, when I go to Mom’s house.

My sister took the Mom’s-way-is-the-only-way thing to an extreme when she decided to make cheesecake after moving out on her own. My mother made a cherry cheesecake pretty regularly, but my sister despised the cherries. She always gouged them out of the top and cast them aside.

When Heather bought the cherry pie filling to put on her own cheesecake, I questioned her motivation. “I thought you hated the cherries,” I said, puzzled. “I do,” she answered. “But I like picking them off.”

Old habits don’t just die hard. Sometimes they stubbornly refuse to die at all.

Cheesecake + cherries minus cherries = my sister's cherry cheesecake recipe. (Jetta Girl/Creative Commons)

Which brings me to Spanish rice. At my house growing up (where it usually came in a box, but that’s beside the point), it was a side dish. A simple, ordinary side dish that, in our mainstream American food household smacked slightly of the exotic. Like our ubiquitous cheese-sauced broccoli, canned peas, or instant mashed potatoes, it was distinctly a second-string accompaniment.

That’s why I was so surprised when I went looking for ideas for rice recipes and found so many food bloggers and commenters talking about Spanish rice being one of their favorite main dishes. Not only that, but in their families, they piled it high with toppings: sour cream, cheese, olives, chopped onions, chives. I was simply shocked, because it was completely unlike my growing-up experiences with Spanish rice.

I knew I had to try it. Not only did I want to experiment with moving my Spanish rice recipe from the skillet to the slow cooker, but it gave me an excuse to pile cheese on top of something.

This Spanish rice recipe calls for your favorite salsa, and that’s part of the beauty of it. That one, simple choice means you can customize it to your taste. Like spicy? Choose a spicy salsa. Tissue paper tongue? Go with mild. I like mine hot, but also super-chunky and tomato-ey. If you choose one that’s particularly chunky, you can get away with skipping the veggies in a pinch.

Adding toppings makes Spanish rice a hearty main dish. Who knew? Not the Robinson family.

Slow Cooker Loaded Spanish Rice Recipe

2 cups uncooked converted rice
2 cups water
2 cups your favorite salsa
1 medium pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 12 oz. bag sausage-style crumbles, thawed
Toppings of your choice: shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped raw onions, fresh cilantro, black olives, etc.

Directions: Spray crock of your slow cooker with non-stick spray. Combine all ingredients (except toppings) and stir. Cook covered on low for 6 hours or high for 3 hours. Add toppings if desired to make a main dish, or serve on the side with a Tex-Mex dinner.

Tips: Be sure you use a converted rice (like Uncle Ben’s), otherwise your cooking time will almost double. If you plan on being out for  a very long time, you can get away with plain white rice.

If you haven’t pre-thawed your crumbles, pack them into the slow cooker first and increase your cooking time by about 15 minutes. I usually put them straight into the fridge instead of the freezer and use them within a day.

Main dish Spanish rice may be old hat to your family, but I’m a new convert, and I’m singing its praises. No more Spanish rice on the side. This one belongs in your biggest bowl, enjoying its promotion.

Some days I cook from completely fresh ingredients: choosing the best of the farmer’s market, snipping fresh herbs, slow-cooking a roux. Then, sometimes the very next day, I’ll eat a salad-in-a-bag and a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup.

Anyone who exclusively eats one way or another is selling themselves short. If you always choose the shortcut, you’ll never know the taste of onions that have caramelized over several hours. Turn up your nose at convenience foods, and you’ll miss the airy childhood bliss of Cool Whip on Jell-O chocolate pudding (Devils Food flavor, if you can find it.)

That’s why pasta recipes are so universally loved. They’re easily adaptable to whichever cooking mood you’re in. If a recipe calls for a jarred sauce and you’d rather use homemade; go for it. Or vice-versa. Leave out the meat. Add double meat. Use fresh herbs. Lighten the cheese.

I tried cooking lasagna in the slow cooker as an experiment, and I’m absolutely thrilled with how it came out. There were no crispy bits of hard noodle like you get on the edges with oven baking. In my 4.5-quart Rival CrockPot, I had to break the noodles to fit the round crock. My lasagna was smaller than some, but a decadent mile high. If you have a large oval slow cooker, you can make your lasagna wider but more of a traditional thickness.

This recipe should adapt to any size slow cooker of 3 quarts or more. For a small crockpot, cut the recipe in half.

Doesn't this look yummy?

Then maybe you need to look more closely.

Slow Cooker Lasagna with Spinach, Mushrooms and Turkey Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground turkey
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil (or non-stick spray)
2 25 oz jars pasta sauce (about 6 cups)
15 oz ricotta cheese
1 egg
3 cups cooked spinach, well-drained
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
3 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for topping
1 12 oz box lasagna noodles, uncooked

Directions: Brown meat in a pan with the garlic, onions, and olive oil. Remove from heat and stir in pasta sauce. In a medium bowl, beat one egg into the ricotta cheese until well mixed. Stir in spinach and mushrooms. Spray crock of your slow cooker with non-stick spray. Pour one cup of sauce/meat mixture into the bottom, then add a layer of uncooked noodles, breaking to fit your crockpot as needed. Top with one half of the spinach mixture, 1/3 of each of the cheeses, and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat layers again. Add one more layer of noodles, remaining sauce, and top with remaining cheese. Garnish with parsley or strips of fresh basil.

Cook on low 4-6 hours or high for 2-3 hours.

Tips: When I first cut my slow cooked lasagna, it was not quite as firm as some, though it tasted fantastic (the photos are of the pre-firm version.) I removed the lid and left it on warm. When I returned for seconds, the lasagna was perfectly firm, and cut into perfect squares. You won’t be disappointed either way, but if you have the time, removing the lid for the last part of cooking will give you a firmer lasagna.

Confession: I ate two slices of lasagna and didn't finish the salad. I heard my elliptical groan.

While I never make my lasagna the same way twice, I can guarantee one thing: I’ll never bake it in the oven again.

That’s why it doesn’t have to make sense to you that my fiance and I have a 4th of July tradition that includes shepherd’s pie. What started by accident is now something we look forward to every year, and we have the whole rest of the summer for cold beer, barbecue and cookouts.

It’s not a bad way to celebrate independence, anyway. It’s like telling England, “Hey, keep your king; we’ll just take your good stuff”: shepherd’s pie, Earl Grey tea, Double Gloucester cheese.

Shepherd’s pie is possibly one of the most perfect comfort foods on Earth, with macaroni and cheese being a too-close-too-call contender. This slow cooker version makes it even more comforting by taking out all the effort. Just toss in your leftovers and forget it for a few hours.

The potato topping cooks up beautifully when left to its own devices.

I made a batch of savory hot scones to serve with our shepherd’s pie, flecked with turkey bacon, green onions, and lots of black pepper. You can pick up bakery scones to make your English-themed meal trouble-free, and pick up pre-washed arugula for a salad. Score trivia points by telling everyone that arugula is always called “rocket” on UK menus.

A savory batch of scones maintains the Anglophile theme.

Slow Cooker Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie Recipe

12-16 oz vegetarian ground meat crumbles (like Morningstar Farms Sausage-Style)
4 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 cup diced tomatoes, well-drained
1 tsp. dried thyme (1 tbsp fresh)
2 tbsp tomato paste
Fresh ground pepper
4 cups Italian-style green beans, well-drained (or any vegetable)
6 cups cooked mashed potatoes

Directions: Spray the crock of your slow cooker with non-stick spray. Combine first 8 ingredients in a bowl, then spread into the bottom of your slow cooker. Layer vegetables on top of the faux meat mixture, then top with potatoes. Grind extra black pepper on top if desired. Cook on low for 4 hours, or on high for 2 hours.

Tips: In an extra-cheesy mood, when my pie was finished, I added 4 oz of grated sharp cheese and put the entire crock under the broiler for five minutes until bubbly.

Get out your drawstring pants.

No leftover mashed potatoes and no time to prepare them? No problem. Bagged frozen mashed potatoes are surprisingly good too, and you can dress them up with some extra seasonings like rosemary and fresh ground pepper.

Use any vegetables you like. Make sure canned vegetables are well-drained and frozen veggies are pre-thawed so you don’t have excess moisture in your pot. Fresh veggies should be cut into small pieces so they will cook thoroughly. Try matchstick zucchini and yellow squash, or already-tiny fresh corn and green peas.

Feeling carnivorous? Real meat is even more traditional, but be extra-certain that you’ve drained any cooked meat of excess grease and moisture to make it slow cooker-friendly.

I can’t blame you if you file this one away for the Autumn months (and shepherd’s pie is a brilliant way to use up post-Thanksgiving leftovers), but don’t be afraid to try it this summer. The slow cooker keeps your house cool, and comfort food can be just what you need no matter the season.

You just might start a tradition of your own.