My Favourite Chilli

My Favourite Chilli

from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker, Lynn Alley, Ten Speed Press, 2010.

After some hesitation over the idea of slow cooking vegetarian meals—especially gourmet—I made a dish of curried chickpeas with ginger and coriander. It turned out to be quite flavoursome and great to be able to put a meal on cooking before I left home for work and then return to find, with just a few small additions, everything was ready. So I thought it was worthwhile giving this book another try.

I chose a bean-based recipe; I am not quite ready to use the slow cooker for just vegetables. I have a suspicion that they will overcook. I’m waiting until I have more experience with the cooker before I try them.

It was a matter of cooking the beans and spices for 6 hours to begin with. Then some more ingredients are added to cook for a further 2 hours. One of these was cocoa which had me wondering a little though I was aware that Mexican cooking sometimes used chocolate. Half an hour before the time was up some more ingredients were added, basically to warm through and cook slightly so they still retain a certain amount of crispness.

I had a few tastes and added seasonings to suit my palate and, though I had some doubt at the first few tastes, it was a very satisfying chilli. It may not classify as ‘my favourite chilli’ for me but it was eminently edible.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Curried Chickpeas with Fresh Ginger and Coriander

Curried Chickpeas with Fresh Ginger and Coriander

from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker, Lynn Alley, Ten Speed Press, 2010.

For vegetarian food to be slow cooked seems quite odd. Vegetables don’t need to be cooked for a long time whether it’s slowly or not. Of course, there’s always dry beans. They can do with a good slow cook.

But then, to add ‘gourmet’ to the slow cooked gave me a bit of a laugh. I just couldn’t imagine a gourmet meal coming out of a slow-cooker. So I had to give it a go to see just what the cookery book recipes were like, especially since the cover also has the line ‘Simple and Sophisticated Meals from Around the World’. Just a bit of advertising blurb, I know, but here we have on one page ‘gourmet’, ‘simple’ and  ‘sophisticated’ teamed with ‘slow cooker’. Interesting.

The book is arranged in sections according to the area the recipes come from: India, Mexico and the Southwest, Asia, Italy, France, Greece and The Middle East. It is an American publication and so the Southwest is presumably the south west of the US.

I wanted something to go with potato croquettes so chose to cook the curried chickpeas. The recipe was very simple: add the chickpeas and water to the cooker and cook. Later in the process fried onions and spices are added. And later lemon juice and seasonings. No problems at all in this.

And it turned out to be very tasty. Not gourmet certainly, nor sophisticated, but certainly simple to make. I’d certainly make it again.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔