Slow Cooker Moroccan Lentil Soup

I was talking to a friend last weekend about my slow cooker experiments and said she loved Moroccan Lentil Soup--so that was the experiment of the day. And yum -- I really liked this version. I may continue to fine tune the spices -- I didn't have coriander but think that would be a good addition. But for a first try, very pleased!

Slow Cooker Moroccan Lentil Soup

1 onion, diced small
2 stalks celery, diced
3 carrots, diced
1 1/2 cups brown/green lentils
3/4 cup brown rice
12 cups water
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground tumeric
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt, or to taste
black pepper to taste

Turn slow cooker to high or low depending on when you want it ready. Add onion, celery, carrots, lentils, rice, water, cumin, ginger, tumeric, and paprika (in other words everything but the tomatoes, salt and pepper). Cover and cook 4-5 hours on high or 8 to 10 hours on low. Stir in remaining ingredients and serve or keep on warm until ready to serve. This actually gets better as it sits.

Serves 10

I'm in love!

. . . with my new slow cooker. Dinner #3 was another big hit with the family. Here's what I did.

White Bean Soup

2 cups dried navy beans
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 quart vegetable stock
3 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 cups frozen corn
4 cups chopped fresh spinach
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Soak beans in lots of water overnight (I do this right in the slow cooker, why bother with another dish.) Drain soak water and place beans in slow cooker turned on to low. Add onion, garlic, potatoes, carrots, stock, water, oregano, and basil. Cover and cook on low about 8 hours (or longer). Stir in corn and spinach. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook another 15 minutes or so, until corn and spinach are cooked.

My family liked this topped with parmesan (dairy or nondairy version).

Serves 8

New Slow Cooker

Hooray--I got a new slow cooker! After checking online reviews, I decided on a Hamilton Beach oval slow cooker and took it for its first test run yesterday. I got 17 Bean & Barley Mix from Trader Joes, which I soaked overnight. In the morning, I put onion, garlic, diced carrots, oregano, basil, and half veggie stock and half water in the pot with the bean mix on low. I came home to the most wonderful aroma--in fact, the girls asked for bowls of soup for their snack--they couldn't wait until dinner. I added some diced zucchini and chopped kale and let it cook for another hour and we ate it for dinner. Everyone had more than one serving and we have just enough leftover for lunch. Hooray for slow cookers!

Slow cooker success at last!

Well -- mystery solved. I made the identical split pea soup recipe from the other day when the peas never softened but made it in a borrowed slow cooker. It was such a treat to come home Friday evening to a perfectly cooked dinner! And even better, this slow cooker had a removable canister so I could bring it to the table, and it was much easier to wash.

So, if you want to come home to a nourishing, delicious meal, here's my recipe:

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

1 smallish onion, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 potato, peeled and diced
2 cups dried split peas (green or yellow)
8 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Place all ingredients in slow cooker set to low. Cover and cook 8 to 12 hours. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Serves 8

Note: I also like to add 1 small head cauliflower, chopped (about 3 cups) when I have it on hand.

Oh . . . and this also works on the stovetop. Just simmer for about an hour before seasoning with salt and pepper.

The Hard to Cook Bean Mystery

I feel like I'm Nancy Drew trying to solve this mystery of the hard beans. When I got home at 10 pm Monday night and the lentils were still hard, I just transferred the whole thing to a pot and stuck in in the refrigerator to deal with later. On Tuesday, when I got home from work, I tried cooking the soup on the stovetop . . . after 2 hours, the lentils were a little softer but definitely not soft enough so I pureed the soup with my immersion blender and added some diced tomatoes and frozen corn. The soup tasted good enough . . . but still not the lentil soup I had been envisioning.

To try to narrow down the problem I wanted to see if the problem might be old beans . . . or maybe even our hard water. I
had some uncooked lentils left so I cooked them from scratch on the stove top. Within 30 minutes, they were soft and perfect.

So to recap, I proved that it's not the beans and not our water . . . it must be the crock pot. But what's really weirding me out is why the lentils didn't soften eventually--not even when I transferred them to the stovetop. It's like there was something that permanently hardened them. I know adding acidic foods can do that but I didn't. I didn't add salt either which some say can keep the beans hard. So, must be the crock pot right?

We'll see. I have borrowed a crock pot from a friend so I will try that next.

Slow Cooker Blues

For the third time my family ended up having sandwiches for dinner because after more than 12 hours of cooking, we still had hard beans in the crockpot. First it was the split peas . . . and I was like okay because I've had problems with split peas before . . . but then the onions in my barley soup that had been wonderful the week before were raw . . . and last night it was lentils that were hard. And according to my health food store, the lentils had come in in December . . . less than 2 months ago.

So is it the beans or are the cooking times I finding on the Internet wrong (maybe I should cook on high instead of low?) or could it possibly be my crockpot? Before I plunk down money for a new one, a friend will loan me hers so I can do a test.

But really . . . I'm getting tired of wasting time and ingredients on an appliance that is supposed to save me work!

Week Two--Slow Cooker Thursday

Week two of the great crock pot experiment was Split Pea Soup. Now, Split Pea Soup is probably the easiest soup on the planet to make—just chop onions, garlic, celery, carrots, and throw them in a pot with water and split peas and some herbs—which is what I did. The house smelled great when I got home. But when I lifted the cover to check the soup --- the peas were still hard as a rock. What’s with that???? Everything else looked perfect. So, okay. I let it cook. Another hour, still hard. And another . . . we were starving.

So, we ended up having sandwiches for dinner, except my husband who snagged my last frozen Tempeh Stuffed Pepper!

I let the soup continue to cook. When I went to bed, the peas were still hard. I let the dang soup cook all night long. In the morning, the peas were softer but still not mushy. We’ll eat it for dinner tonight but it definitely isn’t my best soup. It has a slight overcooked taste and the peas are still slightly crunchy

So, what went wrong? This has actually happened to me a couple of times before when I’ve made split pea soup on the stovetop. Usually, I can cook a split pea soup in an hour—1 and 1/2 hours tops. But every once in a while they just don’t soften, in which case I usually puree the soup in the blender.

I did some goggling and it looks like I’m not the only one who has had this problem. The biggest consensus seems to be that the peas are old—but when you buy split peas, how do you know how old they are? I usually buy them in bulk and even if they have a date of when they were put in the bulk bin, who knows how long they sat in storage before the store go them.

I also found one interesting comment here. One commenter said, “Sounds like you've got peas that are known in the industry as ‘HTC.’ Yes, they really have an acronym for hard-to-cook. It's a defect that occurs in all kinds of legumes, and is typically caused by improper storage and/or excessive age.

Split peas are NOT normally soaked but people have tried it to help this problem and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Now I absolutely love split pea soup and so does my family, but how can you tell if the split peas are HTC or not? Anyone have a test?

Crockpot Thursday

I decided I'm going to put a crockpot section in my new cookbook as I've noticed most crockpot recipes seem to be meat-based, and it's so handy for a busy family. And since Thursday is my busiest day and I usually don't get home until we're all already starving, I'm instituting Crockpot Thursday . . . actually I think the politically correct term is slow cooker. Okay, Slow Cooker Thursday.

So, I had some dried baby lima beans I've been wanting to use, plus assorted winter veggies from the Farmers' Market. This was an experiment because I wasn't sure if the beans would cook all the way through or if the veggies would get too mushy. The one slow cooker cookbook I have says you have to saute the onions, garlic, celery in oil before putting in the crockpot but to me that seemed to defeat the purpose if using a slow cooker: convenience and one pot to wash. So I just threw diced onions, celery, garlic, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, and lima beans into the pot with veggie broth and herbs at 7:30 this morning before I left for work and hoped for the best.

Well, when I got home at 6:00 this evening, the whole house smelled wonderful--so welcoming! And I am happy to report the soup was PERFECT! My family gobbled it up, barely leaving enough for my one of my daughters to take for lunch tomorrow (believe it or not, they are arguing over who gets to take it). It was TOTALLY worth the 15 minutes of crazed chopping this morning for such a relaxing dinner.

Hooray for Slow Cooker Thursday!