Don’t forget to read the label…

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Tonight was one of those oddball nights where our routine was completely thrown off. I was heading to a focus group for a local company and that left dh in charge of the entire dinner. Our meal plan – designed for ease and speed – was a mish-mash of Chinese-like substances. We planned for rice, baby corn and some frozen chicken that’s pre-breaded and sauced to be a reasonable approximation of General Tso (aka General Gao). By the time I got home, the kids’ tub was already running, and dh was about to usher them off to splashyland, but I hadn’t yet eaten, so I made up a plate of the leftover rice and corn, plus some of the chicken from the freezer bag.

As I took my first bite of the chicken, I realized – THIS TASTES WRONG. It tastes…icky. Too sweet. High fructose corn syrup, maybe? I finished my dinner (I was hungry, after all), and when I brought my plate into the kitchen, I opened the freezer and took a look at the back of the chicken bag. The fourth ingredient in was indeed HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Ew.

Now, I know HFCS has gotten a bad rap lately and that folks like the Mayo Clinic have said it’s not so much HFCS as it is all overdone sugar intake. Fine. I get that. But we’ve been trying to rid it from our pantry as much as possible, so when it turns up like a bad penny, I’ve now got my tastebuds trained to recognize it right away. Their reaction, in a word: VILE.

Funny thing is, this is a semi-new reaction for me. I have this general reaction to any non-sugar sweetener; I hated saccharine, I never got the hang of aspartame (aka Equal), and sucralose (aka Splenda) just makes me wrinkle my nose in revulsion. It’s sugar – or nothing. This is one of those few cases where I just can’t substitute; I’d rather go without or do strict limiting.

Our efforts to get HFCS out of the house have been semi-successful. It’s probably still in the soda that we replenish only infrequently (I primarily drink water, coffee, tea or chai). However, we were able to find not one but two (!) versions of our favorite ketchup that come in forms without HFCS. The taste difference is subtle but nice – ketchup tastes like it used to, now. I stumbled to find an egg nog that didn’t have HFCS in it (the only one I found locally was the Lactaid brand – none of the store brands, nor the two local commercial milk brands’ versions, were HFCS-free). Still, where we rid it from our house, we feel better.

All of this prompts me to issue a reminder that’s just a generally good principle. If you’re not someone who can put together the resources, time and effort to make your own…everything…then you should make sure you’re reading the labels. Check the ingredients lists and don’t be lulled into complacency by the brand name; our ketchup mysteriously had HFCS in it one day and we didn’t realize it until we looked at the label and practically threw it out in frustration. A barbecue sauce that I really love will never again be purchased for our house because it has HFCS in it. I knew it was too sweet for a reason…sigh.

So, check that label. Feel free to demand real sugar from the manufacturers whose food products you purchase. I know I do…

Slow cooker liners: to line or not to line?

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I think it was an impulse buy on dh’s part, when he was at Bed, Bath & Beyond prior to Christmas. He found a package of slow cooker liners and, knowing my luuuurrve of the crock pot, decided to buy me some. A few weeks later, now that the crock pot is up and humming a few times a week, I decided to bust one out and see how they work.

Many recipes don’t need a liner – you can clean up most crocks easily enough, especially if you sprayed them with Pam or some other non-stick cooking spray prior to loading them up. It’s the recipes where things cake or harden or crust on bottom or the sides where you feel like you’re going to give yourself a repetitive stress injury (RSI) trying to clean the crock after dinner. Inspired to make a Mexican Meatloaf, I thought this was a perfect time to try out the liner. After all, meatloaf in the crock pot is tasty, but it can be a complete PAIN to clean up. More than once, the crock has had to soak for quite a while before we can manage to get it clean.

Opening up the package, I was disturbed to find that the liner was wider than it was tall. While I know that these liners were designed to fit all crock pots – oval or round – this was a dish to go into our round 4qt crock pot, and I was worried that the liner wouldn’t reach all the way to the top. What then?

 

Meatloaf pre-crock

Mexican Meatloaf - in the liner but not yet moved to the crock

 

Turns out, my fears were unfounded – there was plenty of excess to slop over the top. Better still, moving the crock to the stove allowed me to move the entire liner to the cutting board in one quick trip. The amount of moisture in the liner was what I would’ve expected, and (as I’ll discuss when I post the recipe), there was ZERO departure from the usual moisture level by using the liner – meaning the liner had no impact on the quality of the outcome.

 

Meatloaf in crock

Mexican meatloaf, in liner, with plenty of excess liner to hang out of the 4qt round crock

 

And, the icing on this cake was finding that my crock was BONE DRY when I removed the bag. There was ZERO leakage. Of course, removing the meatloaf from the bag wasn’t a completely easy task; it’s not like you can flip over a meatloaf when there’s glaze on top and a small amount of grease in the bag. I siphoned the (really incredibly small) amount of grease that accumulated in the bag with a bulb baster and then trimmed the bag with kitchen shears. I was then able to use a thick pancake turner to remove the meatloaf. Sure, some of the meatloaf stayed with the bag – but no more so than we’d lose to the bottom of the crock pot during a non-lined cooking…and this time, there was no scrubbing involved!

 

Crock post-liner

The 4qt round crock, just after the liner was removed - DRY AS A BONE!

 

Now, I know that these things aren’t cheap. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like they typically run about $1 per liner. And, as I mentioned above, in many cases, they’re just not necessary. Still, if you have a hard-to-clean dish, there’s no reason NOT to use one unless you have an anti-plastic/environmental concern (at which point you could also argue about the extra water and detergent that are required to scrub off the inside of the crock…at least a break-even situation). I wouldn’t recommend them for everyday crock pot action, since I think that’s overkill, but if you have an RSI or if you have one of those tough dishes, no need to struggle now that technology has been invented to solve the problem for you.

As someone with tendonitis in both arms (from typing), washing dishes for ages and vigorous scrubbing can be really hard on my hands and arms. So, for the cases where I know these will come in handy, I’ll definitely use them. I highly recommend picking up even a small package and giving them a try – for the time-crunched, every little bit helps!

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

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I wasn’t expecting this to be the week of “things that include salsa and taco seasoning”, but so be it. Sometimes, you just get lucky.

This particular dish is a favorite of ours because it’s stupid-easy to make and can be eaten in a variety of ways. You can shred the chicken – or not. You can eat it on a tortilla (or flatbread) with cheese and lettuce, on bok choi with cheese, on rice…so many ways to make it work. It’s also yummy any time of year – so it’s not something that you feel is a fall or winter-only dish. Versatile, easy & yummy…those are definitely perfect characteristics of a great crock pot dish, in my opinion. Note: even though I list the cooking time as 6-8 hours, this one can definitely go all day. We routinely let it go for 11 hours and it’s perfectly fine!

One other thing of note to parents of wee ones: we tend to serve the chicken and sauce separately, to keep the kiddos happy. It’s up to you how you want to serve it, but you may find that having them separate at the dinner table cuts down on some of the “I don’t want SAUCE!” complaints that we get from the little ones. In their defense, though, I would like to point out that it was dd’s suggestion to put it on bok choi this time out. Even though she didn’t eat all of her leaf tonight, the fact that she’d even suggest it means that the CSA experiment has already borne some seriously good fruit. Yeay!!

 

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

Chicken, sauce, cheese & bok choi...OM NOM NOM

 

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 6-8hrs on LOW

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1-1/4 to 1-1/2lbs total)

16 oz jar salsa

1 pkg (1/4 cup) low-sodium taco seasoning

2 Tb cornstarch

3 Tb water

1/2 cup sour cream

Optional toppings: shredded cheese, shredded lettuce

 

Make it Happen

1. Coat the inside of a 4qt crock pot with non-stick spray.

2. In a bowl, stir to combine salsa and taco seasoning. Spread a small amount of the mixture on the bottom of the crock pot, to create a small liquid bed for the chicken.

3. Place the chicken breasts in the crock pot. Pour the remaining salsa/taco seasoning mixture on top of the chicken evenly, so that the breasts are fully covered.

4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hrs (or up to 11 hrs, really, based on my experience).

5. Just before serving, remove the chicken breasts from the crock pot. If you plan to shred them, now’s a good time. Otherwise, just place them on a plate or in a serving bowl.

6. Mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl and add to the salsa mixture in the crock pot; stir to combine.

7. Add the sour cream to the crock pot; stir to combine.

8. Either spoon the sauce over the chicken or place it in some other serving dish (we use a gravy boat). Serve the chicken and sauce with your choice of toppings (such as shredded cheese and lettuce) on your choice of bed/delivery vehicle (bok choi, soft tortilla, flatbread, rice, etc.).