Friday, January 9, 2009

Crock Pot Recipe #6: Tri2Cook's Little Strange Tapioca

I love tapioca...and sir, this was no tapioca!

Day six of the great crock pot marathon.

I've started thinking about that movie Super Size Me. These certainly aren't unhealthy meals necessarily, but I feel like a shell full of slimy brown glop. It feels as if I were to cut my finger, that mush would ooze out and it would taste like gravy. Good thing I'm not going for a year, just a few weeks.

Tonight was Tri2Cook's turn at the old crock pot roulette wheel. He didn't name it just as He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was not spoken of in the Harry Potter books. And so the magical meal materialized as quickly as you could utter Expeliramus! (I'm tossing some bones to the Potter geeks in the audience).

2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
1 Parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 Onion, chopped
1 Celery, chopped
2 Garlic cloves, chopped
1" Nub of fresh ginger
3 T. Quick cook tapioca
1 lb Stew Meat
16 oz. Diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 C. Malt vinegar
1/4 C. Molasses
1 t. Salt
1/2 t. Pepper
1/2 C. Currants

Place carrots, parsnips, onion, celery and garlic in crock pot. Add the ginger and then sprinkle tapioca over the top. Add the meat (T2C browns his first, I didn't have time). Add the tomatoes and juice, the vinegar, molasses, salt, pepper and currants.

Cook on low forever.

Okay, so what did I think? Well, as you may have noticed I'm seriously craving texture and fiber. And so its like riding the roller coaster for the 10th consecutive time... But, I will say that because crock pots tend to meld flavors into homogeneous flavor hell, this recipe does stand out for flavor. The molasses and vinegar held their own. Oddly enough I don't know where the tapioca went. I swear I put it in, but I couldn't discern it as I was eating, nor was the sauce thickened enough that I would say they dissolved.

So just like Harry Potter would say...Aparecium!

Next up: Helene's Curried Island Chicken (oh joy - chicken!)

2 comments:

Amy said...

Nothing goes past a good bean chili for a bit of texture and loads of fibre if you're in need of it. Black turtle beans are especially nice.

Good luck with the continued brown slop (maybe eat some salad for lunch to counteract all the softness :P)

Tri2Cook said...

Yeah, you're a trooper Rob. I couldn't do crockpot food every night. Even the best of intentions go a bit mushy after 10 or 12 hours in the cooker. Maybe somebody will toss you a recipe for crockpot mongolian beef or something that you can dump over some crispy rice noodles when you're ready to eat. At least you'd get some texture that way.