Easy Dill, Sausage, and Cabbage Soup

I love cabbage soup, if you didn’t already know.  This one is mild, sweet, and perfect for a rainy day in the summer.  A big handful of fresh dill defines this recipe while the rest of the ingredients can be tweaked to your requirements.

This can be done with a slow cooker, but I do not recommend letting it sit on low heat all day.  Keep the cooking time relatively short to prevent leaking all the essence from the sausages and dissolving the potatoes into a sad mush.

 

Serves: 4-6
Time: 45 minutes

• Up to 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 450 g of your favourite fresh sausage
• 1 large onion, sliced thinly
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• a dash of ground cayenne
• a splash of beer
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and in small chunks
• 2 large carrots, in small chunks
  (Here I used a handful of baby carrots)
• 1/2 large head of some green cabbage (about 500 g), sliced thinly
  (I used savoy, my personal favourite)
• 1700-2000 ml water or low-sodium broth, brought to a boil
• salt and black pepper, to taste
• a big handful (50 g) of fresh dill weed, roughly chopped

 

1. In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat, spread 1 tsp or less of the oil on the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking.

2. Fry the sausages until cooked through, flipping/rotating part-way through cooking so that they are brown on more than one side.

Alas, one sausage still stuck to the bottom!

3. Set the sausages aside and slice them into bite-sized pieces.

4. Remove some of the oil in the pot if there is so much that it makes you uncomfortable.

5. Turn the heat up to medium and stir-fry the onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, and cayenne for a minute or so, until the onion goes noticeably translucent.

6. (Optional:) Deglaze the pot with a splash of beer!

For this I used a bit of Rickard’s Red I had on hand.

7. Add the potatoes, carrots, and cabbage.  Return the sausage pieces to the pot.  If you have enough room, mix ingredients together.

I did not have much room, so I stirred after all the cabbage shrank during cooking.

8. Pour in the hot water/broth, enough to barely cover the solid ingredients.  Cover and bring the contents of the entire pot to a boil.

9. Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium-low.  Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

10. Turn off the heat and add salt and pepper to your taste.

11. Stir in the chopped dill.

Mix well, as the dill leaves like to stick to one another.

12. Serve in generous portions. Optionally, add sour cream and serve with rye bread or crusty rolls.

 

Slow Cooker Chanko Nabe

Chanko nabe is a component of sumo wrestler fuel. But chanko nabe is not like Furious Pete eating a giant burger or Matt Stonie attempting to eat 8 sticks of butter. This is a nutrient-rich and low-fat chicken and vegetable stew.  It becomes part of a weight gain regime if you consume a big pot of it by yourself and with a bucket of rice.

Restaurant-Style Congee/Jook (Rice Porridge)

I grew up on congee, but our homemade version was never the same as at the congee and noodle houses. How do they get their congee so thick, creamy, and delicious? Here is one way to do it (without adding MSG in its pure form*).

Gentle Turnip, Chicken and Carrot Soup

It’s cool autumn weather and cautious eating for me this month.  I’ve seen some beautiful recipes online for rich, spicy curries and slow-roasted, fatty cuts of meat, but I shouldn’t have them until I am healed.  It’s a tad frustrating.

Hope for my sanity is not lost with this satisfying and quick soup.  Turnips and carrots are good sources of soluble fibre (yay!)  Onion and celery contain insoluble fibre (meh) but provide flavour and vitamins.  A protein punch and a bit of fat from white chicken meat and olive oil, respectively, balance this meal out nutritionally and tastefully (though one or both ingredients can be eliminated if needed).

No-Browning-Required Slow Cooker Cabbage ‘Roll’ Soup

Here is a beautifully lazy and delicious soup that consists of the ingredients one would use to make slave-away-all-day cabbage rolls. One could brown the meat before stuffing the slow cooker for the day, but it’s not necessary. The meat will fully cook when left in a slow cooker for the day. Plus, if one searches for ‘traditional cabbage roll’, one will see that the resulting recipes call for filling cabbage rolls with raw meat before baking. Therefore this recipe is… more… traditional?

I’m tired.

Slow Cooker Ratatouille, for the 21st Century Peasant

I’m back again. Hugs of reassurance to you if you missed me.

I suppose we have an animated film to thank for a generation of young Americans that know how to pronounce the word ‘ratatouille’ at least somewhat correctly. Some portion of that cohort also knows that ratatouille is a vegetable dish of southern France. A quick Google search will tell you that there are many different ways to prepare ratatouille, e.g. carefully layered and roasted, sautéed then simmered, or slapped together into a slow cooker before leaving for the day. Well boy howdy guess which category this recipe falls into.

Ratatouille can be eaten as a meatless main by itself, or with bread or polenta. It can also be served as a side to accompany… I guess a piece of grilled fish or a nice big sausage.

No-Browning-Required Ground Beef and Chipotle Slow Cooker Chili

There exist reasons to brown meat before stewing/braising/whatevering it, but they are not all necessarily legit. There is no need to pre-cook meat when it will be immersed in near-boiling liquid for several hours. Similarly, browning meat will not retain its moisture if it is to be surrounded by even more moisture for a long cooking period. If one is using a fatty cut of meat or ground meat of a high fat percentage for a soup or stew, that fat can be skimmed off of the surface during simmering, if desired. Or, resolve that issue by using leaner meat.

There is one good reason to brown meat before slow-cooking it: the Maillard Reaction. To grossly simplify, it means proteins + sugar + heat –> various dark, delicious, aromatic compounds. Ultimately there is a definitely a difference in flavour between a chili whose meat and onions were browned before slow-cooking verses a straight-up boiled chili. But if you don’t have the time/patience for this step, I suggest a pseudo-substitute here. A combination of chili peppers in adobo sauce and ketchup provides a flavour that is similar (but of course not identical) to the smoky sweetness of browned meat.

This recipe is for a northern North American chili/English chili con carne for the slow cooker (by that I mean it is cheap and contains beans). Browning the ground meat before slow-cooking would be a wonderful bonus, but it is not required to produce a perfectly edible and tasty weeknight meal that is bold with different flavours.

Better-Than-It-Sounds Slow Cooker Cabbage Soup

I am terribly busy this month, so here is a simple yet healthy and effective recipe that I have been relying on.  It’s full of vegetables and herbs and not much else, yet the broth comes out aromatic and satisfying—an excellent calming agent after a long day of running around in frustration or confusion.  You can make this soup vegan or non-vegan, as I outline below.  Also, if you are trying to fit into a too-snug wedding dress two weeks before the big day, you can omit the legumes and grains and use this soup as a staple.

Slow Cooker Creamy Vegan ‘Enchilada’ Soup

Enchilada soup is a thicker, even-more-American version of sopa de tortilla or tortilla soup, sometimes without the tortillas.  Sometimes it is creamy and other times it is on the clear side; oftentimes it contains chicken.  This is a creamy, vegan version that is easily prepared using a slow cooker.

Mediterranean-inspired Fish and Chorizo Stew

It’s an unusually cold month here in what is otherwise one of the mildest climate zones in the world.  I personally tend to associate fish dishes with the summer (sushi or ceviche on a warm patio, please) but this recipe great for those chilly nights we’ve been having.  Here I’ve grouped buttery basa fish with spicy chorizo, rich tomato, and earthy spices as warm a treat for the senses.