Slow Cooker Super Bowl

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 5, 2012

Slow cookers make cooking for a crowd easy! (L-R: Dirk Bernd, Ryan Cowden and Wes Shockley) • Photos by Jennifer Dagdagan

After the culinary whirlwind of the holidays, who wants to spend more time in the kitchen during these cold beginning months of the new year? We don’t. Alas, the Super Bowl does manage to roll around every year, and many of us are again searching for a way to feed a crowd of people — who are glued to the flat screen.
But what if it was easier?
With that goal in mind, we searched for recipes — appetizer, main dish and dessert — that are delicious and can be made in a slow cooker (OK, and one fondue pot). You know, the kind of recipes that go hand-in-hand with some of our terrific local and regional microbrews.
We came up with the following menu — one that’s sure to please any football fanatic on Feb. 5. Keep in mind that the ingredients and directions are more like guidelines … slow cooker recipes just beg to be altered according to your tastes.

The fondue got rave reviews

Appetizers
Spicy artichoke dip
Ingredients:
• 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup grated parmesan
• 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained
•  1 jalapeno, diced

Add all ingredients to slow cooker. Set slow cooker on low until melted. Stir.

Easy cheesy fondue
Ingredients:
• 1 ½ cups milk
• ½ cup beer
• 8 oz. package cream cheese
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Combine ingredients in saucepan and melt over medium heat on a stovetop. Once melted, transfer to a fondue pot.

Jalapeno Pork Roast - delicious!

Main Dish
Jalapeno Pork Roast
Reader Vicki Hannon Baker contributed this recipe. She reported on Yakima magazine’s Facebook page that the recipe is quite easy, taking five minutes to throw in the slow cooker. (And we concur.)

Ingredients:
• 1 pork roast (size can vary — there is a lot of sauce)
• 2 28 oz. cans of green enchilada sauce
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• toppings

Combine ingredients in a slow cooker. Set slow cooker on low. Cook overnight or all day (8 hours). Put on flour tortillas with queso fresco or cheddar cheese, sour cream and onions or other desired toppings.

Dessert in a slow cooker? Yep!

Dessert
Slow Cooker Blueberry Cobbler
This dessert is adapted from Schwan’s and was given to us courtesy of our favorite local food blogger, Savannah Tranchell, who writes Appetite for the Yakima Herald-Republic. A dessert in a slow cooker — who would have thought?
Ingredients
• 1 cup flour
• 1 and 1/4 cup sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons lemon juice, divided
• 1 bag frozen blueberries

Directions
Stir together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, spices, sour cream, water, eggs and 1 teaspoon lemon juice into a 4-quart slow cooker. Mix well.

Combine berries with remaining sugar and lemon juice. Pour berry mixture into center of batter. Cover and cook on high for two hours.

Thanks to the following for their help on this feature: Lisa Dyr and Kristie Patrick for their vintage crock pots; Gabby Hauff for her fondue pot; Nicole and Ryan Cowden for use of their house and Nicole’s styling skills; Wes Shockley and Dirk Bernd for being our “models.”

Grandma’s Peanut Butter Cookies

by Jill St. George on Jan 3, 2012

The past few years, my sister and I have dedicated one day in December to helping our grandma Mary make Christmas cookies for the whole family. Unfortunately the holidays passed us by much too quickly and the cookies didn’t get made this year. Even though the holidays are over, my sweet tooth has far from subsided, so I pulled out grandma’s recipe and whipped out these cookies. They’re the perfect cookie – soft in the center, a tad bit crunchy on the edges and the perfect about of peanut buttery yumminess.

Ingredients

½ Cup Shortening

½ Cup Peanut Butter

½ Cup Sugar

1 Egg

½ Cup Brown Sugar

¾ tsp Soda

½ tsp Baking Powder

¼ tsp Salt

1 ¼ Cup Flour

Mix dry ingredients – flour, salt, baking powder and soda together in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients – shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar and egg together in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet. Mix. Drop teaspoon size dough balls onto greased baking sheet about two inches apart. Dip fork in flour and press marks into cookies. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

(makes a very small batch, so double recipe if necessary)

Yum!

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” -George Bernard Shaw

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jul 28, 2011

Spicy kimchi

One of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s staffers, Ad Services manager George May, makes amazing Korean food.  Today he brought in kimchi, which is spicy, delicious and amazingly versatile.  Here’s his recipe:

Ingredients
4 Asian cucumbers
1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 tsp ginger, crushed and minced
1/4 – 1/3 cup Korean cayenne
1/2 – 1 bunch Asian chives  cut into 1” lengths (small green onions are ok if no chives available)
1/4 – 1/3 cup salt (use sea salt if you have it) 

Cut ends off cucumbers, cut in half then slice lengthwise into quarters almost all the way to within about 1/2” of the end. You should have a piece about 3-4 inches long. Place in a shallow dish, pour the salt on top and add cold water until it just covers the cucumbers. Place a dish on top to keep them underwater. This should soak for about 3 hours. Save some of this salt water for later. You can also just slice the cucumbers if you want.

When done, rinse and dry with paper towels. I double up the towel and stick it in the cucumber and squeeze to get as much water out as I can.

Mix the cayenne with enough water to make a paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and add a little salt to taste. Pack the inside of the cucumbers with the cayenne paste. When you are done, pour some of the salt water into what’s left of the paste and pour that mixture into the cucumbers. Put the cucumber mix into the fridge and it will be ready in two days.

Holiday Recipes from the Valley

by Heather Caro on Nov 2, 2010

Photo by Chad Bremerman

SuperDuper Chocolate Cookies (also called chocolate crinkle cookies)

Recipe courtesy of Melissa Christianson

Prep time: 2 hours to chill                  Cooking time 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Holiday Recipes from Maryhill Winery

by Heather Caro on Oct 28, 2010

Photo courtesy of Maryhill Winery

Roast Turkey Rosé

• Wash and rinse your turkey and salt the inside.
• Make your favorite stuffing using ½ Maryhill Rose of Sangiovese for the liquid and chicken stock for the other half.
• Stuff turkey and prepare a basting liquid of ½ Rose of Sangiovese and ½ chicken stock
• Baste several times during roasting process
• Utilize any unused basting liquid for gravy

Country Leeks with Gewurztraminer

Four Lasagna Recipes

by Heather Caro on Sep 10, 2010

Spicy Sweet Italian Sausage and Pepperoni Lasagna, with Sangiovese Tomato Sauce.

Ryan Messer slices the lasagna masterpieces. Photo by Chad Bremerman

Recipe courtesy of Karl Anthony Moore

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of Sangiovese or another Italian red wine.
• 1 pound pepperoni, cut thin.
• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 1 large sweet Walla Walla onion
• 4 hot cherry peppers
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 fresh bunch of parsley
• 1 fresh bunch of basil
• ½ fresh bunch of oregano