Such A Crock!

While I've been beavering away on my novel I decided to free up some time and use my crock-pot a little more often.  There's lots of slow cooker recipe books out there, probably more than necessary, and some recipes I've made - particularly two that I made last week make me wonder "What's the point?"  

Last Tuesday I made ratatouille that I must say was delicious, but it took more than two hours of prep and clean-up, dirtying almost every pot in the place before I deposited the ingredients in the crock-pot to basically re-heat all day. It would have been easier to just throw it in a pan at the end,  stick it in the fridge until 5:00, then cook it for half an hour.

This morning I selected a recipe from  Canada's Best Slow Cooker Recipes, by Donna-Marie Pye.   This is the best kind of slow cooker recipe.  Chop everything up, throw into the pot with some stock and spices, turn it on low and fuhgedaboudit. 

Donna's Spicy Vegetable-Lentil Soup calls for chicken broth, but I wanted to keep it vegetarian so I used a box of vegetable broth.  I added an extra clove of garlic...cause that's just how I roll.  No matter how many garlic cloves a recipe calls for I add another clove or two.  I also couldn't bear to peel the Granny Smith Apple, partly for  aesthetic  reasons, but also for the vitamins and minerals in the peel.  Since it's going to cook for so long I'm sure the peel will be soft enough to blend without too much difficulty.  

 If the smell of the curry powder (that I spilled down the front of my sweater while trying to take a one handed photo of my favourite magnetic measuring spoons) is any indication, it's going to be a tasty dinner, complete with another loaf of that fresh artisan bread from Okanagan Grocery.