The Southern Slow Cooker: Big-Flavor, Low-Fuss Recipes for Comfort Food Classics [A Cookbook]

by Kendra Bailey Morris

Overview

A collection of 60 soulful, comforting, and wonderfully convenient recipes for Southern favorites—from Black Eyed Peas with Stewed Tomatoes to Country-Style Pork Ribs and Molasses Gingerbread.

Cooking delicious, soul-warming Southern food that the whole family will love has never been easier! Whether it’s a big pot of black-eyed peas, fall-apart tender pulled pork, or creamy apple butter, the greatest Southern dishes have one thing in common: they taste best when they’re cooked low and slow. 

With more than sixty recipes for down-home favorites, ranging from Chicken and Cornmeal Dumplings to Buffalo Stout Beer Chili to Brown Beans and Fatback, The Southern Slow Cooker is packed with real Southern flavor. Author Kendra Bailey Morris presents regional classics from all over the South: church potlucks, Cajun and Creole traditions in the bayou, even her West Virginia granny’s old recipe book. Morris carefully tested and adapted each recipe for the home kitchen, and the result is a treasure for busy home cooks everywhere. With hardly any active cooking time and featuring affordable ingredients, every dish is simple, convenient, and downright delicious.

All of these satisfying, flavor-packed, and wonderfully simple recipes allow you to make the food you love in the time you have available—and will have you and your family begging for seconds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607745136
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	08/20/2013
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	136
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

KENDRA BAILEY MORRIS is a cookbook author, food writer, recipe developer, and television host. Her writing appears in Better Homes and Gardens, NPR’s Kitchen Window, CNN’s Eatocracy, Saveur, Richmond Times Dispatch (where she was a food and recipe columnist for four years), the Associated Press, Washington Post, and Richmond Magazine. She served as a judge for the 2011 and 2013 James Beard Awards, and has a master’s degree in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Read an Excerpt

Using the Slow Cooker
 
Slow cookers, especially in the Southern kitchen, have stood the test of time, more than forty years, in fact. I remember my mom breaking out her vintage Rival, a 5-quart round cooker bearing the tell-tale colors of the 1970s: avocado and brown. She’d make everything from pinto beans to apple butter in it, and no matter what she was whipping up, the house always smelled divine.
 
Slow cookers are not only incredibly efficient, but they can also make typically laborious cooking tasks, such as making homemade chicken stock, a breeze. The cooker’s gentle, low heat is simply made for breaking down tough cuts of meat like ribs, roasts, and shoulders until they are meltingly tender. And who knew you could bake a cake in the slow cooker? Well, you can, and it can be 100 percent homemade.
 
One of the best features of the slow cooker is that it can be left unattended for long periods of time, letting you take care of other business while the cooker does all the work. Also, even though some of the recipes in this book have less than six hours of cooking time (such as desserts and some side dishes), many do require longer cooking times and are, therefore, appropriate for prepping before you head off to work or to bed.
 
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Porcupine Meatballs
This hearty, slow-cooked, tomato-based dish gets its name from the long-grain rice that is blended into the meatball mixture giving it a quill-like quality. This is comfort food at its finest and an ideal cold-weather meal. Serve these delicate meatballs topped with grated Parmesan alongside a green salad and a wedge of crusty bread for soaking up any leftover sauce. For an amazing second-day meal, you can make meatball subs: just spoon some warm meatballs into sub rolls, top with provolone cheese, and broil until the cheese melts.  •  The meatballs are different from traditional Italian meatballs. They are more fragile, so avoid stirring them too much, or they’ll fall apart. If they do break apart, no worries, just serve them over mashed potatoes, which is another great combination.
 
Serves 6
 
Sauce
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 (10-ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chiles (such as Rotel brand), drained
1 (5.5-ounce) can tomato juice
1 (10.75-ounce) can tomato soup
1 cup water
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1½ teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley
2 bay leaves
 
Spray the inside of the slow cooker with cooking spray.
To make the sauce, add both cans of tomatoes, the tomato juice, tomato soup, water, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, oregano, dried parsley, and bay leaves to the slow cooker and stir well.
 
Meatballs
1½ pounds extra-lean ground beef
½ cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 small onion, diced
½ cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1½ teaspoons prepared horseradish
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
Pinch of celery salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
 
Salt and black pepper
Fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced, for garnish
Grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish
 
 
To make the meatballs, mix together the beef, rice, onion, milk, egg, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and celery salt in a large bowl. Gently form into round balls 1½ to 2 inches in diameter.

Heat a large sauté pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat. Add the olive
oil. Add the meatballs and brown well on all sides, about 5 to 7 minutes.

When the meatballs are all browned, add them to the slow cooker along with the pan juices. Stir gently once or twice until all of the meatballs are coated in sauce, being careful not to break them up. Cover and cook on low at least 6 hours, and up to 8 hours.

If you would prefer a thicker sauce, set the slow cooker to high and uncover it for the last 30 to 45 minutes of cooking, or until the sauce is thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Remove the bay leaves.
To serve, spoon the meatballs and sauce into individual serving bowls and top with fresh parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  

Introduction  

chapter one   
Soul-Warming Soups, Stews, and Chilis  

chapter two   
Low and Slow Meats
  
chapter three   
Vegetables and Sides  

chapter four   
Desserts and Sweets 
 
chapter five   
Southern Odds and Ends 
 
Resources 
 
Index  

Editorial Reviews

 “I’ll admit that my slow cooker has been gathering dust lately, but Kendra Bailey Morris’s The Southern Slow Cooker may convince me to take it off the shelf. These updated versions of slow-cooker classics showcase Kendra’s farm-to-table sensibilities and fresh, farmers’ market ingredients—proving that slow cooking doesn’t automatically involve a can opener. There are enough throwback recipes here to satisfy traditionalists, but also innovative new ways to use modern moms’ favorite weeknight helper.”
—Virginia Willis, author of Bon Appétit, Y’all and Basic to Brilliant, Y’all
 
 
“Kendra’s Buttermilk, Corn, and Chive Spoonbread is just one of the really good reasons to grab this book. These recipes are packed with real Southern flavor, and still take into account the realities of home cooks’ busy schedules. With plenty of cooking tips and drink pairings to boot, The Southern Slow Cooker will inform slow cooker newbies and inspire old pros who are looking for some new tricks.” 
 —Martha Foose, author of Screen Doors and Sweet Tea and A Southerly Course

From the Publisher