Lazy Bastard Cooking - Easy recipes for us LB Cooks!

[NCLivingBrit]

I love to cook, especially with my crock pot. I also love to do nothing, or as little as needs be to get the job done

Here's some of my most popular "one" (crock) pot recipes that I make over and over that get eaten up lickety split.


BB's Beans 'N Rice

This really isn't a recipe so much as a bunch of variables you adjust around a base concoction:

1) Base:

Canned black beans

Canned Pinto beans (in chili sauce if extra lazy)

Small can of diced tomato and chilies (I usually use the green mild because this is for flavour not heat)

One large onion, diced. Can be pre-fried for caramelized goodness

Chili powder, cayenne pepper, cajun spice, mexican spice. Whatever you like best, however hot you want. I often use a McCormick taco seasoning packet and add extra chili and garlic powders.

16oz or so of beef or chicken stock. (I usually only use beef if I'm serving a beef dish with this, chicken or pork dishes get chicken stock. Knorr Chicken and Tomato stock cubes are best, in the Hispanic aisle, yellow box with green print.).

2) That's it for mandatory stuff, but all below are added to taste or for more variety:

Meat. If you want a true one pot meal, add sliced smoked sausage/Lil Smokies/chunked hot dogs/brats/country ham/ham/anything from a dead animal. If you use country ham or other salt-cured meats I heartily suggest washing it, soaking it overnight then washing it again before you add it or the salt overwhelms the dish.

Small can of tomato paste

Canned dark kidney beans

Canned garbanzo beans (I love these, a lot of people do not)

More canned black beans. Because black beans are the best.

Maple/bacon/baked beans if you want something sweeter and more kid friendly.

Fresh peppers, bell and/or chili. I love some red and orange bell peppers and habanero in there.

Beer. Usually 6-8oz of whatever is on hand. PBR typically. I'm poor, feel free to use Uncle Worthingtons Old Peculiar Gilded Ale or some such

Couple of spoons of brown sugar for sweeter beans or to offset a lot of chilis.

3) Dump all this in an appropriately sized crock pot, canned beans first, then wet/fresh ingredients, then stock, then spices. This stops the spices clumping around one bean o' death.

4) Stir. Well. A lot. You probably overfilled the crockpot, so be careful

5) Turn on high and walk away for four hours or so, but if you can't leave it well enough alone like me, stir it a few times. Enjoy the smells.

6) Come back and turn to low. Stir thoroughly. If there's still a good amount of fluid left, move on to 7). If it's not almost soupy, add a little more fluid (beer/water/Liberal Tears).

7) Add rice. As I'm an LBC I use the Knorr Spanish or Mexican rice sides in a bag. Open packet, pour, stir.

8) After another 30-45 minutes, everything is ready to serve but as you are smart and used a crockpot, you can set it to warm and keep it around all day like a delicious air freshener of food love.

9) Eat too much. Drink the rest of the beer. I often serve this with my crockpot chicken thighs (detailed below because it is staggeringly simple and easy)

 

[foopid stucker]

sloppy joes- browned beast, ketchup and sweet relish. almost as lazy as p-nut butter crackers

 

[NCLivingBrit]

Stupid-Easy Crockpot Chicken Thighs

Why thighs you ask? Isn't breast better?

Not for the crockpot. All that skin, fat, marrow, wobbly bits, cartilage and bone in the meat makes for an amazing stock. If you want less fat, strip the skin first. Be warned, the liquid from this will coat everything it touches in an incredibly slick layer of chicken fat loveliness. Spills can turn your kitchen into an ice rink. I know.

1) Take a tray of chicken thighs, frozen or fresh, doesn't matter. Dump them into a crockpot.

2) Add water to the fill line, one stock cube per 16oz or so (I use two in a small crockpot, three in a large). Toss in some Sylia's chicken rub or Sylvia's Soulful Seasoning (or both) for utter laziness, or your own chicken herbs and spices. Also add a half shot glass of Worcester Sauce if you like it. It makes the stock richer. If using prepared flavourings, be cautious of too much salt, since they almost always have some.

3) Cook on low until they fall apart. Try and remove them. If they come out even a bit intact, cook some more. I will often put these on at 10pm and stop them at lunchtime the next day. All that inedible nasty stuff you got from buying thighs has turned into magical soup of heaven-sent borderline-illegal chicken love. Taste it. Relish the burns and flavour, because it's scalding hot but so delicious. Your cardiologist needs a boat.

4) Use a slotted spoon or similar to remove from the crockpot, set it all on a plate and burn the heck out of yourself removing all the wobbly skin, bones, gnarly bits, membranes and stuff to leave pure, delicious chicken fragments so tender you can't stand it. I will often cook this dish first and use the stock left over to make my beans listed above. It's a win.

5) Make your lazy chicken sauce, or not. I use a sweet BBQ sauce, decent seedless mustard, Tabasco sauce, spices, salt and pepper to taste and a cup or so of the stock to make a basic sauce, or I dump all the chicken in the beans and rice I always seem to make to go with it.

OR, dump the chicken back in the broth, add one bag of frozen soup mix veggies and cook another 45 minutes. After that, add a bag of egg noodles and cook another 15 minutes. Best chicken stew.

7) Bask in the lip-smacking and adoration of those will now full bellies.

I realise this is stupidly simple, but I had been ignoring chicken thighs for years and buying breasts, which make a vastly inferior brew.