Slow Cooker Chunky Potato Leek Soup #SimplyPotatoes

This post brought to you by Simply Potatoes. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Cookistry.

Potato soup is one of my ultimate comfort foods, and what's better than comfort food that's easy to prepare? This one is made in a slow cooker, so you don't need to watch it, stir it, or worry about burning. Slow cooking is one of my favorite methods for busy days.

This was my first time using Simply Potatoes, and I have to say that I enjoyed the convenience. Just rip the bag open and go. In case you haven't seen them yet, Simply Potatoes are fresh potatoes, not frozen or dried, so you'll find them in the refrigerated dairy section. Since they're peeled and prepared, they're easy to use. And they're made from real ingredients. You know - potatoes.

I found a number of different varieties at the store, including hash browns - and how convenient it that? No grating in the morning when you're sleep-cooking!

In the end, I decided to use two different types of Simply Potatoes - the traditional mashed and the chunks. I used the mashed because I wanted a thick, creamy soup, and I used the chunks to provide texture in the soup to match the other vegetables. It was the perfect choice.

The rest of the vegetables in this soup can be prepped ahead of time if you like. Unlike potatoes that brown when cut, the carrots, celery and leek can be cut ahead of time and refrigerated until needed, so when you're ready to cook, you don't need to do much work at all.

This is a thick, stick-to-your-ribs soup. If you prefer something thinner, add more stock or water to achieve your desired consistency.

Slow Cooker Chunky Potato Leek Soup

2 carrots
1 stalk celery
1 leek
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 quart chicken stock (more as needed)
1 24-ounce package Simply Potatoes Traditional Mashed
1 20-ounce package Simply Potatoes Diced Potatoes with Onion
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Crumbled potato chips for garnish (optional)

Peel the carrots and slice them into thin rounds. Cut the celery in half, lengthwise, then slice into pieces about the same size as the carrots.

Trim the tough green parts off of the leek, and cut off the roots, if they're still attached.

Cut the leek in quarters, lengthwise, then slice into thin pieces. Put the leek pieces into a colander or strainer and rinse well. Leeks usually have dirt or sand trapped between some of the layers, and you want to make sure you remove all of that.

Heat the butter in a saute pan (or in your slow cooker, if it has a bottom-cooking function) and add the carrots, celery, and leek.

Add the salt, and cook, stirring, until the vegetables have soften a bit. You don't need them cooked through, but you do want to give them a head start.

Add the vegetable to the slow cooker along with the chicken stock and mashed potatoes.

Turn the heat to high and stir until the mashed potatoes are mostly mixed into the stock. It's fine if there are a few bits.

Add the potato chunks and stir again. Cook on high until the vegetables are cooked through - about 2 hours depending on your cooker and how thinly you sliced your vegetables. Taste and add more salt or pepper, if desired.

Serve hot.

Garnish with crumbled potato chips, if desired.

Thanks to Simply Potatoes  I gave away one slow cooker to a lucky winner (giveaway is now over).

If you're looking for more Simply Potatoes Recipes check out their website or follow Simply Potatoes on Pinterest.

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Easy Cheesy Jalfrezi Chicken

I got a really positive response to my last quick 'n easy chicken recipe (or at least no one skewered me for using *gasp* a can of soup), so I figured I'd post this one too.

This time around, I used a jar of Seeds of Change jalfrezi cooking sauce. I got some samples from them a while back, but I've gone back and bought more of the jalfrezi. The best way I can describe it is that it's curry for people who aren't sure they like curry. It's got a teeny bit of heat and hints of typical Indian flavors, but it's not in-your-face.

What it is, though, is really, really tasty. Flavorful. Scrumptious.

And then I added a can of (gasp!) cheddar cheese soup.

My first experience with canned cheddar cheese soup was when my mom invite me over for dinner and she was giggling with delight about her new cheese sauce recipe that she used on the broccoli.

Prior to that, she generally didn't put cheese sauce on vegetables. Sometimes she'd sprinkle a little cheese on top of hot broccoli or cauliflower and let it melt, but she never made a sauce.

Until this one time. She gloated. She cooed. She rubbed her hands with glee. She was over-the-moon about her recipe and she waited until dinner was over and she asked me to guess what was in the sauce. And finally she announced that it was nothing but undiluted canned cheddar cheese soup.

Well, how about that.

Once I wrapped my head around the fact that it was nothing but canned soup, I had to admit that it totally worked.

These days, I don't use a lot of canned soup, but lately I've been using it in some slow cooker recipes. Because ... hey, why not?

Easy Cheesy Jalfrezi Chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 4 pounds)
1 onion, diced or chopped
1 orange or red bell pepper, cored, and diced or chopped
1 jar Seeds of Change Jalfrezi sauce
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 teaspoon salt*
1 bag frozen broccoli florets (about 14 ounces, depending on brand)

If you have a slow cooker with a browning feature, heat the olive oil in the cooker and brown the chicken, skin-side down. You might need to do this in batches. If your slow cooker doesn't have a browning feature, brown the chicken in a pan on the stove, then transfer to the slow cooker. If there's a lot of fat in the slow cooker, drain most of it before continuing.

Add the onion and bell pepper and cook for a few minutes in the pan or slow cooker, stirring as needed.

Add the  jalfrezi sauce, cheese soup, and salt. Stir to mix it all together. If you like, you can mix them prior to added to the slow cooker - depending on whether you think washing a bowl is easier, or trying to stir stuff in a fairly full slow cooker.

Cook on high heat until the chicken and vegetables are cooked through - 2-3 hours on high, depending on your slow cooker. Add the broccoli, stir to combine, and continue cooking until the broccoli is done to your liking. It will be crisp-tender and warm in about 15 minutes. If you prefer it cooked until tender, plan for another 15 minutes.

Serve hot. I served it with rice to soak up the sauce.

*Before you point out that canned soup is salty, I totally agree. It's salty - for soup. But for my taste, it's not quite salty enough for 4 pounds of chicken and another pound or so of vegetables. If you don't believe me (which is fine - I don't always believe me!) then leave the salt out until the chicken is cooked and give it a taste. Keep in mind that the broccoli is going in the pool, too. And adjust the saltiness to your taste.

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Chicken with Sunflower Butter, Lime, and Sriracha - a slow cooker recipe

A while back, I posted an ice cream recipe made from a chocolate and sunflower seed butter that I got from a local company called Good Luck Chuck.

While I was pretty fond of that recipe, I have to say that the very first recipe I thought of was a savory one. When I heard there was a sriracha-flavored sunflower seed butter, my first thought was about the peanut dipping sauce for chicken sate.

But I envisioned it as a spicy chicken gravy, sort of. Well, first I was thinking that I didn't want to thread chicken onto skewers, and a spicy nutty sauce would be good as a sauce for chicken thighs.

With those thoughts in mind, I went into the kitchen and started fiddling around with flavors.

The first thing I knew I wanted to do was to make this recipe in my slow cooker. It's warm out (and inside) and the slow cooker doesn't heat up the kitchen. And I don't have to watch it all that carefully.

Chicken with Sunflower Butter, Lime, and Sriracha

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1/2 cup Good Luck Chuck Sriracha Sunflower Butter
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 scallions, thinly sliced, white and tender green
1/2 teaspoon salt
Generous grinds of black pepper

If your slow cooker has a browning setting, heat the olive oil in the slow cooker, then brown the chicken, skin-side down, then flip it over and brown it on the other side.

If your slow cooker doesn't have a browning setting, you can brown the chicken in a skillet, then add it to the slow cooker. You can also skip the browning, but it adds extra flavor to the chicken and helps the texture of the chicken skin.

Add all of the other ingredients, and stir to combine.

Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours, or until the chicken is tender.

Check the chicken a few times to make sure there's enough liquid in the cooker - you want a sauce consistency, so add water, if needed, during the cooking process. Depending on your cooker, you might not need to add more.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper, or lime juice, if desired.

Serve hot, with the sauce.

To take advantage of all of the tasty sauce, consider serving this with rice.

Good Luck Chuck is currently for sale in a limited geographic area, but if you're not in the neighborhood, you can also buy it on Amazon.

Thanks to Good Luck Chuck for sponsoring these posts!

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Cheesecake in your slow cooker? Yes, you can!

A slow cooker is a pretty nifty place to cook a cheesecake. It stays at a controlled temperature, and you don't have to tie up the oven for a long time and you don't need to worry about a waterbath in the oven.

The tricky thing about cooking a cheesecake in a slow cooker is that slow cookers are not all the same. Newer slow cookers tend to cook hotter than really old ones. Some are insulated more than others, which matters during the resting stage.

I baked this in the Hamilton Beach 6-Quart Set & Forget Programmable Slow Cooker, so if you're using something that's significantly different, you might need to adjust the recipe.

The good news is that this makes a small cheesecake, so it's not a huge investment in ingredients. And it's a nice size for serving a small family - you don't need to commit to eating cheesecake every day for a week.

You're going to need a six-inch springform pan for this recipe, which is smaller that standard springform pans for normal-sized cheesecakes. A 6-inch springform pan fits perfectly in my slow cooker, with space around it for air circulation. If you're using a different slow cooker, test the size of your springform pan first, before you fill it, to make sure it fits.

Slow Cooker Cheesecake

This cheesecake is so good, you'll want to put it on a pedestal.

For the crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Wrap the bottom and sides of a 6-inch springform pan with aluminum foil. Since the pan doesn't actually sit IN the water, you might not need to do this, but I never trust a springform pan around water - I always wrap, for insurance.

In a medium bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs with sugar and salt. Or, save a bowl and do the mixing in the same plastic bag where you crushed the crackers. Add the melted butter and stir to combine. Press the crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. If you want a little less crust, you don't need to use it all - it's up to you.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, sugar and salt; beat until combined and the cream cheese is smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until well blended. Add the sour cream and beat until smooth.

Note: you can do this beating with an electric mixer, but beat slowly - electric mixers tend to beat air into the product, and that's not what you want here.

Pour the cream cheese mixture into the prepared springform pan. This filled my springform pan almost exactly to the top - if your pan is slightly taller or shorter, yours might not fill quite as full, or you might have a little excess.

Put a metal rack in the bottom of the slow cooker and add water just to the bottom of the rack. Place the cheesecake on the rack.

Cover the top of the slow cooker with a clean kitchen towel or a cloth napkin. This will collect the condensation so it doesn't drip onto the top of the cheesecake. Put the lid on top of the towels.

Turn the slow cooker to low and set for 2 hours. DON'T PEEK. When two hours are up, turn the slow cooker off and turn the lid crosswise on top of the slow cooker. Leave the towel in place, just turn the lid so the cheesecake can slowly begin to cool. Since the Hamilton Beach slow cooker is so well insulated, it holds the heat really well, so if you leave the lid on, the cheesecake won't cool off much at all.

 Let the slow cooker cool for one hour with the cheesecake resting inside.

Remove the lid, remove the towel, and remove the cheesecake. Refrigerate until well-chilled, about four hours. Or until tomorrow.

Run a thin-bladed knife between the cheesecake and pan, then release the spring and remove the cheesecake. Note: slicing is cleaner if you run the knife blade under hot water then wipe it off after each cut. If it matters. Or not.

Serve. Devour. Yum.

This recipe was developed using the Hamilton Beach slow cooker which was provided by the manufacturer through the blog group 37 Cooks.

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Hot Spiced & Spiked Apple Cider

For the 37 Cooks challenge sponsored by Hamilton Beach, I wanted to do some kind of hot drink. So I started looking for recipes. I looked up glogg, grog, wassail, and mulled wine. And then I wandered around looking at a whole bunch of other warm cocktails.

What I found out was - everything goes, anything goes. The ingredients for each cocktail varied so much, it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended.

What one person called wassail was pretty close to warm eggnog. What another person called grog sure looked like mulled wine. Some concoctions were knock-your-socks-off alcoholic, while others were basically hot fruit juice.

There didn't seem to be any reason to riff off of a classic recipe, because I wasn't finding anything that looked classic ... or consistent. So I started with apple cider and added flavors I knew I'd like. If I was going to add one more thing, it might be cloves, since those tended to show up a lot in the mulled/spiced drinks, but I decided to leave them out since it seemed perhaps too common among them. I figured cinnamon filled that role nicely, and it gave me a good place to use some cinnamon sticks.

The flavor of this cocktail is reminiscent of apple pie, but the star anise add an interesting twist. It's pretty danged good, if I say so myself.

Hot Spiced & Spiked Apple Cider

1/2 gallon apple cider
1 cup white wine
1 cup rum
2 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
1 orange

Put the apple cider, wine, rum, cinnamon sticks, and star anise into your slow cooker. Use a peeler to remove the zest of the orange in thin, wide strips. Place the zest in the slow cooker, then juice the orange and add the juice as well.

Cover the slow cooker and set it to high to warm the cider. The longer you cook it, the more the flavors of the spices will infuse into the cider, but it's pretty good as soon as it warms up.

Once it's hot, you might want to turn it down to low or warm if it will be served over a long period of time - you just want it pleasantly warm for drinking, so it doesn't need to be simmering when you serve it.

Leftovers can be strained and refrigerated and served chilled. Or reheat it for more warm drinks on chilly nights.

This recipe was developed using the Hamilton Beach Set & Forget programmable slow cooker which was provided by the manufacturer through the blog group 37 Cooks.

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Stuffed Peppers in a Slow Cooker

Some days, things just turn out right. I needed to buy some peppers to test a pepper-coring gadget that just arrived, and my husband suggested that I make stuffed peppers. Since the weather is much warmer, I didn't want to heat up the oven, so I decided to cook these in my slow cooker.

It sounded like a great idea, so I headed to the store for supplies. Since I wasn't working off of an actual recipe, I wasn't sure how much of anything I needed, but I figured that six bell peppers would be plenty. If I didn't have enough meat to stuff them, I always find good uses for peppers.

I grabbed a package of ground beef - there weren't too many size choices available - either giant packs or smaller ones. I grabbed a pack that was about 1 1/4 pounds.

When I got home, I gathered the rest of the goods. I had a small container of leftover cooked rice from another meal, so that went into a bowl with the ground beef, then I chopped half of an onion. It seemed like enough. I opened a can of petite diced tomatoes and added that to the beef, followed by about 1/2 of a jar of Goya sofrito. I knew I wanted the filling to be a loose rather than tightly packed. I added salt and pepper.

Pepper coring gadget. Say ahhhhh ...

After I cored the peppers and subjected a few of them to a photo shoot, I filled them with the meat mixture, and I had exactly enough to fill all six peppers to the top. Exactly. Nothing left over and no half-filled peppers.

How often does that happen?

Of course, if your peppers are larger or smaller, this might not fit as perfectly. But that's fine, too. When I have extra meat, I just mix it with the sauce that the peppers cook in. And if you're a little short ... oh well, one less pepper to fill.

When you're buying peppers, look for the ones with four lobes rather than three, and make sure they stand on their own. A fellow shopper at the grocery store must have thought I was a little nuts as I picked through the selection to find the ones that had sturdy bottoms, but I ended up with six peppers that stood tall.

I have a Ninja slow cooker, so all six peppers fit perfectly, and they should be fine in most oval-shaped cookers. If you've got a round cooker, check to see how many will fit - you might only have room for four.

Stuffed Peppers in the Slow Cooker

1 1/4 (ish) pounds ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1 12-ounce jar Goya sofrito, divided
1/2 onion, diced
1 teaspoon salt
Generous grinds black pepper
6 bell peppers

Combine the ground beef, rice, petite diced tomato, half of the sofrito (eyeball it), onion, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix well. It will be much looser than a meatloaf mixture.

Core the peppers and rinse to remove the seeds. Save the pepper tops (remove the seeds/core) if you want to serve them with "lids" on top.

Fill the peppers with the meat mixture - just spoon it in. Put the tops on the peppers, if you're using them.

Arrange the peppers in your slow cooker and add the remaining sofrito, along with about 1/4 of the sofrito jar of water. You just need enough liquid in the bottom of the cooker so it doesn't dry out and burn. As the peppers cook, you'll get more liquid in the cooker, so you don't need to drown them.

I started my peppers on the stovetop setting, high heat, just to get things boiling and then I turned it down to the slow-cook high setting. They cooked for about 2 hours, but the timing is likely to be different in your slow cooker - some cooker hotter than others. To see if they're done, check the center of the pepper with a meat thermometer.

Serve the peppers with the sauce.

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Pork Fried Rice

What do you think of when someone mentions a one-pot meal? Is it soup? A stew? Chili?

Those are great one-pot meals when you've got time for them to simmer, but there are other one-pot meals that are perfect when you don't want to spend a lot if time in front of the stove.

Like fried rice.

It's also a great way to use up leftovers. This time, I used pork, but you could use chicken, beef, or a whole lot of vegetables - whatever you have on hand, and whatever sounds good to you.

If you make this, you really do want the rice to be cold and left over - if you cook rice and add it to this fresh, the rice will want to break up and turn to mush.

Pork Fried Rice
This is definitely a recipe where you want to have everything ready to go before you start cooking, because each addition comes pretty quickly after the one before. If you want to save yourself from washing one bowl, don't crack the eggs until the zucchini goes into the pan. You've got a little cooking time then, and you can use the bowl that you had the pork or zucchini in for those eggs.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup roast pork shoulder, cut in 1/4-inch cubes
1 teaspoon 5-spice powder
1 small zucchini, cut in 1/4 inch dice
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup frozen green peas
1 14-ounce can bean sprouts
2 cups cooked long-grain white rice, chilled
2 tablespoons teriyaki or soy sauce
4 scallions, thinly sliced

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or wok or similar pan. Add the pork shoulder and 5-spice powder and cook until the pork is lightly browned - you're working with a cooked leftover roast, so you just want to warm it and brown it just a little.

Add the zucchini and cook until it's cooked through but still firm. You'll see it change color from an opaque white to slightly translucent. This doesn't take long, but this is the longest bit of cooking in the whole process. There's enough time to stop stirring and crack those eggs and give 'em a little fork-beating. Hanging the stirring spoon on the side of the pan makes sense - that's where the pot clip came in handy.

Add the eggs and stir until the eggs are cooked.

Add the green peas and bean sprouts and stir to combine.

Add the white rice and teriyaki sauce. Cook, stirring, until the rice has taken on the color of the sauce and it it warm. You should have individual grains of rice and not clumps.

Taste for seasoning and add more teriyaki, if desired.

Add the scallions, stir, and serve.

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Need a Slow Cooker?

Slow cooked pork shoulder

When the folks at All Free Slow Cooker Recipes emailed me and asked if they could use one of my recipes in an upcoming eBook, I shrugged my shoulders and said, "sure."

They wanted a pork shoulder ... slow cooker recipe.

See what I did there?

I get quite a bit of traffic from that site, and letting go of one recipe wasn't a big deal. Other people, other days, I might have said no. This time I said yes. Which means that now YOU get a chance to win something.

You'll never guess what it is...

As part of the promotion for this book, AFSCR (it's a lot to type. Let's shorten it, shall we?) is giving away two slow cookers - one to a blogger (who also gets their photo featured on the cover of the eBook) and one to a blogger's reader. Or I guess to anyone who enters on their site. But it would be nice if it was one of my readers, right?

And it's a NICE slow cooker. It's a Cuisinart Multicooker. AFSCR reviewed it here.

If you don't already have a slow cooker, this would be a nice one to have. If you have an old slow cooker, maybe it's time to upgrade. In any case, entry is just a few clicks away.

The contest runs from March 25 through April 1. First, they'd like to to cast your vote for your favorite recipe from a blogger at: http://www.allfreeslowcookerrecipes.com/voting/All-Star-Slow-Cooker-Recipes-Contest.

The voting page has a link to the giveaway, where you can enter to win. Or, if you're not into the voting thing, but still want to move on to the winning thing, you can enter the contest here.

Go forth and slow cook! And GOOD LUCK!

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Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese

Not great photo - but really good mac and cheese!

Let's face it, mac and cheese is a classic.

And, let's face it, mac and cheese can go horribly wrong. Like when the cheese curdles. Yes, it has happened to me.

So when I found a recipe for Slow-Baked Mac and Cheese in Beth Hensperger's book Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two, I had to give it a try.

I actually made a recipe for mac and cheese in a slow cooker (or Crock Pot or crockpot, or whatever you call it) quite some time ago, at the request of a friend. But that version was designed to feed a small army and the person said, "Spare no expense!" so I developed the recipe with that in mind.

It was a really good mac and cheese, but I generally don't have to feed an army. So I thought I'd give this one a try.

This recipe calls for fontina cheese, but when I checked the cheese collection, I didn't find any fontina. And there were some hunks of cheese that had lost their identities when I had re-wrapped them. Oops. I considered running out to buy fontina, but I changed my mind and decided to use what I had. Bits and pieces and odds and ends. I knew they were all similar to fontina in texture. So, I expected the end result to be okay, even if the flavor - and color - were different.

Because, to be perfectly honest, I tend to prefer a yellow mac and cheese. So some colby went into the pot.

This is a great recipe for a busy day because after it's assembled and the first 1/2 hour of cooking is done, you can curl up on the couch for a nice nap before dinner. Er, I mean get a whole lot of stuff done.

The recipes in this book are designed for smaller slow cookers and small families, but I made this in a 6-quart Hamilton Beach slow cooker without any problems at all.

Slow Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Adapted from Not Your Mothers Slow Cooker Recipes for Two by Beth Hensperger

1 1/2 cups milk
1 12-ounce can evaporated* milk
3 large eggs
1/2 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups (12 ounces) shredded fontina cheese
1/2 pound elbow macaroni, par-cooked and drained
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Spray the inside bottom and sides of the slow cooker with cooking spray (not the baking spray with flour) or grease it with a bit of olive oil or vegetable oil.

Okay, I digress. I just typed, "Spray the bottom and sides ..." and then went back and inserted the word "inside." Do I really think I need to say that? Are there people who would spray the outside of the slow cooker? I really don't know.

Combine the milk, evaporated, milk, eggs, butter, and salt in the slow cooker and whisk to combine.

Add the elbows and cheese and stir to combine. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese on top.

Set the slow cooker for high and let it cook for 30 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to low and cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until the pasta is set and the cheesy custard is set in the center.

If you're not ready to serve, this can rest at the "keep warm" setting for another half hour or so.

*Make absolutely sure you're getting evaporated milk and NOT condensed milk. You're making mac and cheese, not flan.

Check out these other slow cooker recipes:

• Teresa from Foodhunter's Guide  will be treating you to some Split Pea Soup.
• Milisa from Miss in the Kitchen is whipping up some Colorado Chile Chicken Enchiladas.
• Shelby from Diabetic Foodie is making Quick & Easy Tomato Ketchup.
• Marnely from Cooking with Books is making some delicious Mexican Pork Chops.
• Matt from Thyme in Our Kitchen is making Steak Tostadas.
• Susan from 30A Eats is making Blue Cheese-Sour Cream Mashers.
• Heather from Farmgirl Gourmet is making Mustard-Glazed Chicken Wings with Sweet and Sour Dipping Sauce. 

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Chili Beer Braised Goat Stew

On a whim, I bought some goat stew meat at the farmer's market, but I didn't have a good plan for using it. So it sat in the freezer for a couple weeks until I had an idea. And of course I used my slow cooker. Hey, it's summer. There's no way I'm going to leave something on the stove or in the oven if I have a better choice.

So that goat stew in the freezer was on my mind when I found out that one of the teeny breweries nearby, Bootstrap Brewing, is bow bottling their chili beer. I picked up a bottle  - a 22-ounce bomber - and decided to use that for my braising liquid.

The great thing about using something like chili beer for a braising liquid is that you don't really need anything else for flavoring. You can add more if you like, but for a quick weeknight meal, the beer adds plenty of flavor.

The first night, I served this over rice, and the second night, I reduced the liquid a lot, cut the meat into smaller pieces and used it as taco filling.

Chili Beer Braised Goat Stew

1 pound goat stew meat
1 onion, large dice
3 ribs celery, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1 22-ounce bottle chili beer

Toss everything into the slow cooker and cook on low until the meat is tender. It took about three hours for the stew meat I had.

And really, that's it. You can thicken the gravy if you like, or reduce it.

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