Al Dente

Andrew Schloss's Slow-Cooked Banana Bread Pudding

Sweets are foods set apart. Unfettered by the constraints of nutritional sensibility, or the need to fit into a meal, sweets invite you to let your desires run free. Slow cooking and indulgence don’t frequently go together, but that doesn’t mean they can’t join forces.  The moist, gentle environment in the inner reaches of a slow cooker is just the place to steam a pudding.

Soft and pudgy, cozy, and unchallenging, sweet and a tad plain, it might not describe an ideal date, but when you’re talking bread pudding, nothing could sound more attractive. I love bread pudding to an extent that I have almost stopped making it lest I balloon into a bread pudding myself, so it was with special appreciation that I dove into this creation as it emerged from my slow cooker. 

The subtle steady warmth of a slow cooker is ideal for puddings, which have a tendency to curdle if they get too hot, or cook too fast.  However, they also can’t cook too long, which means that you will need a slow cooker that will automatically switch to warm at three hours, or make it on a day when you can be around to monitor it.  It will reward your vigilance with mild weight gain and a contented grin.

I like bread pudding served spartanly, but I have many friends, more decadent than me, who prefer to douse their bread pudding with liquor and crown it with whipped cream. This banana pudding is delicious drizzled with a spoonful of warm rum or brandy, or served with a scoop of caramel ice cream.

Feel free to replace the bananas with a large diced and peeled peach, or a large apple or pear that’s been, peeled, cored, and diced.

Slow-Cooked Banana Bread Pudding
From Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes by Andrew Schloss, published by Chronicle Books
Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut in small pieces, divided
2 ripe bananas, finely chopped
3/4 cup sugar, divided
7 slices firm bread, white or whole wheat, cut in 1-inch squares
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Heat 1 teaspoon of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the bananas and cook until they begin to soften.  Add 1 tablespoon of the sugar and cook until the sugar dissolves.  Toss the bananas and bread together in a mixing bowl and mound in a 1-1/2 quart soufflé dish; set aside. I have found a 1-1/2 quart soufflé dish, with a diameter of less than 7 inches, fits in most large (6-quart or larger) slow cookers.

2. Add the milk to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring often until bubbles form around the edge of the pan. Stir 1/2 cup sugar into the milk until it dissolves; stir in the vanilla and salt; remove from heat and rest for 5 minutes. 

3. Stir about 1/3 of the milk mixture into the eggs with a whisk, then stir the mixture back into the remaining milk.  Pour over the bread and bananas. Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap place a saucer small enough to fit inside the rim of the soufflé dish on top of the bread.  If the weight of the saucer is not sufficient to submerge the bread beneath the surface of the milk put another saucer on top.  Set aside for about 20 minutes until the bread has soaked up must of the milk.  Remove the saucer(s) and the plastic wrap.

4. Mix the nutmeg and cinnamon with the remaining sugar and sprinkle over the surface of the pudding. Dot the top of the pudding with the remaining butter and cover the top of the dish loosely with foil. 

5. Place in the slow cooker and pour enough boiling water into the crockery around the soufflé dish to reach 1-inch up the side of the soufflé dish. Cover the top of the cooker with a folded kitchen towel and top with the lid.  Cook for 2 to 3 hours on high until a tester inserted in the center comes out with just a few specks clinging to it.  Remove the pudding from the cooker and cool for at least 10 minutes or to room temperature.

6. Preheat a broiler. Place the pudding under the broiler about 6 inches from the heat.  Broil until the top browns lightly, 4 to 5 minutes.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

--Andrew Schloss

Andrew Schloss's Super Bowl Recipe: Slow Cooked Barbecued Baked Beans

After Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest food blow-out in the United States, which means a day that once meant sitting back with a beer has become a sentence of hard labor for the cook of the house.  I say let your slow cooker do the work.

Barbecued beans take so much time and fiddling that most of us have long since abandoned homemade for canned. Well, I’m as fond of canned baked beans as the next guy, but I’ve never tasted one that can compare with the real thing. And when it comes to the real thing, you can’t beat a slow cooker for ease and excellence. The cooking time is still absurdly long, the flavor is sweet, smoky, and spicy, and the texture is melt-in-your-mouth; all that’s missing is the drudgery.

In the summer I would serve these beans as a side dish with grilled food, but for Super Bowl, I just serve them right out of  the crock (it keeps them warm) with a basket of cornbread.  Then just crack open a beer and claim victory.

The kind of beans you use will not affect the flavor (the pungency of BBQ sauce will overpower any bean) but it will change the color somewhat.

If you want to make these beans vegetarian, you can eliminate the ham hock. Use two roasted bell peppers, instead of half a pepper, and replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth.  

Slow Cooked Barbecued Baked Beans
From Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes by Andrew Schloss, published by Chronicle Books
Makes 8 servings

1 pound (2 cups) dried beans, white, pinto, or mixed
1 pound smoked ham hock or turkey leg
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 roasted red bell pepper, diced (bottled or homemade--see below, How to Roast a Pepper)
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup bottled spicy barbecue sauce, divided
1/2 teaspoon spicy chili powder

Put the beans in a bowl, cover with at least 3 inches of water, and soak overnight. Or put the beans in a saucepan, cover with 3 inches of water, and bring to a boil. Cook at a boil for 3 minutes, remove from the heat, and let soak for 1 hour. Drain.

Place the smoked meat in a 4- or 5-quart slow cooker and pour the soaked beans on top.

Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and sauté until barely tender, about 3 minutes.  Add the roasted pepper and broth, and bring to a boil.  Remove from the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of the barbecue sauce; pour and scrape into the slow cooker, and mix to coat the beans. Cover the cooker and cook on low for 10 to 12 hours, until the beans are tender and the sauce is slightly thickened.

Remove the meat from the beans and set aside until cool enough o handle.  Turn the cooker to high, mix the chili powder and remaining 1/2 cup barbecue sauce in a small bowl, and stir into the beans. Remove the skin and bone from the meat, and break the meat into small pieces. Stir into the beans and cook for 10 minutes.

How to Roast a Pepper
Place the pepper directly onto the grate of a gas burner set on high, under a broiler set to the highest setting, or over a hot grill.  As the skin on one side of the pepper burns, turn it over, and continue this way until the skin is uniformly burnt.  Be careful to keep it moving so that the flesh under the skin doesn’t char.  Place the pepper in a paper bag or a bowl, close the bag or cover the bowl, and set aside until cool enough to handle. Peel off the burnt skin with your fingers, and remove the stems and seeds before dicing.

--Andrew Schloss

Andrew Schloss's Slow Cooker Roasted Vegetable Soup

Long ago in a kitchen very much like yours someone cooked for hours at a time.  She kneaded bread and rolled out pastry, and whenever the winds blew cold, she whipped up a pot of soup. Now homemade soup is considered so time-consuming that most home cooks never try, but that is exactly why soups are a cinch in a slow cooker. It is the only form of cooking that transforms long hours of barely simmering ingredients into a convenience. Although almost any soup recipe can be adapted to slow cooking, bean soups, vegetable soups, puréed soups, and long-simmering meat soups make the most sense. 

As with all slow cooker recipes, soups start with less liquid than you would use in a soup pot on a stove top.  For many of them the amount of liquid is not even enough to cover the solid ingredients.  Don’t add more; as the soup simmers, juices will percolate from the vegetables and the bits of meat will enrich the broth deliciously.

The following recipe for roasted vegetable soup takes a little bit of prep time--about 30 minutes, but all of that is done in the oven--no standing by the stove (and the roasting can be done a day or two ahead if that works better for you). Roasting vegetables does more than simply cook them. It transforms them into something savory and sweet, meaty and voluptuous, not the sort of attributes one usually ascribes to produce. This otherwise straightforward vegetarian vegetable soup benefits from the transformation. 

Feel free to alter the selection of vegetables to fit your taste and what you have on hand, but try to keep the volume of vegetables approximately the same. Like most soups, this one benefits from age.  The flavor will improve after it sits for a day. Garnish it with grated cheese, if desired.

Roasted Vegetable Soup
From Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes by Andrew Schloss, published by Chronicle Books

Ingredients:
2 onions, cut into 1-inch dice
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths
2 celery ribs, sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 medium turnip, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch squares
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
8 white mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
4 large cloves garlic, whole and unpeeled
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 cups vegetable broth, divided
1 can (about 15 ounces) diced tomatoes, preferably fire roasted, with their juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons couscous, preferably whole wheat

Directions:
1. Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F. Toss the onions, carrots, celery, turnip, bell pepper, sweet potato, mushrooms, and garlic with olive oil on a large rimmed sheet pan. Spread out into an even layer and roast for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned at the edges.

2. Scrape the vegetables into a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker.  Pour 1 cup of the vegetable broth onto the sheet pan and scrape up any browned bits clinging to it; scrape into the cooker.  Add the remaining 5 cups broth, the diced tomatoes and their liquid, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme, cover the cooker and cook for 2 to 3 hours on high, or 4 to 6 hours on low, until the flavors are blended.

3. Stir in the couscous and parsley and cook for 5 minutes more.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

--Andrew Schloss