"slow cooker" news and stories

Pork shoulder becomes meltingly tender when you braise it in a slow cooker or crockpot. Add the Latin touch of a tomatillo salsa and fresh cilantro, and you have an incredibly flavorful easy-to-prepare dish that pairs well with crunchy quinoa or fluffy rice.

Recipe for Slow Cooker Braised Pork with Salsa

Browse More Slow-Cooker Recipes

Slow cookers are out in force in January -- it's officially Slow Cooker Month, but you'd probably have them working anyway. Even southerners are having a cold winter this year, inviting thoughts of soups, stews and chilis. Among the slow-cooked wonders we're featuring this month, is this recipe for hearty chicken minestrone. A dollop of fragrant basil pesto opens up the flavor, and gives this cold-weather soup a taste of summer.

More Slow-Cooker Soups

How to Choose a Slow Cooker

One of the healthiest food-themed resolutions for the New Year may be to make more soups and stews, hearty one-pot meals that warm you and give you a day's worth of nutrition in a single steaming bowl. And all you need for many of them is a slow cooker. OK, call it a crockpot. If you've got an old crockpot in storage, dust it off for 2011, and fire it up. (In the market for a new one? Read Jane Lear's feature on choosing the best slow cooker.)

Mexican posole is an ancient dish that celebrates corn, and was prepared for special occasions, and eaten in community. The spicy hominy stew is as special today as ever, with its blend of tomatoes, spices, cilantro, chicken and chiles. And with only 20 minutes of prep time before you let the slow cooker do its thing for two to three hours, it's one of the simplest suppers.

Recipe for Crockpot Posole

More Posole Recipes, including Vegetarian, and Green and Black Bean Pork varieties.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Save a yellow onion from the doom that is your vegetable crisper -- use a pearl.
• You don't need to travel to California to tour one of the state's oldest wineries.
• While you're at it, brushing up on your wine-pairing knowledge wouldn't hurt.
• Chimichurri and tri-trip steak -- from Argentina with love.
• Now, you, too, can grill Spanish-style sardines.
• The slow cooker -- probably the single greatest kitchen appliance invented -- is perfect for this blackberries-and-pulled pork recipe.

Cooking steel-cut oats may take a bit more time than a packet of instant oatmeal (OK, about 20 to 30 minutes longer), but the chewy texture and nutty flavor of these freshly milled whole grains will make all the difference.

Stir in a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon, and top with fresh mixed berries, as in the recipe photographed above, and you'll have a sweet eye-opener that's also good for your heart. And if you're not an early riser, you can put the ingredients in the pot the night before and let them cook overnight using your slow cooker.

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