This edible feast is predominantly about texture -- not that the artful arrangement isn't almost too perfect to disturb by consumption. This slow-cooked salmon recipe from stickygooeycreamychewy.com is salmon at its finest, attractively plated with lush, buttery layers melting, fragmenting, crumbling at the mere touch.

Tenderly cradled atop an aromatic layer of sliced oranges and onions, fennel and tarragon, the fish is baked at a low temperature for half an hour. Unlike the bland color and taste that can result from more traditional cooking methods, this unfussy recipe manages to preserve the vibrant tones of the salmon as well as its shape, while dishing up a luscious product. Plus, with the extra time slow cooking affords you, you can prepare your side or salad -- and even enjoy a glass of wine.


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The mercury's dropping which means it's time to break out that trusty crock pot for set-it-and-forget-it cold weather cooking.

Move over pot roast -- did you ever think of making cobbler in a slow cooker? The ice cream on top might be worth the extra wintry chill down your spine. Try replacing the blueberries in this recipe with frozen or canned peaches.

As much as I adore my job, I tend to get the Sunday evening blues and have found as of late that labor-intensive cooking projects prove to be wonderfully soothing. It might be a bread knead, a painstakingly crimped lard crust pie, or, as it's manifested for the second week in a row, a unexpectedly soul-stirring risotto. Emphasis is on the "stirring" part, I assure you, as two times now, I've darned near sprained a forearm muscle with the non-stop drag of the wooden spoon through the ever-thickening starch. It's worth it, though -- the constant, meditative motion -- when it suddenly, palpably, audibly even, transforms the individual rice grains into a sumptuous, silken mass. It's the sort of culinary alchemy that transforms me from a solitary kitchen wretch into someone who suddenly wants to feed everyone she's ever met.

Last week's Acorn Squash Risotto from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano cookbook was a rousing success with my husband, as evidenced by this habitual leftover-snubber's willingness to dig back in on subsequent weeknights. This week's pulled pork variation, made on a whim, was a hearty treat tonight, and I've got a sneaking suspicion the flavors will meld well over the next few days.

Try for yourself. My Pulled Pork Risotto recipe is after the jump, and if you've got any soothing cooking rituals you'd like to share, I'd be more than grateful to hear about 'em.

There seems to be no corner that the world of slow cooking doesn't reach! We already had one Jenna coin the term "crock blocked," and now another, more famous Jenna is praising the wonders of the Crock Pot. According to Ace Showbiz, Jenna Fischer (of The Office and Dewey Cox) told Self magazine:

I prepared everything the night before, threw it in the Crock Pot in the morning, set it on low and came home to dinner. My boyfriend adored it. We had more time to spend together that evening. Since we didn't have to cook, it left time for hanky-panky!

We keep hearing about all the wonders of easy slow cookin', but most don't talk about how much time it frees up for sex. With the rampant popularity of the old-school cooking method, how long do you think it'll be before Fischer is doing sexy commercials for some slow cooker?

There's an extra-stabby brand of self-recrimination that comes about when one comes home, mouth slavering for the vegetable stew, several-bean chili or pulled pork shoulder that's occupied one's thoughts all day, only to come home to an air redolent of exactly nothing. No warm waft, no indicator light all a-wink with the tease, nay, promise of a hearty, slow-cooked dinner because (shudder....sob...sigh...) one neglected to actually engage the Crock Pot's "ON" button.

Is there a term for this happenstance and/or the all-day nagging feeling that one's forgotten to flip it on, but is too far from home to remedy the situation? If not, howzabout we put it to a vote? Cast it below, or suggest a better one in the comments.



And lest anyone fret, Jeff later reported that he in fact came home to a lovely, fully-cooked chicken cacciatore.

UPDATE: Commenter Jenna has suggested "crock blocked," which I'm entirely jealous I failed to coin.

My personal favorite cold weather, no barrel smoker, slow-cooker pulled pork recipe is after the jump.

I am a big fan of cooking in a slow cooker. I mentioned in this post that I have four slow cookers in graduated sizes for when I want to cook a little bit or a lot. I love that I can pop something into the pot and set it to cook overnight while I sleep (I often do this with chicken stock or a turkey breast).

I love this little cookbook called Crockery Cookery (there's something very pleasant about saying that out loud), written by Mable Hoffman. It was first published in 1975, when the slow cooking trend first started to sweep the nation. It contains recipes, tips, tricks and a guide to all slow cookers that were available in 1975 (not particularly helpful these days, but an interesting blast from the past).

My copy has a receipt in it from a Salvation Army Thrift Shop from 1983, marking the recipe for Turkey Tetrazzini. It uses canned mushrooms, but other than that calls for fresh veggies and good ingredients, showing me that not all recipes from the seventies are a wasteland of processed ingredients and horrible chemicals.

Though there are a a lot of different things for Super Bowl parties, there are a few that will, without a doubt, make an appearance at every Super Bowl party this weekend -- beer to drink, tortilla chips and salsa for snacking, and as a "main" dish, some sort of chili. If you're hosting a Super Bowl party and chili isn't on your menu, why are you depriving your guests?!?!

There are a lot of recipes out there for chili - heck, we have at least a dozen here on Slashfood - and a lot of opinions about what makes the "best" chili. Ground beef or steak? Beans or no beans? Tomato-base or beef stock? The reality is that chili is more of a technique combined with any permutation of meat and vegetables, rather than a specific recipe. Last weekend, I made a Steak Chili in my brand new slow cooker, and though I had several recipes nearby as reference, I ended up doing everything based on my personal tastes. Here's the step-by-step of what I did, along with suggestions and explanations so you can make your own.

After your chili has cooked for a good 1½ to 2 hours, it's ready to eat, but if you've waited that long, what's another day?!?! Letting chili cool down overnight, or at least for several hours and then re-heating it just before serving somehow makes the chili taste about five thousand times better, if that's possible. For a party, that's incredibly convenient, since you can make the chili at least one day in advance.

For the Super Bowl, serve the chili straight from the slow cooker. The slow cooker may not be the most stylish thing to leave out on the buffet table, but it will ensure that the chili stays warm as it sits out all afternoon (or evening) long. Throw a ladle into the chili and let your guests help themselves. If you have large handled mugs (that you might use for cappuccino or soup), use those for serving. Having a handle will decrease the chance that mingling guests will spill the chili on your immaculate floor.

Chili alone is good, but with "toppings," it's even better. Shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped red onions and scallions, and diced avocado or guacamole are good things to set out as a "bar" to put on top of chili.

You may also want to serve chili with some sort of bread. The natural choice here is cornbread, but any thick, chewy bread is good, as are tortilla chips.

The only vegetables you really need for chili are onions and garlic for flavor, jalapenos for heat, and of course canned tomatoes to create the "gravy." However, I know that people like to add other vegetables either because they like particular vegetables, or they're trying to sneak some nutrition into their friends' and family's diets. Naturally, if you're making a vegetarian chili, additional vegetables like celery, carrots, and bell pepper make sense, but in a beef chili, why would you add carrots? Why?! You aren't fooling anyone.

Adding Vegetables to the Chili
To the oil that's left in the pan you used to brown the meat, add 2 chopped medium onions, ½ to 1 whole head of smashed garlic cloves (depending on how much garlic you like), and 5-7 chopped fresh jalapenos. If you are adding other chopped vegetables, add them here, too. Cook for about 10 minutes to soften, then add to the beef in the crock.

Add 1 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes with the juice, crushing the tomatoes with your hands as you add them to the pot. Also add 3 cups of beef stock.

When it comes to the meat for your chili, you have a lot of options, and even options within options. Chili can be made with beef, poultry, or it can eschew meat altogether and go vegetarian. Turkey, chicken and vegetarian chilis are all fine, but I am a beef girl when it comes to chili.

A lot of people use ground beef for chili, which produces a very uniform, somewhat "fine" chili, but since ground beef cooks rather quickly, there is less of a reason to use a slow cooker. I prefer my chili a bit chunkier, so I buy a large piece of any of the less expensive, slightly tougher cuts of beef. Does that make me a cheapskate?!?! Maybe a little, but the reality is that the tougher cuts of beef are flavorful and hold up well during the slow cooking process that allows flavors to develop.

Preparing the Meat for Chili:
I bought a 2 lb rump roast, partly because I love the word "rump," but mostly because that's a good cut to use for chili. Rinse the meat, pat dry, and cut into ½" cubes. Dredge the cubes in about ½ c flour that has been seasoned with salt and pepper and shake off as much of the excess flour as you can.

Heat 2-3 Tbsp canola oil over medium high heat and brown the coated beef on all sides. Set aside.

Most slow cooker cookbooks tend to focus on "home-style" foods, like chilis, stews and other dishes of the sort that your grandmother might have made at some point. The homey feel that slow cooked foods evoke is is one of the things that makes them so wonderful, but it also tends to make slow cooker recipes sound similar after a while. The Gourmet Slow Cooker: Simple and Sophisticated Meals from Around the World doesn't cover those same old recipes and, instead, aims for the more unusual recipes that are not often included in grandmothers' recipe collections. The chapters in the book are divided up by country and each section has sides, mains and even desserts. The American chapter will have some standards, but India includes Eggplant and Pea Curry, Neopolitan Truffle Risotto is from Italy and the Mexican chapter has lots of chilies and moles. As you might suspect from the names of the dishes, some are slightly more involved than the average slow cooker stew, but even the hardest will be easier than the recipe would be if prepared in another way. After all, the slow cooker does a lot of the work for you.

All of these recipes are great choices for winter entertaining, when you're looking for something hot, satisfying and elegant.

Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore is a book about meat. It's not about "skinless"-this and "ultra-lean"-that, but about the real heart, soul and marrow of meat. It is meat done right, according to author Jennifer McLagan, and she wants to help reintroduce the idea that meat does come on bones, not in shrink-wrapped foam packages. She cooks all kinds of meat, from fish to veal, and she takes her time doing it. There are no shortcuts in the instructions, though they are clear, precise and quite easy to follow, because McLagan's philosophy is that the time that it takes makes the resulting dish even more worthwhile. There are stocks, soups and other dishes that have a foundation with meat, too.

In addition to the recipes, there is excellent photography, serving suggestions and the history behind the meats. Readers will learn what part of the animal the particular cut (or bone) comes from,  why it is prepared in a certain way and, when they taste the dishes, why doing so can be very satisfying. 

According to the author, we have "traded flavor for health and efficiency" when many home cooks switched to boneless meats and filets. Of course, there can be a balance, especially where health is concerned. After all, the author probably wants us to stick around long enough to enjoy her recipes - and if you take the time to make them, it certainly sounds like you will.

Carnitas is a Mexican dish of slow cooked pork that is then shredded into little bits. Traditionally, the tougher and cheaper pieces of meat are the ones used for this recipe because the slow cooking allows the meat to get to the point where it melts in your mouth. Once the meat has been cooked and shredded, it is browned in a bit of butter or oil. This version of carnitas, from Jared at Alaska Cooks, includes spices, butter, brown sugar and chipotle peppers with the pork shoulder. It also has some Coca-Cola in the simmering liquid, which adds and extra bit of sweetness to the meat. Some cooks and barbecuers say that it helps to tenderize the meat, too. Looks good, doesn't it? So do the rest of the dishes on Alaska Cooks, so check them out when you have a chance!

Sous vide is a cooking method that involves packing food, usually meat, in a vacuum-sealed bag and poaching it in water for a long time over low temperatures. It was first developed in France in the late 1960s and it is a popular technique with chefs at high end restaurants because the food prepared in this way is more tender, juicy and flavorful than as it is in some other methods of cooking.

The water temperatures used to cook the meat are often much lower than boiling, though, which raised concerns from the New York City Health Department. The department feels that the risk of bacteria breeding in sous vide food is very high, especially if the bag is improperly sealed. Though there have not, as yet, been any health problems tied to sous vide cooking, the health department has imposed fines on chefs using the method until a city health code that specifically governs the use of the technique has been drawn up. Chefs have been forced to dispose of thousands of dollars of vacuum packed food, both cooked and uncooked, by city inspectors and have complained that not only is the city's move unwarranted, but that they were not given any notice of the change in policy prior to their regular inspections.

The meat was sealed, added to the soften onions and garlic, a teaspoon of paprika and plenty of beef stock. Then a low heat as the whole simmered. I am not sure the potatoes benefited from par-boiling before being added to the dish but that is what I did. Around 30 minutes before the end of the three hours the potatoes were added to the stew and left to cook just as slowly but without a lid to the dish.

 With a real spicy kick the chorizo bled colour into the stew, the flavours mingling with the paprika and other ingredients. A hearty dusting of chopped parsley added a freshness to the whole but the spice edge from the chorizo took a heavy hammer to the complexities of the accompanying wine; which was a shame, but the succulent steak component shone in a near perfect match. Three hours simmering and less than forty minutes to eat; at least the house hummed with delicious aromas and the guests went home sedated and mellow.

Part One was posted earlier. [Photos Andrew Barrow]