Weekend Plans Post: Slow Cooker Theory, The Bookcase That Got Away From Us, and a Small Victory

First, since there’s sometimes a complaint that I talk for a while about what brought me to this point, let’s get the recipe out of the way. It comes from this book: Pillsbury Doughboy Slow Cooker Recipes.

Beef and Bean Tamale Pie

1/2 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 15 or 15.5 oz can of kidney beans, drained, rinsed
1 10 oz can of enchilada sauce
1 6.5 oz pouch golden corn muffin and bread mix
1/3rd cup milk
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1 4.5 oz can chopped green chilis
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup chopped green onions

1. in large skillet, cook ground beef and onions over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until beef is thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently. Drain. Stir in beans and enchilada sauce. Place beef mixture in 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 quart slow cooker.

2. In small bowl, combine corn muffin mix, milk, butter, and egg: stir just until moistened. (Batter will be lumpy.) Add cheese and chiles; stir gently to mix. Spoon over beef mixture in slow cooker.

3. Cover; cook on low setting for 5 to 6 hours or until toothpick inserted in center of corn bread comes out clean. Top individual servings with sour cream and green onions.

First off, that’s not how we did it. I don’t think my store even sells 1/2 pounds of ground beef. So we started by doubling that. Second off, no onions. I very much wanted something to replace the onions rather than merely not including them so I got a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and added those at the tail end of the ground beef frying up. Added the beans and the (green) enchilada sauce and added that to the slow cooker.

Then I looked at that second step.

In a small bowl? Now I have to get a mixing bowl out? And a fork to mix whatever’s in the bowl? And a spatula to spoon it out?

I don’t know about you but my thought about slow cookers is that ideally they are pretty much dump and go. Stir it in a couple of hours, maybe. Sure, you can chop up some chicken thighs beforehand or something like that… break down a crown of cauliflower or julienne some bell peppers but that’s, like, prep stuff that is well within acceptable tolerances. Maybe, *MAYBE*, instead of dicing up veggies, browning some stew meat. But this recipe called for both browning hamburger *AND* using a mixing bowl and that is something that makes me say “Man, did I get the wrong cookbook or what?”

But Maribou asked for beef and bean tamale pie. So, okay, fine. I put out my box of Jiffy Corn Bread Mix and my can of chiles on the counter next to the small mixing bowl and I put the slow cooker tureen in the fridge overnight. I woke up the next morning and, wouldn’t you know it, I walked into the kitchen to get some caffeine and there those ingredients were. Staring at me. So I mixed together my corn bread batter and spread it over the ground beef mixture and set the cooker on slow and low.

Six hours later, I served us both up a bowl with sour cream and sprinkly cheese and Maribou told me “Holy cow, this is amazing.”

I ate mine. It was really, really good.

Dang it. So I guess we’re keeping the cookbook.

Which, may I point out, we found on the bookcase that got away from us during the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, that was the bookcase that became a place to put stuff. Don’t know what to do with that receipt? On the 2nd shelf. Don’t know what to do with that hammer? On the 3rd shelf. Bought a 25-pound bag of rice “just in case”? Put it on the bottom shelf.

Well, Maribou said “We’re going to reclaim the bookshelf.” And so we found stuff like an itemized receipt for one of the cats that passed away (oh, yeah… that happened and we didn’t think it was appropriate to throw out the receipt but it’s not like we wanted to look at it) and that hammer that I couldn’t find a year ago and, oh yeah, I bought a 25-pound bag of rice.

I also found the Pillsbury Doughboy Slow Cooker Recipes cookbook, in which Maribou put a couple of sticky notes and gave me the request to make the Beef and Bean Tamale Pie. Despite the fact that it used a mixing bowl AND the frying pan. We found a bunch more cookbooks too. And, more importantly, cleaned off the stuff that was *NOT* cookbooks.

So the big thing that happened this week is that we have our kitchen bookshelf again and it looks *GREAT*.

This weekend’s plans include the recipe for Lamb Dijon. Which, thankfully, only requires that I brown some lamb stew meat in my frying pan and nothing involving a mixing bowl. Also a game night and some light chores/errands/laundry.

Back to normal, almost. Almost like 2019.

So… what’s on your docket?

(Featured image is “Ruckus Approves”. Photo taken by Maribou.)