Fall Soups and Slow-Cooker Love

My brand new, super awesome slow cooker was broken in last week with a few soups to celebrate the fall season.  We got the slow cooker as a wedding gift and I've been DYING to use it!  It was way too hot this summer to make any of my favorite soups or stews, so it's just been sitting in our cabinet, weeping silently, feeling neglected, waiting for me to use it.  Yes, my slow cooker is SO amazing that it has feelings...

This slow cooker is seriously the most amazing thing ever!  It's 6 quarts, and programmable so when I have a recipe that says cook on high 4-5 hours, it will turn to warm after the time is up!  Now I don't have to worry about a recipe not cooking completely if it set it on low for 8-9 hours instead, or about getting home in time before the meal is over-done.  It has a thermometer probe for meats and will turn off when the meat hits a certain temperature.  And it even has a clip-on lid so I can take it to dinner parties or Wine & Dine.  

I'm a huge fan of the slow-cooker.  Which is why I bought Tamara and Rian a slow cooker as a wedding gift.  She is equally in love with hers, and we swap recipes every now and then.  

Over the last week, I've made three different soups with our new slow-cooker and couldn't be happier with how well it works!  The first, and the favorite is Taco Soup.  I got it from one of Bryann's co-workers who copied it out of her Crockpot recipes book.  I think the link above is the recipe I use, but I'm not looking at my recipe right now and I'm too lazy to get out of my blanket and go check.  Yes, it's a lot of canned food, but it's soooooo easy, and the only prep it requires is browning the meat with the chopped onions.  I usually do this the night before and refrigerate until the next morning.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll cook several packs of ground beef (bought in bulk at Costco) with chopped onions, and freeze flat in ziplock bags until I need them.  My mom taught me that little trick!  

On Saturday, I made my slightly tweaked, and more stew-like version of this Vegetable Beef Soup.  I chop up a boat load of celery, bell pepper, onions, carrots, and potatoes instead of a bag of frozen vegetables - though I'd use frozen if I were in a pinch.  I usually make a tomato sauce from tomato paste just because I use tomato paste for more dishes and always have it on hand.  Lastly, I use 2 cups of beef or vegetable broth instead of water.  It is always amazing, and it's one of my most favorite winter soups.  

This morning I made Corn Chowder from this tried-and-true recipe.  For the frozen hash-browns, I use Potatoes O'brien that we stock up with at Grocery Outlet.  This time around, I used red pepper-spinach chicken sausage in place of cubed ham.  Next time I'm going to put in some Italian style ground turkey sausage.  

Tomorrow I'm going to make slow-cooked pot roast and it will be amazing!  I'll post the results later.  

Salmon with Red Pepper Pesto

My adventure in cooking continues with this October's issue of CL.  I tried this Salmon with Red Pepper Pesto right away, and was pretty pleased.  Except for the fact that I still can't cook meat... (I'm starting to think this might be a real genetic disorder or something.)  The recipe says to use a grill pan and to cook the salmon for 4 minutes on each side.  But I bought salmon with the skin on one side and Bryann said only to grill it on the side with the skin.

Let me back up.  This may not be so much the fault of my genetics, but Bryann's faulty listening skills.  We had just gotten home from work and I was getting things ready for dinner.  Bryann was sitting at the table playing a game on his phone and I tried to engage him to ask his advice for how to cook the fish.  I asked if he'd prefer to grill it on the BBQ or on the stove.  He said he didn't care.  I asked whether I should grill it in a pan or use the grill pan.  He said it wouldn't matter, he didn't care.  It wasn't until after I'd put the salmon on that he started to care.  Why did I use the grill pan?  Why didn't I use a regular pan?  I reminded him about 3 minutes ago when I asked him what pan I should be using and he said he didn't care...

So Bryann took over cooking the salmon.  He made a little tin foil tent in order to keep the moisture in and stood next to the stove monitoring the salmon for about 20 minutes.  Oh well... It was still delicious!  The pesto was very tasty also, though Bryann didn't like the almonds in it.  (I can't win!)  It took a long time to make the pesto because my food processor is really an extra bit on my blender.  I kept having to pause, push the mixture back down, pulse a few more times, push the mixture back down, and pulse some more.  It took more time to get it all smooth than I really have patience for.

Which, I guess, means that I'm still looking for my go-to salmon recipe.  For the summer season, I think the peach salsa wins out.  But for when peaches aren't in season, I'd love to find a recipe I can make all year round.

Kristi Meets Wilderness

Consider yourselves blessed that I managed to get this up less than a week after I got back!  It usually takes a few weeks after I've collected several trips worth of photos to get anything posted.  

The Mt. Rainier Wilderness backpacking trip was amazing.  AND I survived 4 days of backpacking that I did not adequately train for.  The first day was about 7 or 8 miles of steep downhill, which RUINED my quads.  So much so that I could hardly sit down that night and could barely walk the next day... ooops!  

View of Mt. Rainier on the drive to our starting point 

 The view before we started our 7 mile descent

 The gang hiking down on the first day

 White River

 

 Crossing one of many many log bridges 

 The best suspension bridge EVER!  Crossing at dusk to get to our campsite before it got completely dark.

We had a fairly large backpacking group and the national forest requires you to get permits and plan out your campsites before you set off, so we had to break into two groups of four.  Originally Lucas and I were grouped with Nate and Kimber, which worked out well the first night.  Our site was the first one and we managed to reach it just as it got dark, while the other group had another mile of uphill to climb before they reached theirs.  They told us the next morning that they'd gotten in so late and were so tired that they set up camp on the trail and went to bed without dinner.  

On the morning of the second day, I knew I was in trouble when I had to lean on my tent to stand up... Which didn't go so well and kind of collapsed under my weight.  My unseasoned hiking legs had to take many breaks throughout the day, which was full of hills and valleys, and I had to stop at the other groups campsite.  Travis and Katee were kind enough to switch groups with Lucas and me, so we set up camp with Jeff and Amber while Nate and Kimber continued on to their campsite... another 4 miles away...  

 Coming over the suspension bridge on the morning of the second day

 Amazing views of Mt. Rainier with members of my new group 

 Hiking along the Wonderland Trail on Day 2

 Blue Lumiens in front of Mt. Rainier

On day three, I was still sore, but feeling a million times better than the previous day.  Jeff, Amber, Lucas and I hiked another 4 miles to the next campsite where we arrived around 1:30 and settled in early.  We passed the afternoon playing cards, and lounging by one of the many streams.  Sadly, our group ran out of toilet paper and we had to resort to using my face wipes....   We were also sadly low on hot cocoa and completely without bug spray...  Lucas and Jeff enjoyed a bottle of whiskey to drown their sorrows, Lucas spilled dinner everywhere, and we called it an early night.

 Crossing another of the many log bridges

 Pumping water by our campsite 

 Soaking my poor exhausted feet in the ice cold stream

On the last day, we left camp early, around 8:30, to meet up with the other group three miles down the trail, and hike the rest of the way to the cars, another five miles downhill.  Along the way, we had some more amazing views of Mt. Rainier and got an awesome group photo at the top of the pass.  

Back at the cars, the boys who had raced ahead had lunch ready for us to make and eat while we waited for them to fetch the car we'd left at the starting point.  Nate had gotten a flat tire on the very first day on our way to the starting point during his boyish detour onto some rugged rocks with this truck.  So he spent an extra hour changing his tire when they got to Mowich Lake.  All said, Lucas, Kimber, Katee and I spent nearly five hours entertaining ourselves playing cards.  

This was year two of a four year trip to hike all of the Wonderland Trail.  I didn't get to hike it last year because I was at Bryann's Nationals Softball Tournament.  But I plan on going for the next two year to finish out the trail.  Perhaps I'll train a little more next summer so that my legs won't be dead 1/4th of the way into the trip with no easy way out.