...if you have a backyard and a kitchen, this blog might be for you!

a chronicle of tips and recipes on everything from gardening to canning and baking your produce, even if you're planted in suburbia...in fact, especially if you are planted in suburbia.



Saturday, June 23, 2012

Flashback Cookbook: the Crockpot

The idea of "slow cooking" has been around since ancient times, but ages ago, the slow-cook recipe went something like this:  "...wrap the roots and meat in leaves and leave beside the fire on a rock..."  Today's version of slow cooking is accomplished in a "crock pot" and while many of the younger folks may think this device has been with us for generations; the truth is that the original electric slow cooker didn't come on the scene until 1971.  That's when the Naxon Corp. put out the first bean pot, a device that was later redesigned by Rival and renamed from bean pot to crock pot.

So this installment of the Flashback Cookbook offers an early recipe for that new-fangled contraption called the crock pot. 



Slow-Cook Pepper Steak

1 to 2 pounds beef round or sirloin steak
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 med. onion, cut up
garlic powder or 1 small clove chopped
1 or 2 large green pepper, seeded and cut into strips or chunks
2 C beef broth
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Layer steaks and veggies in the bottom of the crock.  Pour on the broth and vinegar.  Add seasonings, and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 to 5.
If you want a thick gravy, add a paste made of 3 tbsp. of flour and 3 of water to the both after removing the meat and veggies.  Cook gravy on high until thickened.

For retro:  serve over white rice, all sticky and fluffy!  After all, back in the 1970's, we didn't know it was bad for us. 

Happy slow-cooking!

Bonus blog linkhttp://www.ehow.com/about_5081557_crockpot-history.html

2 comments:

  1. My parents have the original bean pot and that is what we cooked beans in, mostly limas and pinto. It's big, green, you turn the plug over for hi and lo and it has a glass lid. LOVE THAT!! Your recipe sounds like a must try!

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  2. Many recipes have you cut the meat in chunks first but this one cuts after cooking. Pretty old school dish though.

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