Gingered Sweet Potatoes

Christmas lunch this year was a fifteen person affair, hosted by my Mother. Mum is an excellent cook who regularly caters for big groups (earlier this year she put on a soup and sandwich dinner for seventy carollers at the church). She doesn't really need much help from me, except that the Christmas dinner vegetables are often quite traditional and need a bit of excitement. It's a mixed family group so the aim is to keep the dinner quite palatable for the older folks while not boring the younger generation either.

This gingered sweet potato puree was one of the vegetable dishes I was overseeing this year. I also looked after the Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower, green beans, and carrots, all of which were very traditionally prepared. We used two slow cookers for the beans and carrots (cooked side-by-side in one slow cooker) and the sweet potatoes. Mother actually picked the recipe as well and then assigned it to me for cooking, so I can't really take that much credit for the finished dish! Since it's made in the slow cooker it's very easy to do.

slow cooker stuffing

For our Thanksgiving dinner, I had to carefully plan the itinerary. I had invited more friends that can realistically fit around our table. I was worried about not having enough oven space to cook all our food. So I planned it all very carefully, making the pumpkin cheesecake and nut bake a day in advance and laying out what I had to do on Sunday afternoon. I used my new hand blender to whizz up mountains of breadcrumbs for the stuffing from some lovely wholewheat bread. It was stale bread but I also toasted it to make it a bit more dry.


And because our oven space was completely in use due to the turkey and roast potatoes, I made the stuffing in the slow cooker. Earlier in the year Mum sent me her slow cooker book from Company's Coming, and it provided just the recipe.

Slow Cooker Stuffing
makes 8 cups
from Company's Coming Slow Cooker Recipes

1 c chopped celery
1 c chopped onions
1 T parsley flakes
2 t poultry seasoning, or herbs
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
10 c dry bread crumbs
1/4 c hard margarine or butter
1 T chicken or vegetable bouillon powder
1 1/2 c hot water

Mix the first six ingredients in a large bowl.
Add bread crumbs and stir.
Combine margarine, bouillon powder, and hot water in a separate bowl. Stir to melt the margarine and dissolve the bouillon powder. Pour over bread mixture.
Turn into a 5 litre slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Add a bit more hot water for a more moist stuffing.

This recipe made the stuffing ridiculously easy on Sunday afternoon. I made the crumb mixture on Saturday, and on Sunday just added the hot water mixture and started it going as soon as we got home from church. It was ready when we sat down to eat at 5 pm.

Planning the whole meal in advance on my little index card was a bonus. For most of the afternoon I was ten minutes ahead of schedule!

roasting chicken

A cooking discovery: a small chicken fits in my slow cooker! I thought I would try this out one day and amazingly it worked really well. It took about three hours on high, and was very tasty. I didn't bother with any seasoning or anything--just threw the chicken in there and walked away! Talk about a lazy way to cook. And there was lovely roast chicken as a result. It is worth trying again soon!

slow cooked black bean and gammon

One thing I've been meaning to mention for a while now is that I bought a slow cooker at the beginning of January. I have used it a few times to great success. I am not a big meat fan in general but the meat cooked in the slow cooker comes out so tender and flavourful that I do enjoy it. Today I made black bean curry with gammon (ham) cubes and it was mighty tasty. Paired with a fresh salad of rocket, watercress, and cherry tomatoes it made a really nice (low fat and low GI) meal.