Winter Meals

[Grandma Helen]

What are some of your favorite winter meals?  Do you cook them yourself?  Mine is a big pot of homemade beef stew.  I could eat it any time during the winter.  It's one of a very few things I like to eat. 

[oldmike]

Chili, hot and spicy!

[Julia A Knaake]

 oldmike

I love hot and spicy too

[Julia A Knaake]

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

 

Yield: Serves 4 - 6

Prep Time: 20 mins

Cook Time: 4 1/2 to 8 hrs

ingredients:

1 Boiler/Fryer, Cut Into 8 Pieces (About 3-4 Pounds)

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 Medium Onion, Chopped

2 Cloves Garlic, Minced

1 Celery Stalk, Chopped

1 Red Sweet Pepper, Chopped, or Cut Into Strips

1 Cup Dry White Wine

1 (28 oz) Can Chopped Tomatoes

1 Teaspoon Dried Oregano

1/4 Cup Fresh Chopped Parsley

Salt & Pepper

Pinch Of Red Pepper Flakes, 
Optional But Encouraged
1 Cup Pitted Flavorful Olives

directions:

Remove the skin and trim any fat from each of the chicken pieces.
Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat, and brown the chicken pieces well on both sides, about 4 minutes per side.
Remove the chicken pieces to the crock pot.
Add the onions, peppers, garlic, and celery to the crock pot.
Add the wine to the pan and cook over high heat scraping up the browned bits from the bottom until the wine has reduced by half.
Pour the reduced wine into the crockpot along with the tomatoes, oregano, parsley, salt and pepper.
Set crock pot to LOW 8 hours or HIGH 4 hours.
When finished, remove lid and keep the crock pot on HIGH one hour to help it thicken.
Add the olives, cook a few minutes until it has reduced and thickened.

[EddieDingo]

That looks sooo good!

[Julia A Knaake]

hi Eddie,

I use my slow cooker a lot in this cottage

even make peach cobbler in it when I have company

mostly I make really firy hot chili

or some nice veggie soups

[Julia A Knaake]

sorry I had to go look for that recipe...dang I'm hungry , did not have dinner yet and it's 10:00

pm....i always use a yellow cake mix and I have used berries instead of peaches

Crock Pot Peach Dump Dessert

By yooper on February 21, 2002

Photo by The Left Handed Chef

87 Reviews

• 
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Total Time: 3 hrs 5 mins
• Servings: 8

About This Recipe

"A very simple recipe that yields fabulous results! People won't believe this came out of a crock pot!"

Ingredients

• 2 cups frozen peaches, sliced ( undrained)
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 -9 ounce Jiffy white cake mix ( or 1/2 package of a 2-layer size cake mix)
• 4 tablespoons melted butter

Directions

1. Lightly grease the slow cooker/Crock Pot; place peaches in the bottom.
2. Sprinkle with cornstarch; toss.
3. Drizzle with vanilla and sprinkle brown sugar over all.
4. Sprinkle with cinnamon then cake mix.
5. Drizzle melted butter evenly over cake mix.
6. Cover and cook on high for 3 to 3 1/2 hours.

[Julia A Knaake]

Mr Musik

Now just where did you say you lived?

If I move 100 miles from you i'll be smelling all those great aromas

The collards better e young leaves...I do not like the old ones

the only thing on your list i never ate was hog jowls...but you

never know what Ma fed me...squirrel,muskrat,frog legs,fish eggs etc etc

[Julia A Knaake]

we raised our pigs too and they are clean animals even they have a bad rep

ours had their designated spots for,eating,drinking,sleeping and potty area

when you entered their sleeping quarters to lay fresh straw it was clean smelling

but

someone gave us 4 pot bellies and they were so mean and nasty we invited folks up

to the hill and had a bbq...nasty things were stringy like wild javelina  we bbqed in Arizona

[Leftygrl]

Defiantly chili.  I've got two favorite recipes; one calls for italian sausage and 1-1/4 cup of merlot (very tasty) and the other one which I just discovered is a vegan chili (very tasty too).

And of course that good old standby; roast/carrots/potatoes/onions in the crockpot!

[Serenity]

I eat sparingly and I guess a lot of my meals tend to be the same, especially now that I started throwing veggies and fruit in the Ninja blender and making a puree of them with protein power in it for two meals a day. 

I eat more soup in the winter and my favorite soup is artichoke soup. I also like spicy chili with no beans.  

[Serenity]

Yes, I used to be diabetic.  You need to consider which vegetables you use and use a sugar free protein powder - something of good quality.  

I started with a chopped salad (lettuce, sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots, and went from there.  If you are watching your BG then you need to scale back on the fruit and use the SF DaVinci flavorings.  

I sometimes use 1 cup chocolate almond milk (low carb - 40 cal a cup), 1 cup of frozen spinach, a splash of the SF DaVinci banana syrup and 1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter. I use either UNJURY chocolate or vanilla and whip it up.  You could add other LC veggies.  Since I exercise strenuously I can use up to 100 grams of carbs a day, but if I were still malignantly obese I'd keep my carbs down to 30-40 a day.  

Also depends on how heavily you are relying on insulin to compensate for carbs - I refused to use it.  I lost some weight, got a gastric bypass, and I exercise at least 1 hour a day, ideally 2-3 and I now bust my butt.  I gained a little weight back after a car accident and I'm working on getting that off again.  

If you can't do anything else, walk around Walmart - walk up and down the block.  Get some 1,2,3 pound weights and a Joyce Vedral book on weight lifting for the over 50 crowd. Get a referral for physical therapy from your doctor and go as often as possible to get in exercise - it is critical to dealing with diabetes type II. 

And don't "try" to lose weight. Listen to Yoda - There is no try. Do or do not. Try means you're setting yourself up for failure. 

Invest in all the Dana Carpender cookbooks you can find used on Amazon.com - she writes the bets LC cookbooks around. 

Throw out all the grain products, all the starches, and don't use milk - just half and half or sugar free almond milk or Hood Calorie Countdown.  If you are diabetic and want to lose weight then low carb is your only option.  

Get Gretchen Becker's book on "the first year" for Type II diabetics (the library may have it) and get The Diabetes Solution by Dr. Richard K. Bernstein - you may not like what either of them have to say but they will save your life and health if you follow the Bernstein protocol.  

Not that I have opinions or anything.  However, I used to weigh 300 pounds.  And my ex-husband, who refused to deal with his diabetes, just had a massive stroke.  'Nuff said? 

[Serenity]

It is good that you started taking care of yourself. If you read the book by Bernstein you will find that, at this point in your treatment you need to check your sugar about 6 times a day. Ideally you need to be in the 83 area. Your doctor will have a cow, but the reality is that 83 is about normal. 

A Bernstein dietary plan amounts to something like
30 grams of carb a day - he counts all carbs and subtracts 1/2 the fiber (other dietary regimes subtract all the fiber). 

No honey, sugar, or other carb-based sweeteners.  Eat eggs, meat, chicken, fish, etc.  Eat them in small portions. Even meat has some carbs. 

I am glad you lost weigh because insulin causes weight gain.

You can also take metformin by mouth AND Byetta, which will protect your pancreas and keep it healthy.  I used byetta for about a year.  It also contributes to weight loss by making it harder to eat much. 

Keep up the good work.  Keep pushing your sugars down.  You need to shoot for 100 now. You are still getting damage to you body at levels of 130-150.  I urge you to sign up for the yahoo group email group: [e-mail]  If you go to yahoogroups.com you can look up the group using diabetes_int and join it.  You'll learn a huge amount.
 
Okay, enough blabbing - I have to get to the gym. :)