300 Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes (43 page)

In a bowl, mix together the dry mustard, thyme, pepper, tomatoes, broth, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Pour the mixture over the chicken and ham. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 8 hours.

When the time's up, stir in the soybeans and let the whole thing cook for another 20 minutes or so.

Yield:
6 servings, each with: 212 calories, 10 g fat, 21 g protein, 9 g carbohydrate, 3 g dietary fiber, 6 g usable carbs.

chapter nine
Slow Cooker Soups

If there's a type of dish for which the slow cooker seems custom-made, it's soups. How wonderful to come home tired on a cold evening to a pot of hot, hearty, homemade soup!

Bone Broth for Busy People

This is more a rule than a recipe. Save all of your chicken bones in a sack in the freezer. Save your steak and other beef bones in a separate sack. Don't worry that these bones are picked clean; totally naked bones will make amazingly good broth.

When you have enough bones to fill your slow cooker, whatever its size, you're ready to make broth. Dump your bones into the slow cooker—you don't have to bother to thaw them, just dump them in. Cover them with water and add maybe a teaspoon of salt for a smallish slow cooker or two for a big one, plus a couple of tablespoons (28 ml) of vinegar, any kind. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and forget about it. I mean, for a long time. I let mine go for a good 36 hours.

Turn your slow cooker off, let the broth cool, then strain, throw away the bones, and either make soup with your broth or freeze it in snap-top containers for all future brothy needs. If you're going to freeze it, do yourself a favor and pay attention to how much your containers hold. Then, when you're looking at a recipe that calls for, say, 6 cups (1.4 L) of broth, you'll know how much you've got.

No hard and fast nutritional stats on this one, but unless you add onion or celery or something, it should be pretty much carb-free.

Black Bean Soup

One of the few carb-y dishes I sometimes miss is legume soup, especially black bean soup. This is my decarbed version.

1 can (28 ounces, or 785 g) black soybeans

1 can (14 ounces, or 390 g) black beans

2 cups (475 ml) chicken broth

1 medium onion, cut into chunks

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 medium carrot, shredded

2 medium stalks celery, finely diced

1 teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon (15 ml) liquid smoke flavoring

2 teaspoons hot sauce

2 cups (300 g) ham cubes

Using your food processor with the
S
-blade in place, puree the soybeans and black beans. Place them in your slow cooker. Stir in the broth.

Place the onion in the food processor. Add the garlic, carrot, and celery. Pulse the food processor until everything is finely chopped. Add to the soup.

Stir in the salt or Vege-Sal, pepper, liquid smoke flavoring, hot sauce, and ham. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 9 to 10 hours.

When the time's up, stir the soup up (it'll have settled out some) and check to see if it needs more salt and pepper. (This will depend on how salty your ham is.)

Yield:
8 servings, each with: 218 calories, 9 g fat, 19 g protein, 17 g carbohydrate, 9 g dietary fiber, 8 g usable carbs.

Mexican Beef and Bean Soup

You know the family will love this!

12 ounces (340 g) ground round

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 medium green bell pepper, diced

1 quart (950 ml) beef broth

1 teaspoon beef bouillon concentrate

1 can (14 1/2 ounces, or 410 g) tomatoes with green chiles

1 can (15 ounces, or 425 g) black soybeans

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

4 tablespoons (4 g) chopped cilantro

6 tablespoons (90 g) sour cream

In a big, heavy skillet, brown and crumble the ground beef. Drain it well and transfer it to your slow cooker.

Add the onion, garlic, bell pepper, broth, bouillon, tomatoes, soybeans, coriander, and cumin and stir. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 7 to 8 hours.

Top each bowlful with cilantro and sour cream.

Yield:
6 servings, each with: 296 calories, 16 g fat, 25 g protein, 14 g carbohydrate, 5 g dietary fiber, 9 g usable carbs.

Pho

This Vietnamese-style beef noodle soup is so wonderful! I had never had it before I made some, but it was instantly soothing and comforting, as if I'd been eating it all my life. The gelatin is just to add some body to the beef broth, assuming you're using store-bought. If you've made your own
Bone Broth
(see recipe
page 256
), it will have plenty of gelatin in it.

6 cups (1.4 L) beef broth

2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin—optional

2 teaspoons beef bouillon concentrate

2 whole star anise

1 cinnamon stick

1 tablespoon (6 g) fresh ginger root, minced

1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce

1/4 cup (60 ml) fish sauce

12 ounces (340 g) beef round

2 packages shirataki noodles

1 cup (104 g) mung bean sprouts

4 scallions, sliced thin, including the crisp part of the green

1/4 cup (10 g) minced fresh basil

1/4 cup (4 g) minced fresh cilantro

If you are using the gelatin, sprinkle it over 1 cup (235 ml) of the beef broth to soften for five minutes.

In the meantime, put the rest of the broth in the slow cooker with the beef bouillon concentrate, anise, cinnamon stick, minced ginger, chili garlic paste, and fish sauce. Turn the slow cooker on to low.

Slice your beef as thinly as possible across the grain—having it half-frozen makes this
easier. Cut those strips into smaller ones, no more than an inch or two in any direction. Add to the broth. Stir in the broth with the gelatin, too, if you're using it. Cover and let it cook for 5 to 6 hours.

It's time for supper! Drain your shirataki and snip across them a few times. Stir them into your pho, along with the mung bean sprouts. Re-cover and let it cook just another 15 minutes or so while you slice the scallions thin and mince the basil and cilantro. Don't let the bean sprouts get too wilted.

Serve with scallion, basil, and cilantro on each bowlful.

Yield:
4 servings, each with: 348 calories, 14 g fat, 39 g protein, 21 g carbohydrate, 5 g dietary fiber, 16 g usable carbs.

I prefer traditional shirataki to the tofu shirataki in this dish, spaghetti or angel hair width.

Bollito Misto

All this Italian soup-stew needs with it is a green salad and maybe some crusty bread for the carb-eaters.

1 large onion, sliced

2 carrots, cut 1/2-inch (13 mm) thick

3 stalks celery, cut 1/2-inch (13 mm) thick

2 pounds (900 g) beef round, cubed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons (8 g) chopped fresh parsley

1 bay leaf

3 teaspoons (18 g) chicken bouillon concentrate

1 quart (950 ml) chicken broth

2 pounds (900 g) boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cubed

1 pound (455 g) Italian sausage links

1/2 cup (130 g) purchased pesto sauce

Put the onion, carrots, and celery in your slow cooker. Season the beef with the salt and pepper and place them on top. Add the parsley and bay leaf. Stir the bouillon into the chicken and pour it into the slow cooker. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 5 to 6 hours.

Add the chicken, turn the heat up to high, and let the whole thing cook another hour.

While it's cooking, pour yourself a glass of Chianti and put out some vegetables and dip for the kids. In a big, heavy skillet, place the sausages, cover with water, slap a lid on, and simmer for 20 minutes over medium heat. Remove the skillet from the heat and leave the sausages in the water, with the lid on.