The Great American Slow Cooker Book (30 page)

5
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours in a small cooker, 7 hours in a medium cooker, or 8 hours in a large cooker, or until the meatloaf is cooked through and somewhat firm. Slice into wedges using a nonstick-safe knife or spatula, serving them with bits of the caramelized onions and any sauce in the cooker.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Here’s a holiday-worthy meatloaf, great for any family gathering. The mushrooms will give the dish plenty of moisture, keeping it juicy and tender. Make sure you spread the ground mushroom mixture evenly across the meat to get the best reward for your effort.

•
Admittedly, this meatloaf works best in an oval cooker, rather than a round one; but it can be done in both. You’ll simply need to shape the meatloaf to your cooker—and then cut it into slices or pie wedges, depending on which sort of cooker you’re working with.

•
If your cooker doesn’t have a nonstick finish, give it a spritz with nonstick cooking spray before building the meatloaf inside.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
We use a fair amount of Worcestershire sauce in our cooking. Yes, it’s an anchovy sauce—but mostly it’s a complex bit of savory saltiness, a great match to beef of all sorts. While almost everyone knows the standard bottling, there are more complex, artisanal versions of this British classic available these days. Or go all out and make your own. We’ve got a knock-out recipe on our website,
www.bruceandmark.com
.

Serve It Up!
Mashed roasted sweet potatoes would make a fine side for this sort of comfort food. Or bake the sweet potatoes, split them open, mush the insides with the tines of a fork, and lay the slices and sauce right on top.

1
Mix the ground beef, onion, breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic, egg, basil, oregano, marjoram, salt, and pepper in a large bowl until the cheese and spices are evenly distributed.

2
Gather the mixture into a ball, then transfer it to a cutting board. Form it into a tapered loaf, like a football cut in half lengthwise and no larger than the length and width of your slow cooker canister. Transfer it to the slow cooker. Spread the bell peppers and mushrooms over and around the meatloaf.

3
Whisk the tomatoes, broth, vinegar, and tomato paste in a large bowl until smooth. Pour over the meatloaf and vegetables.

4
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the meatloaf is cooked through and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into its center registers 165°F. Serve slices with the sauce and vegetables ladled on top.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Braising a meatloaf in balsamic vinegar creates a wonderful meal—a little sour, a little sweet, yet quite sophisticated.

•
Getting the meatloaf into the slow cooker can be a challenge. Work with a couple of large metal spatulas. If it tears or breaks, you can put it back together in the cooker.

•
Don’t use your best balsamic vinegar, aged for years. Instead, use a moderately sour, fairly economical bottling.

•
Mince the onion into tiny bits so it distributes evenly in the meatloaf, almost melting as it bakes.

•
Although you can try to lift a meatloaf out of a slow cooker when it’s done, you might also end up with meatloaf shrapnel on your floor. It’s best to use nonstick-safe spatulas and knives to cut it right in the cooker.

ALL-AMERICAN KNOW-HOW
Braising is a low-moisture cooking technique in which low or moderate heat is applied to a mixture of ingredients not fully covered by any liquids. Think of a culinary continuum running from less liquid to more: braise, stew, soup.

1
Mix the ground beef, sausage meat, oats, cheese, oregano, rosemary, and red pepper flakes in a large bowl until quite uniform, the spices distributed throughout.

2
Stuff the meat mixture evenly into the bell peppers; stand them up in the slow cooker, wedging them gently to fit as necessary.

3
Whisk the tomatoes, wine, garlic, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl; pour over and around the stuffed peppers.

4
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until the meat mixture in the peppers is cooked through and the peppers’ flesh is fork-tender.

5
Use a big, slotted spoon to move the stuffed peppers to serving plates or shallow serving bowls. Skim any surface fat from the sauce in the cooker, then pour the strained sauce into a saucepan. Stir in the balsamic vinegar as you bring the sauce to a boil over high heat. Boil, stirring often, until reduced by half, from 4 to 7 minutes. Spoon the sauce over the stuffed peppers to serve.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Stuffed peppers are a homey weeknight dinner made easier by the slow cooker. What’s better, the cooker softens the peppers themselves without drying them out, giving you more juicy bits per bite.

•
Stuff the peppers the night before (or even the day before), then save them, covered, in the fridge until you’re ready to get them cooking.

•
The oats in these stuffed peppers stand in for the more traditional egg binder. The oats will absorb more of the juices in the peppers (there won’t be any evaporation) and so render them succulent without being wet.

•
For a leaner dish, use mild Italian turkey sausage. For a richer dish, you could substitute half the ground beef with ground pork.

ALL-AMERICAN KNOW-HOW
“Reduced” means that a sauce has boiled or simmered until some of the water has evaporated, leaving a higher concentration of flavors with perhaps even some basic deepening or mellowing of those flavors. It all sounds fancy, but it essentially means that you keep a sauce bubbling until you hit the desired consistency: until a third or half its original volume (still watery but much more concentrated), until somewhat thickened (beyond half its original volume, starting to get some velvety texture), until a glaze (the point at which a wooden spoon run through it creates a line that holds its shape for a couple of seconds before the sauce flows back into place), or until a thick glaze (that line holds its shape even if you tilt the skillet or saucepan a bit).

Serve It Up!
As a side, make a simple green salad with
Mustard Dressing:
For four servings, whisk a minced small shallot (or one lobe of a medium shallot) in a large bowl with ⅓ cup
olive oil, 1½ tablespoons white wine vinegar, ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard, and ½ teaspoon salt. Add the salad greens and toss well.

1
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Working in batches to prevent overcrowding, blanch the cabbage leaves in the boiling water for 3 minutes, then transfer them to a colander set in the sink. Run cool tap water over the batches to return them to room temperature; pat them dry individually and lay them out on a paper towel–lined work surface.