Adventurous Eating With The Slow Cooker

About author / Pamela Chester

Mom of two; graduate French Culinary Institute; kids cooking program instructor; Master's degree in food studies. Creates kid friendly foods and loves her slow cooker.

You wouldn’t know it now, but I was an especially picky eater growing up. For a few years, during family spaghetti dinners, my mother would save some pasta on the side just for me so that I could eat it plain with butter. Like many children, I also went through a chicken fingers stage where they were all I would eat.

My sister still teases me about trying to get away with taking the smallest spoonful of peas – maybe 3 peas – just so I could say I ate my vegetables. Mushrooms did not pass my lips until I was at least twenty. This was through no fault of my parents, who made every effort to introduce us to a wide range of flavors, tastes, and textures. They went by the credo that you must at least try everything set before you. How would you know if you don’t like it if you don’t try it?

Even to this day, the most comforting foods to me are generally bland and of the plainest variety. I love grits, cream of wheat, mashed potatoes--anything white with very little spice. But now I would say I’m a pretty adventurous eater… not to the Fear Factor level, but enough that if I see offal meats (waste products of the butchering process such as liver and sweetbreads) on the menu, I will be the first at the table to suggest ordering it. I am always game to try new and different things, and one of my favorite restaurant experiences is going to a sushi bar and selecting the omakase menu, in which the chef prepares his own special selection tasting dishes, usually including some pretty exotic items.

When did everything change? Well, when I began cooking for fun in my early teens I got into exploring my mother’s collection of cookbooks as well. The ones with the pretty pictures were always the most enticing to me. If a dish looks great, it might taste great too, right? It was the dawn of a new era for me.

There are some exceptions: although I do love Indian naan bread, I have never really gotten to love the combination of spices in Indian food. Turnips are one of the few ingredients I pass by at the produce stand. Another strange holdover from my childhood is an aversion to the combo of nuts and berries; until now you may have never heard of someone who doesn’t like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! But gradually, becoming a more adventuresome eater was like opening up a whole new world of flavors.

Sometimes a vegetable prepared in the right way can give you a whole new appreciation for it. Just a month ago, I converted my husband from never touching sweet potatoes to actually liking them by secretly including some in a mix of roasted root vegetables including regular potatoes and parsnips.

Now I am setting forth this challenge for you: think of one ingredient that you have always avoided. Try to cook the best recipe you can find for this item, or order it at your favorite restaurant and see if you don’t change your mind or at least learn to tolerate it. I am going to try this week by making an Indian-style Mulligatawny stew in the crockpot.

Here’s to new eating adventures with the slow cooker!

Serves/Makes: 6

• 1 1/2 pound lamb stew meat, diced
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/3 cup lentils
• 2 tart apples, peeled and diced
• 1 bell pepper, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mace
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 quarts water