Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps recently had the chance to review the Southern Slow Cooker cookbook and test one of their recipes.
The Southern Slow Cooker is filled with big-flavor, low-fuss recipes for comfort food classics. I was drawn to this cookbook for several reasons: 1). A slow cooker is a working mom’s best friend and; 2). I love Southern Food.
The Southern Slow Cooker has more than sixty recipes for down-home favorites, ranging from Chicken and Cornmeal Dumplings to Buffalo Stout Beer Chili to Brown Beans and Fatback. Kendra presents regional classics from all over the South: church potlucks, Cajun and Creole traditions in the bayou, even her West Virginia granny’s old recipe book. Plus, most of the recipes include Southern wine and beer pairings, and there are several Southern-inspired cocktails from award-winning mixologists (I know my GGG fans will love that!).
I loved how the author, Kendra Bailey Morris translated familiar flavors and techniques from the stovetop to the Crock-Pot, making the food easier to prepare and more accessible than ever before. Even the busiest home cooks can recreate Kendra’s simple and convenient recipes. The cookbook includes recipes for absolutely any occasion or meal-time mood, the photos are beautifully captivating and with hardly any active cooking time and featuring inexpensive ingredients, each recipe results in deeply flavorful, satisfying food that will have you and your family asking for seconds.
Speaking of seconds, I recently tested one of the recipes from the Southern Slow Cooker. I prepped the Frito Pie Chili con Carne recipe before heading to work one morning and was greeted with a beautiful, ready-to-go meal when I returned home from work. I literally had dinner on the table minutes after walking in the door.
The Frito Pie Chili con Carne received a thumbs up from my boys and the hubby. I jokingly tweeted Kendra that she was a genius later that evening. Check out the recipe below and see for yourself. It really is so good.
Frito Pie with Chili con Carne
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon bacon grease or vegetable oil
- 2 pounds extra-lean ground beef
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 3 tablespoons chili powder
- 1½ teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano preferably Mexican
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper optional
- 2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
- 1 10-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles (such as Rotel brand) with its juice
- 2 14-ounce cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
For serving
- 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese grated
- ½ cup minced sweet onion
- Sliced pickled jalapeños
- Sour cream
- Large 14-ounce bag Fritos brand corn chips, or 8 (1- or 2-ounce) individual serving–size bags
Instructions
- Spray the inside of the slow cooker with cooking spray.
- Heat a large skillet or cast-iron pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat and add the bacon grease. Crumble in the ground beef and cook until the meat is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Mix in the chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, sugar, black pepper, and cayenne. Cook for 1 more minute.
- Pour the beef mixture into the slow cooker and add the tomato sauce, tomatoes and chiles, and kidney beans. Stir well. Cover and cook on low for at least 8 hours and up to 9 hours.
- To serve, spread the chips in a 9 by 13-inch casserole dish or divide among eight smaller bowls. Pour in the chili, then top with the cheddar, sweet onion, jalapeños, and sour cream and serve. Alternatively, cut open eight individual serving–size bags of chips, divide the chili and toppings evenly among the bags, and eat straight from the bags with a fork.
Notes
Here is how my version turned out. Check out the jalapenos on top – I pickled them myself!
About the Author
Kendra Bailey Morris is a cookbook author, food writer, recipe developer, and television host. Her writing appears in Better Homes and Gardens, NPR’s Kitchen Window, CNN’s Eatocracy, Saveur, Richmond Times Dispatch (where she was a food and recipe columnist for four years), the Associated Press, Washington Post, and Richmond Magazine. She served as a judge for the 2011 and 2013 James Beard Awards, and has a master’s degree in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University.
The Southern Slow Cooker is sold for $19.99 in paperback format, is 136 pages and includes full-color photographs. Use my affiliate link to purchase on-line here (ISBN 978-1-60774-512-9).
Best of luck to Kendra Bailey Morris and much success on her cookbook The Southern Slow Cooker!