slow cooking

last night i made my first slow cooker meal of the season: lamb shanks with white beans. this is something i usually braise on the stove top or in the oven. but we had plans to have a little happy hour over at jen and andrew's house and i knew that by the time we got home it would be too late to start a braised dinner. so the night before i went about searching for a good slow cooker recipe for this dish.
one thing i love about the slow cooker is the ease. i love the idea of throwing a bunch of stuff in a pot before work and coming home to a beautiful dinner. but this dish does not fit into that bill. because the shanks need to be browned and the onions and garlic need to be sauteed, it took me nearly 40 minutes to get everything in the pot. so it was much better suited for the sunday dinner meal category. by the time the 8 hours of cooking time was up, the meat had completely fallen off the bone and the beans were super tender. it really did turn out great andi told seth it was the definition of succulent.
but i promise you, if i make this dish again in march i will hate it. because that is the curse of the slow cooker. no matter what you cook or what you cook it with, by the end of the season, everything comes out tasting exactly the same. maybe it's just that by march i'm craving fresh, barley cooked veggies and light summer fare. my taste buds have just had enough of hardy, meaty, rich foods. but right now in november, it is exactly what i am craving and this dish really hit the proverbial spot.

i heart mark bittman

in honor of valentine's day, i will admit i love mark bittman. if you happened to catch any of the episodes of the disappointingly boring spain: on the road again, then you know that mario batali, gwyneth paltrow, and that hot spanish chick all call him 'bitty.' oh bitty, you have such a way with food.
i have owned his cook book how to cook everything for a good 8 years now but i have only recently truly embraced it. it so amazing to think about something you want to cook, check the index, and there you find the perfect recipe for your meal.
this happened tonight actually. in a recent post on his blog, bitten, bitty shamed me into giving up canned beans for dried beans. so with a bag of dried cannellini beans calling my name from my pantry, i decided i wanted to make something with sausage. i checked out how to cook everything and before i knew it i was eating tuscan white beans and italian sausage. the dish was as simple as it sounds but in truth this is bitty's MO. simple food cooked simply and deliciously.
the cookbook has even converted seth who usually refuses to cook from a recipe. now i have come home on numerous occasions to find one of bittty's dishes waiting for me to consume. so if you don't already own it, go out right now and buy the tenth anniversary edition of how to cook everything.
(no i was not paid by the mark bittman omnimedia corporation to write this.)