As the days grow shorter, time becomes an even more precious commodity in our lives. While technically slow cooker dishes take hours to complete, the actual hands-on time and effort for preparation is minimal. I have discovered that, paradoxically, many “slow food technologies”, such as clay pot and slow cooking, can provide elegant food with well-developed flavors while saving you lots of prep time. January 1, 2012 marks the release of what is possibly my favorite cookbook in the series I’ve written with Dr. Jonny Bowden for Fair Winds Press, The 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth. As a special preview (and to illustrate my devotion to the slow cooker as an indispensable clean food cooking tool!), I am sharing a terrific recipe from the book here, Sweet Spiced and Warming Winter Beef Stew.

 

Though you can make stews in a variety of ways, (braising in the oven, simmering on the stovetop, etc), the slow cooker is my number one choice both for ease and for time efficiency. While you do have to find a little time in the morning or at lunch to prepare the ingredients, the slow cooker safely simmers your stew all day without you. The biggest advantage of slow cooking for me is that when my husband and I come rushing in late from work and my kids come in starving from sports practice, dinner is ready and waiting for us!

There are a few tricks to making perfect stews in the slow cooker. Slow cooked red meats tend to have a somewhat unappealing, grayish coloring. To prevent this, you may sear any cut of meat in a bit of oil or butter at medium high temperature to brown the surface before placing in the cooker. In a stew, however, where the chunks of meat are submerged in liquid, I often opt to skip this step to save time.

 

My Favorite Slow Cooker
{With regard to the question of whether or not to pre-brown meats for the slow cooker, I feel compelled to make a nod to my all-time favorite model, the All-Clad 7-Quart Anodized Aluminum slow cooker. To me it’s the Cadillac of slow cookers and I love it. Its best feature is a safe (anodized), nonstick insert that can move between the stovetop and slow cooker. Though there are some stovetop-safe stoneware models, as far as I know this is the only nonstick model that allows you to brown meat and vegetables or melt fats or cheeses and then drop it right into the cooker. Because the same machine can brown and slow cook, it has revolutionized slow cooking for me. It’s also quite large –big enough to fit two whole chickens (very convenient for making soup stocks), and has a programmable timer and dual heat settings that automatically switch to warm at the end of cook time.}

 Most hard grains, beans and hard vegetables are not easily cooked to doneness in a stew because the proteins and more delicate vegetables cook more quickly and leave the longer-cooking ingredients undercooked. The best ingredients for slow cooker stews are soft vegetables (like winter squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and celery) or hard ones cut small (such as carrots or parsnips sliced into thin rounds or finely diced beets or turnips).
Place the onions and the hardest vegetables at the bottom of the pot. Then add the softer vegetables, and top with the meat. Finally any liquids can be poured over everything. Be conservative with the amount of liquid you add. There is very little evaporation in a slow cooker, so your dish will tend to get juicier rather than drier while cooking.