Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Rondi's Recipes: Slow Cooker Beef Curry

In our quest to become better cooks and pushing ourselves to new levels in the kitchen, Mandi and I will attempt to do a food blog once a week with pictures and reviews included. We realize that we did miss last week, not because we didn't cook, but because we forgot to take pictures. We'll also be posting pictures of our hamburger cake shortly :)

So here it is, week 2:

Slow Cooker Beef Curry


The ingredients: Curry, Jalapeno, Ginger, Onion, Stewed Tomato, Garlic, Beef Broth, Stew Meat, Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper


Mandi chopping up the jalapeno and ginger root.


Browning the beef in olive oil.


Chopped onion goes in the bottom of the slow cooker.


Browned beef goes on top of the onion.


Check on Jezzabel to make sure she's comfortable on the burlap sacks used to cover plants, while laying 2 feet away from her bed.


Combine juice from browned beef, garlic, jalapeno and ginger.


Add in stewed tomatoes and curry powder.


Smell...


...and serve. Oh yeah, we served it on top of rice.

Prep Time: About 15 minutes (with two people)
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low heat in slow cooker

What we liked:

I like that it was only about a 15 minute prep time.

It was relatively idiot proof - you can't really screw up browning meat and pouring ingredients into a slow cooker.

It's a great meal for when it's cold outside, the heat of the meal really warms you up, without being an overly heavy meal, like most winter meals

You can put it all together and let it sit all day. Great for dinners when you're busy right up until meal time.


I loved smelling the different spices while this meal was being prepped. I think I could walk around with a ginger root tied to my neck.

For me, it had the perfect "heat". I could feel that heat in my mouth, but it didn't make me sweat like spicy things often do.

Brown, chop, mix, dump, turn on slow cooker. Not even I could mess this up.

The meal felt really light to me and had a fresh taste all of the way through.


What we'd change:


I would add more of each of the key spices: more garlic, ginger, and curry. I would mind more jalapeno, but it still had a pretty good kick to it with just 1.

This isn't something you can change, but something that is a bit of a con. It takes 8 hours in the slow cooker, so it's a meal that you need to think about the day before.


I would increase the curry, ginger and garlic. It had some good flavors, but I wanted more.

I would think about adding some chopped potato.

I'd love to have some naan bread with this meal.


Here's our overall rating (with 1 being the worst meal we've ever had and 10 being the best):


Mandi's Rating: 8.5

Ronnie's Rating: 8


Again, if you guys have any suggestions on how this is laid out or what you guys would like to see answered/done differently, please let us know :)