Vegetarian

Most split pea soup recipes are ridiculously predictable. Some onion, a bit of carrot, maybe some cut-up spuds. A ham hock. Inevitably, split peas are the main attraction, usually cooked to a mushy consistency. But I was looking for texture and additional flavor, so I added some dried chanterelle mushrooms; half an onion, thinly sliced well browned; some chopped tomatoes; fresh celery leaves; carrots; and spinach. I considered adding liquid smoke because the ham hock was out. But as luck would have it, one of my wooden spoons caught on fire, so I let it burn, then put out the fire and stuck the charred spoon in the soup. If a winemaker can use charred oak to enhance flavors of her wine, then why can’t I use charred wood for that desired essence of smoke in my soup? (P.S. DO NOT try this at home! Using a smoked salt should achieve similar effects without the fire!)

A classic quiche Lorraine has long been one of my favorite dishes. You can make a good crustless, meatless in the slow cooker, drawing upon that gentle heat. I like to use a smoked salt to supply the smoky flavor that would ordinarily give. Serve with a crispy green salad.

“What’s the advantage to cooking artichokes in a slow cooker?” you might ask. The answer is that while the artichokes are cooking, you’ve bought yourself a big chunk of time to do other things while the chokes cook completely unattended. If you are like me, you may get no further than pulling the chokes out of the pot with tongs and sitting down to them with a nice serving of homemade garlic-tarragon mayo. But I’ve given a few other suggestions in case you get bored.

Few countries do potatoes and cheese as well as France and Switzerland. Raclette, scalloped potatoes, pommes de terre dauphinoises, whipped, or whatever, a couple hundred years of potatoes and cheese and a knack for cooking have made them experts at the many comforting ways these two inexpensive, favorite ingredients can be combined. The Auvergne is a region in south-central France known, among other things, for its popular blue cheese called Bleu d’Auvergne.

One of the great joys of my childhood was having my mother read to me from Heidi. Heidi drank goat’s milk from a bowl for breakfast and had soup for dinner. In the Swiss Alps, Heidi enjoyed a feast that has sustained and nurtured people the world over for many centuries: soups, sometimes featuring the simplest of ingredients (as simple as some oats or flour, a nip of onion, and some broth or milk). Soups like this one have been made and drunk in France’s mountainous regions for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All you need are some really flavorful ingredients, a creative mind, and a loving heart. Note: Don’t buy hard, flavorless tomatoes in the dead of winter and expect this simple soup to taste good! Use the best, freshest tomatoes you can find, preferably from your own garden, picked at the peak of ripeness on a late summer’s day. This is not a winter soup.

Although this unusual risotto could be served with Parmesan cheese shaved over the top as a savory side dish, it’s at its best as a dessert. Serve it warm and topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some sweetened whipped cream. Gobble it all up before the ice cream has a chance to melt.

Fondue has provided nourishment to mountain folk in Switzerland and the Italian and French Alps through many a hard, cold winter. Made from what must have been, at times, the only ingredients at hand, stale bread and hard cheese, the communal rites that developed around the eating of fondue sustained spirits as well as bodies. Although Emmentaler, Gruyère, and fontina are fondue classics, you can actually use any kind of “mountain” cheese, such as Appenzeller, Comté, or Beaufort. The slow, even heat of the slow cooker is just perfect for making a smooth, effortless fondue. I suggest using a 2- or 3-quart slow cooker for the fondue. It fits more easily on the table and is more suitable size for this amount of fondue.

It’s delicious. It’s typical of the kind of peasant soup you might find in a mountainous region where barley grows plentifully, and mushrooms are to be had in season. And best of all, it’s a put-the-stuff-in-the-pot-and-walkaway-from-it no-brainer.

For most of us, the mention of lasagna conjures up mouthwatering images of rich tomato sauce layered with rich cheeses and thin noodles. But a type of lasagna can also be made using polenta rather than pasta. In this polenta lasagna, the old familiar formula appears, but the packaging (polenta instead of lasagna noodles) is new. I recommend making the tomato sauce a day ahead of time, and possibly having two slow cookers on hand so that you can pour the polenta quickly from one into the other.

Although most Americans are familiar with ground wheat hot breakfast cereals such as Wheatena, few of us consider cracking whole wheat berries at home for breakfast. They are, however, aromatic and delicious, and much like oatmeal (either whole or cracked) in some rural areas of Italy. This recipe works well in the 3-quart cooker that I use for risotto and polenta. Just put it on to cook at night before you go to bed and awaken to delicious breakfast. Be sure to purchase “triple-cleaned” wheat from your health foods store or use a commercially prepared seven-grain cereal if you don’t want to go to the trouble of cracking your own wheat.

Over many centuries, every country in the world has developed ways to obtain much-needed protein by combining the simplest of ingredients. In Italy, the combination of lentils and rice has found just as happy a home as it has in India. The trimmings may be a little different, but this simple dish can make a meal in itself when served with a salad, or as an accompaniment to grilled vegetables or stuffed artichokes.

You might consider this simple recipe the Korean version of New England baked beans: sweet and salty at the same time. The beans are slow-cooked to give the flavors time to meld, and served accompanied by some cooked greens, a salad, or some rice for a complete protein.

My first introduction to Thai curries came while I assisted a friend in preparing a luncheon for Nancy Reagan at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. What a surprise: the curry sauce was red! Although Thai curries have many ingredients in common with those of neighboring India, they tend to be tinged with a hint of sweetness from the combination of coconut milk and a traditional dash of sugar, and they are often colored red or green by the red or green chiles in them, rather than the more familiar yellow color of Indian curries. As with most Thai curries, serve this over rice.

My dear friend Martha Deaton was raised in Malaysia, where she and her sisters learned to cook traditional Malaysian dishes from their mother. Martha’s sister, Margaret Hughes, has built a thriving London catering business based on the dishes of her homeland. The following is one of her most popular recipes. Although this dish, like so many Asian dishes, is traditionally prepared on top of the stove, I think it works well in the slow cooker. See what you think. Serve it hot, on a bed of steamed rice.

Thai curries differ from northern Indian curries in that they add some typically Thai ingredients, such as dried red chiles, onion, garlic, coconut milk, galangal, lemon grass, and kaffir lime, to the warm Indian spice blends. They are categorized as red, yellow, or green based on the kind of chile or ingredients used in them (but not necessarily by the color of the finished product), and they have an element of sweetness to them that is lacking in some Indian curries. They can be made from scratch, but most Thai home cooks today rely on either commercially prepared pastes or pastes prepared by a vendor down the street. Many supermarkets in the United States carry Thai curry pastes. And if you really want to save time, you can purchase a jar or two of Thai Red Curry Simmer Sauce (Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are two good bets) and save yourself the trouble of doing any mixing at all! Most Thai curries, including this one, should be served with steamed rice.

Making puddings is one of the tasks the slow cooker does especially well. This scrumptious blend of flavors found in Mexican chocolate and desserts is a wonderful ending to a meal, or an afternoon or evening snack itself. I like to eat it hot, warm, or at room temperature, topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream and with cocoa powder or grated chocolate.

There is a Mexican restaurant in my town that specializes in caldos, or Mexican broth-based soups like this sopa de ajo. Everyone goes there to get take-out caldo when they feel a cold or flu coming on, but most of the time, everyone goes there just because they like caldo!

Wherever they are grown around the world, potatoes fill the belly and warm the heart. Although potato dishes are less common in Asian countries than in Western and Eastern European countries, they can still fill the belly and warm the heart, Asian style. A crisp green salad would make a fine accompaniment to the dish.

Most of us are familiar with “rolled” enchiladas: some kind of savory filling rolled up in a tortilla, then baked. But a stacked enchilada is even easier to make, and the results, especially when done in a slow cooker, are a lot like a casserole. A layer of corn or flour tortillas, a layer of fresh vegetables, another layer of tortillas, another layer of filling, and so on until the slow cooker insert is a bit over half full. Then a nice long, slow cook that allows all the juicy vegetable flavors to meld and blend. You can certainly vary the type of vegetables according to the season and what’s in your garden or farmers’ market at any given time. This is great freshly cooked and is even better as leftovers.

Potatoes and chiles are “New World” stuff, and yet, as it turns out, they have nourished millions of people around the world since they were brought to the “Old World” by European explorers just a few hundred years ago. Here is a simple dish combining the Old World and New World ingredients, stewed together in the pot—in this case, the slow cooker. Unlike conventional scalloped potatoes baked in a gratin pan, where “design” matters, I recommend gently stirring these potatoes once or twice during their cooking time to evenly distribute the good stuff and ensure even cooking.