Healthy and Hearty Fall Dinner Recipes

I'm a crockpot guru, having discovered the versatility and time saving faculties if the slow cooker in the years when five children, an active career and running two small businesses made my life a contender for the "Most stressed out American Mom" contest. I live a life of virtual laziness now compared to those days when I would sometimes only get four hours of sleep a night and then would try to catch up on Sunday afternoons by sleeping all afternoon to recharge my batteries.Finding healthy ways to feed my family was often the last thing on my mind! Just eat whatever we could find that was still alive in the refrigerator, well, maybe not alive, but still edible!

I finally developed a system that kept our family from imploding and the slow cooker was key in our meal plans. I could get up at a reasonable hour instead of the 4 am time slot I had been utilizing! While the coffee was brewing, and the kids were getting dressed, I would prep dinner, from the ingredients I had gathered the night before. Perhaps I'd stopped at the supermarket on the way home from a late meeting and found a great deal on healthy lean chicken thighs or I'd pull the ubiquitous pound of ground beef from the freezer and combine it with fresh healthy veggies from our garden into a wonderful chicken or beef stew. A hearty and healthy dinner could be prepped and put in that magic pot..and left cooking safely while we left the house and went about our busy, busy lives. After school, work, soccer games, dance practices, we could all convene back home to find a warm, delicious healthy and hearty meal just waiting for us to chow down on!

While I use my crockpot all year round for various things, fall and winter months are great months to prepare some of those hearty and healthy enticing meals that will warm us and energize us for the tasks of our busy lives. Here are three of my favorite fall and winter slow cooker meals that will have your family happy that Mom isn't stressed and even more happy that Mom learned how to make family dinner deliciously easy!

At the same time that we want fast and affordable meals, we also don't want to sacrifice health. Slow cookers are great to tenderize cheaper, but less fatty cuts of meat. Slower cookers preserve the nutrients in foods by not over cooking them at high heat, making crockpot recipes healthy and hearty for winter meals.

Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce

Everyone loves spaghetti, there's nothing easier to make, after all, just open up a jar of your favorite store brand, heat it in a pan and throw it on some cooked pasta and dinner is ready, right? But if you've looked at the price and the quality of some of the major store brands of spaghetti sauce, you'll see lots of sugar and less than home made taste in the jar. It's incredibly easy to make homemade healthy and hearty spaghetti or pasta sauce in your crockpot and I can show you how to do it in 30 minutes preparation time. You too can be a Rachel Ray!

Start with fresh ingredients for the freshest most flavorful sauces.

1 lb. ground chuck, ½ lb. Italian sausage, (mild or hot, depending upon your preference) 1 large sweet onion, 1 c. shredded carrots and ½ c. diced green or red pepper, 3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced finely, 3 cups of diced and peeled roma tomatoes, (or 1 large can of diced tomatoes) a six oz. can of tomato paste, ½ t. of salt, 1 t. dried oregano, 2 t. dried basil or about 1 T. minced fresh, and pepper to taste.

Brown the ground chuck and the Italian sausage breaking up large chunks, add the onions, and garlic and let all cook until meat is browned and onions and garlic are soft. Drain thoroughly over a paper towel and sieve. Pat all grease off of the meat mixture. Put in slow cooker pot.

Add the carrots, peppers, tomatoes, tomato paste, spices and stir. That's it. You can adjust the spices as you like and if you like a thinner sauce, add more diced tomatoes.

Cover and cook. I bet you can make it in 15 minutes! I usually get my pot of spaghetti water salted and ready to add the spaghetti. While the ingredients are cooking on high for 15 minutes, I make a salad and get it put in the frig for dinner time or perhaps butter some French bread and add garlic to it and wrap in foil, ready to pop in oven when I walk in the door at night. Cook the spaghetti, set the table and a healthy and hearty dinner is ready.

African Chicken Stew

One of our favorite healthy and hearty crockpot recipes for a family dinner was created when my daughter was in an International Fair at her school and we adapted a recipe we found in an African cookbook. It's yummy and very different, but kids and adults alike enjoy the exotic sweet and savory flavor of this dish.

Brown chicken thighs in a skillet with about 2 T. olive oil. I leave the skins on for the nice flavor they add to the stew. While chicken is browning, prepare the following ingredients.

Chop one medium size sweet onion, and 2 cloves of fresh garlic. Layer onion and garlic in bottom of the crockpot container. Lay browned chicken pieces on top. Peel and cut up one large sweet potato into bite size chunks and add to slow cooker.

Mix together 1 can of chicken broth or 2 c. homemade chicken stock, 1 can of diced tomatoes or 2 c. of fresh cooked tomatoes and 1/ 2 c. of peanut butter. Pour over chicken. Make up a spice blend of 1 t. cumin, 1 t. ground coriander seed, 1 t. black pepper, ½ . tsp. of crushed red pepper flakes, and 1 t. salt and black pepper to taste. I keep tomato paste in a container to add a T. to stews, etc. Add 1 T. tomato paste if you have it, to add a nice pungent tomato taste.

Let cook for 7-9 hours and serve over rice. It's spicy, sweet, lots of layered spice tastes and just plain yummy! One more healthy and hearty fall or winter dinner to add to your repertoire.

Cranberry Pork Roast

Chuck roast and slow cookers seem to just go together. But instead of making the same old boring pot roast and carrots with potatoes, try this different flavor and serve it with old fashioned mashed potatoes and green beans on the side for a hearty but healthy alternative. Cranberries are packed full of healthy vitamins and nutrition.

Ingredients:

16 oz can of diced tomatoes

16 oz can of cranberry sauce (you heard me!)

2 T. tomato paste

3 -4 green onions, chopped fine

2 stalks of celery, chopped in chunks

3 T. cider vinegar

2 T. olive oil

1 t. dried mustard

A 2-4 pound beef boneless chuck roasts, trim as much of the fat off as you can! I even chunk it to get some of the extra fat trimmed out and to increase the healthy aspect of this dinner.

In the crock of your slower cooker, stir together all the ingredients except the roast. Cover and turn on high for about 30 minutes while you trim the beef.

Place the trimmed beef chunks in the slow cooker and stir into the sauce. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.

Transfer to cutting board and slice thin. If the sauce left in the crockpot is to thin, turn back on high and cook uncovered to reduce the sauce and thicken it.

Mash some potatoes with fresh creamery butter and serve fresh whole green beans for a delicious sauerbraten type pot roast that definitely fits the healthy and hearty label for fall dinners.

I should write a book of crock pot recipes....

Enjoy!