Jonny Bowden - The 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth: The Surprising Unbiased Truth About How to Make Nutritious and Delicious Meals that are Ready When You Are

The Surprising, Unbiased Truth about
How to Make Nutritious and Delicious Meals
that Are Ready When You Are

Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., and Jeannette Bessinger, C.H.H.C.
Authors of Authors of The Healthiest Meals on Earth

2012 Fair Winds Press
Text 2012 Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S. and Jeannette Bessinger, C.H.H.C.

First published in the USA in 2012 by
Fair Winds Press, a member of
Quayside Publishing Group
100 Cummings Center
Suite 406-L
Beverly, MA 01915-6101
www.fairwindspress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59233-494-0

Digital Edition: 978-1-61058-184-4
Softcover Edition: 978-1-59233-494-0

Digital edition published in 2012
eISBN: 978-1-61058-184-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Photography by Bill Bettencourt

The information in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or medical practitioner. Please see your health care provider before beginning any new health program.

FROM JONNY

... to my beautiful Michelle...
... the ultimate slow cooker...
it took us a long time...
... but it was so worth it.

FROM JEANNETTE

I dedicate this book to my husband Jay,
my daughter Jesse, and my son Julian.
You are the light of my life
and make everything possible.

Clockwise from top left:
Pungent, Light, and Clear Thai Seafood Stew; Mega Omega Piquant Artichoke, Olive, and Anchovy Sauce; Antioxidant-Burst Raspberry Peach Cobbler; and Low-Carb Sesame Turkey Meatballs

CONTENTS

MEAT

POULTRY

MEATLESS

SEAFOOD

STOCKS

SAUCES

PURES

INFUSIONS

APPETIZERS

SNACKS

DRINKS

DESSERTS

BREAKFASTS

Introduction

When I was in my twenties I backpacked through Europe with my brother and a college friend. One of the places we went to was Rome, and one of the places we visited there was the Spanish Steps in the world-famous Piazza di Spagna. The area is gorgeous, typically Italian, and simply bursting with history, authenticity, and tradition.

And no one loved the area more than Italian writer Carlo Petrini.

So you can imagine how he felt when, in 1986, McDonalds announced it was building a restaurant there.

To protest the opening, Petrini organized a demonstration, which evolved into the Slow Food Movement, and in 1989, delegates from fifteen countries assembled in Paris to sign its founding manifesto. Today the Slow Food Movement has more than 100,000 members with chapters in 132 countries.

Which brings us to the slow cooker.

Fast-food restaurants have changed the way we eat, but more important, they have changed the way we think. Not just about food, but about everything. The fast-food mentality has permeated our lives, assisted by dozens of technological innovations that make things easier but also faster and in many ways more superficial. We want what we want and we want it now. This minute. That kind of thinking has affected everything from the way we conduct our relationships (Internet dating, speed dating, Facebook friends) to the way we handle money (buy now, pay later, or not at all).

The Slow Food Movement was, and is, importantand not just because it strives to preserve regional and traditional cooking and sustainable agriculture. Its also important because of what it says about our lives. It gives people a chance to say, Hey! Slow down! Lets smell the roses and enjoy the scenery.

So at its heart, the Slow Food Movement is about being present. Its about mindfulness. Its about being in the moment.

For many people, cooking has always been an act of love. Fresh ingredients, carefully and conscientiously selected, prepared at the height of their flavor and nutritional power, served lovingly and proudly at a sit-down, leisurely meal for family and friends. And in some small way, that is the tradition and spirit whose essence is captured by slow cooking.

The slow cooker is actually the perfect compromise between the modern need for food thats convenient and fast, and the wistful nostalgia for beautiful, flavorful meals that simply cant be gotten at the drive-through takeout.

Something good, or potentially good, came out of the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Restaurant outings fell, same-store sales at restaurants fell from the previous year, and people began eating at home more. In the previous recession, families cut back by eating fewer meals out, but they wound up buying frozen meals at the supermarket. Not this time. According to food industry consultant Liz Sloan, Ph.D., in 2009, We have the highest level of in-home cooking in the United States since 1992.

Enter the slow cooker.

What if you could shop for fabulous ingredients, assemble and prepare them in a relatively easy way, go to work, and come home with a scrumptious, flavorful, utterly nutritious meal? Thats the promise of the slow cooker, and it never fails to deliver.

No more slaving over a hot stove, but also no more need to depend on fast food. This is the perfect compromise, delivering nutritionally dense, fresh-cooked meals yet not requiring you to spend hours chopping, dicing, sauting, blending, heating, and pot watching. For virtually every recipe in this book you merely buy the stuff, do a little prep, throw it in the slow cooker, and leave it alone. Hours later when youre ready to eat, there it is. Nutritious and delicious.

Those of you who are computer savvy know the term GIGO. Its shorthand for garbage in, garbage out, meaning that the output of the computer is only as good as the stuff you put in it. It can calculate the answer to a ridiculously complex math question faster than you can blink, but if you feed it the wrong information, the answer will still be wrong. And its kind of the same thing with food.

The best recipe in the world will only turn out to taste as good as the ingredients you use to make it. And the slow cooker, perfectly suited to bringing out complex flavors, really shines when you use the best ingredients, which weve tried to do. So lets talk about some basics when it comes to choosing ingredients.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT KIND OF MEAT

With all the talk about how bad meat is for you, you might be forgiven for wondering why we use so much of it in this book (and, frankly, in all our other cookbooks as well). Is meat really the health hazard that mainstream health professionals seem to think it is?

Actually, no. But God is in the details, so lets clear up a few things about meat.

First, some background. Cows are ruminants, which means that their natural diet is pasture. You are what you eat applies equally to animals, and to a cow, pasture- or grass-fed is the equivalent of whole foods. Cows are not meant to eat grain. It causes them to become acidic and also creates meat that is high in inflammatory omega-6 fats and low in beneficial anti-inflammatory omega-3s.