Curried Vegetable + Chickpea Stew

Another soup? Yes, I am an inveterate soup eater, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've even been known to eat soup in the heat of summer. You can ask my friends. But especially during the winter months, I crave the comfort of warm soup. The Kitchn (adapted from Cooking Light) is responsible for this crockpot recipe for curried vegetable and chickpea soup, and I absolutely love it. (Thanks to the Daleys again for giving me their old crockpot. It's well-used and well-loved.)

I've been eating this all week, and I'm still not sick of it. I left out the coconut milk and substituted kale for spinach because I have a ginormous bag of it in the freezer from Costco. What else? I didn't have any fresh ginger on hand, but if I had, I definitely would've added it.

Sichuan Carrot Soup

Ever since I had it at the now defunct Sunroom spin-off (the one formerly on Odana), I've been wanting to attempt a Sichuan carrot soup. And now I've done it! ;) This version from The Art of Doing Stuff is a pretty decent version. I included the directions for making it on the stove top, but I did it in the crockpot. Let's see. I left out the sugar, as per usual, and I at least doubled, if not tripled, the red pepper flakes. It is afterall Sichuan, so it should be on the the kick-your-ass end of the spicy spectrum. I may not have added the milk at all, and if I did, it would've been plain almond milk. I also threw in some leftover roasted chicken. I pureed it with a stick blender, but I kept a few of the carrot chunks since I'm not a huge fan of completely pureed soups.

Egg Bakes

This winter, I've been a wee-bit obsessed with egg bakes in the crockpot. I tried a feta and mushroom one. I don't have any photos of that one, and I found it a bit bland.

Next, I tried a sort of Mexican one with black beans, chicken, salsa, garlic, tomatoes, and spices. I didn't really use a recipe, but it was delicious. I'll finish off the last of it tomorrow morning.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chicken

In this picture, it looks like a bit of a hot mess, but this Latin chicken with sweet potatoes and black beans from the Crockpot Guys (I saw it several other places online, too; not sure where it originated) is marvelous.

A couple of notes:
-I roasted a whole chicken separately in the slow cooker with a different marinade (an Asian marinade leftover from hoisin-glazed meatloaf).
-I omitted the red peppers and chipotle chiles in adobo because I didn't have any of the former and because I do not like the latter.

Roasted Chicken, Brussels Sprouts, + Wild Rice Blend

This was yet another slow cooker experiment. I used this recipe from Stephanie Dea's A Year of Slow Cooking blog. The Brussels sprouts were simply chopped and sautéed in olive oil, onions, and garlic. And the wild rice blend from Trader Joe's came to life in my rice cooker. (I also usually add broth or bouillon to brown rice and whole wheat cous cous to add a little flavor.)