Tuscan White Beans with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

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                            FOOD FUNNY
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Here's another classic food funny courtesy of Rosemary Zwick:

A meat counter clerk, who had had a particularly good day,
proudly flipped his last chicken on a scale and weighed it.
"That will be $6.35," he told the customer.

"That really is a little too small," said the woman. "Don't you
have anything larger?"

Hesitating but thinking fast, the clerk returned the chicken to
the refrigerator, paused a moment, then took it out again. "This
one," he said faintly, "will be $6.65."

The woman paused for a moment, then made her decision. "I
know what," she said, "I'll take both of them."

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                            TODAY'S RECIPE
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Here's a slow cooker version of a classic Italian dish.

Tuscan White Beans with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

6 cups (1.5 L) water or chicken stock
1 lb (450 g) dried cannellini or great Northern beans, picked over and
rinsed
2-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3/4 cup (180 ml) chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil
12-15 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

Combine all the ingredients except the tomatoes and olives
in a slow cooker and cook covered on high until the beans
are tender, 4 to 5 hours. Stir in the tomatoes and olives and
cook covered for 15 minutes.
Serves 4 to 6.

A Word About Slow Cooking

First, the good news: you don't need a slow cooker, Crock-Pot*,
or other fancy gadget to slow cook. All of the recipes this week
are easily cooked on the stove-top or in a conventional oven. Here's how:

Most slow cookers on the market have two settings: low and
high. The low setting cooks foods at approximately 200F (95C),
and this heat setting can be approximated in a conventional
oven or on a stove-top burner set on the lowest setting. Similarly,
the high setting (about 300F, 150C) can be reached on
conventional ovens and on stove-top burners set on very low.
All you need to cook any of these recipes is an oven (or stove-
top) and a casserole dish or oven-proof baking dish with a
tightly fitting lid.

When adapting slow cooker recipes for use with conventional
equipment, follow the directions in the recipe and set the
thermostat accordingly. Because slow cookers typically have
lids that fit very tightly and therefore retain much of the moisture
in the dish, you may need to monitor the dish during cooking
and add additional liquid if necessary. If you keep this in mind,
all of your slow cooker recipes will turn out great.

The benefits of using a slow cooker include reduced energy
consumption and ease of preparation (i.e. start it and forget it),
as well as its ability to produce exceptionally tender and
succulent dishes, especially when less expensive cuts of meat
are involved. These benefits (with the exception of reduced
energy consumption) extend to the home cook who uses
conventional equipment.

The bad news? There isn't any, so have fun.
Received on Thu Jan 27 16:57:14 2011