Bring on the comfort food.

Hey Dad,

While it has been unseasonably warm in Chicago, the light is still waning as we get into autumn and I'm struck by how much I am craving comfort foods.  I also feel like I have less awake time as the days get shorter (even though that's not actually true), so I'm disinclined to spend much time after a workday cooking food or doing dishes.  It just feels a lot easier to just order takeout than to take the time to prepare a healthy meal.  This is the beginning of hibernation mode.

I'm lucky in that I don't do the kind of physical work that you do.  Sure, my days start stupidly early because I teach an early class, but I'm not wiped out by 4:00 p.m. the way you are since you were already at work for an hour when I got out of bed around 5:15 a.m.  If I'm tired when I get home from my cushy research and teaching job, I can only imagine your exhaustion when you've been out in the Florida heat lifting heavy things and sitting in traffic all day.

I'm pretty hungry looking at this.

But even with the warm weather, my body still knows it's time for comfort food.  Soup, chili, roasts, etc. just don't taste as good in the spring and summer.  I find it's a lot easier to eat healthfully with minimal day-to-day food prep time when I use a crockpot a couple of times per week.

Why I love the crock pot:

It saves you time because when you get home from work, your food is ready to eat.  All you have to do is prepare the vegetables ahead of time, which you can do in bulk and keep in the refrigerator.  You set up the food in the ceramic liner (the crock) the night before, take that out of the refrigerator in the morning before you go to work, set it in the heater, turn it on, and that's all.

They even make liners so cleaning it is super easy.  Personally, I spray mine with an olive oil spray to keep stuff from sticking too badly.

Bonus!  You will probably make more than enough food so you can freeze a couple of portions to eat for dinner on a different night or take it for your lunch if you will be able to use a microwave.

The next time I'm visiting, I'll have to make a pot roast in the crock pot so that I can introduce you to leftover pot roast soup.  It's inexpensive because I can use whatever type of roast is on sale because it will cook slowly.

Leftover Pot Roast Soup

1. Make a pot roast about twice as big as you'll need for one night's dinner in the crock pot using whichever recipe you like. I liked this recipe most recently and I skipped the thickening part at the end that used butter and flour so that my housemate could eat it (tip: use cheap wine you might drink, not cooking wine).  There are any number of recipes out there that will do, like these, these, or these that are also dead simple.  You can also use a pre-mixed seasoning packet, like onion soup mix, but be careful about the sodium content since those tend to be crazy high.  Cook vegetables like celery, onions and carrots with your roast, but use very few white potatoes or skip them entirely.  You can make most recipes less likely to wreak havoc with your blood sugar with some minor modifications.
2. Have an awesome pot roast and vegetables dinner.  
3. Put all of the leftovers back into the ceramic part of the crock pot and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to make soup (no more than a day or two).
4. To make it into soup, cut up the leftover pot roast and add about 4 cups of low sodium beef broth (again, watch the sodium content).  Stir it all together so that the broth is mixed into the drippings from the roast.  Add more vegetables to the leftovers. If you need more liquid, add a little water until the solid ingredients are just barely covered.  As it cooks down, there will end up being more broth compared to vegetables and beef in the end.  To season it, add garlic, pepper, and more of whatever herbs you used in the pot roast seasoning.  Hold off on the salt until it is nearly done cooking so that you don't end up over-salting it.  I highly recommend a heavy dash of curry powder to make it more interesting.  If you have a cold, give it a little cayenne pepper to help your sinuses drain.
5. Set the up the crock pot on low heat if you're going to be gone for 8+ hours.  Put it on high heat if you'll want to eat in about 6 hours.
6. If you want a thicker soup, I think adding a little bit of whole grain to it like barley is a better bet than thickening it with corn starch or rice. A little goes a long way.  I wouldn't add more than 1/4 cup of quick cooking barley to that pot of soup.  If the soup has too little broth at the end, add some boiling water.
7. Have an awesome leftover pot roast soup dinner.

The specific nutritional content will vary depending on the original cooking method, how lean the roast was to begin with, which vegetables you used, and whether you added a grain to the soup, but overall this is a really sound way to get two filling, hearty meals with minimal prep time, few carbs, and little money.  It's also friendly for people who have dietary restrictions because they can leave out the parts they're allergic to.  Since I know you're more interested in counting carbs than calories, I think this approach will work pretty well for you.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get down there to see you soon and to force some curry on you since I suspect that is the one suggestion you most definitely will not follow.  I'll save trying to convince you to eat mushrooms for another visit.  First, though, I have to go back into the dissertation cave for a bit. When I come back out of it, I imagine I'll have more to say about health insurance reform and other cheerful topics.

Love,
Mel