Navy Bean and Mushroom “Risotto” and a day of skiing at Mount St. Louis Moonstone!

Sunday was a gorgeous day in Toronto so we decided to high tail it up north and do a little skiing at Mount St. Louis Moonstone. We made for an early departure because it’s about a two hour drive from our house and we didn’t know how busy it would be. It turned out to be quite empty and not particularly too cold (although that wind-chill on the lifts was pretty bitter!). We packed our lunch so we wouldn’t have to endure the disgusting deep-fried slop that’s generally served at these establishments. They have a great little area where you can eat your own lunch and quite surprisingly, it was chuck full!

I knew we’d be pretty tired from a day’s skiing, particularly since we haven’t skied since two years ago, and even then we skied only once or twice, so I dragged out the crock pot and assembled the Navy Bean and Mushroom “Risotto” the night before. I refrigerated the mix overnight (without the water) and in the morning, I just tossed the whole thing into the crock pot and added the water so that it can cook all day. I love coming home and being greeted by the warm and comforting smells of home cooking! I also made some biscuits to go with our tasty dinner, but you’ll have to wait for that post another day.

I love Navy Beans because they are so darn creamy, that is why I think of this dish as “risotto”. You can make this vegetarian by omitting the sausage and the prosciutto in the scones!

Navy Bean and Mushroom “Risotto”

Now that's a tasty looking meal!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry navy beans, rince well
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic finely minced
• 1 cup chopped shitaki mushrooms
• 1 cup chopped cremini mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of celery root, chopped (I had a bit left over so I needed to use it up)
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped (I had a bit left over so I needed to use it up)
• 1 sausage, your choice, chopped
• 4 cups water, yup, plain old water!
• 1 tbsp cumin
• salt
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. I like all my ingredients uniformly chopped, but that’s personal preference.
2. Put all ingredients except the Parmesan Cheese into the slow cooker, give it a good stir and turn it on high for about 35 minutes (while you’re getting breakfast ready). Once it has warmed up, turn it down to low and cook for 4-5 hours or until beans are done.
3. Serve with shredded Parmesan Cheese and some tasty Maple and Prosciutto Scones.

You may need to boils off some water if the beans didn’t soak it up, so do that before you add the cheese!

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Oh Christmas Tree and Crock Pot Chili

Sunday we drove down to Niagara to chop down our Christmas tree. We started this tradition last year for something new to do; we found this family tree farm close to two restaurants we love and decided to make a day of it — tree chopping and lunch! We decided to go to Treadwells in Port Dalhousie, a lovely restaurant where the Dad is the Chef and the son is the Sommelier. We’ve been several times and we’re never disappointed; I had the French Onion Soup which I would highly recommend, JT had the lobster club — very decadent with the duck fat fried bread! My good fried Barb recommended the restaurant about 4-5 years ago — which is a perfect segway to the Crock Pot Chili we just made because it’s Barb’s recipe!

Our New Christmas Tree

Barb  just started blogging and her latest blog post was of the Crock Pot Chili; what a perfect meal  — the wonderful aroma wafting through the house, welcoming us upon our return with our tree! Please check out Barb’s blog Profiteroles and Ponytails. I’ve know barb for almost 20 years now, we met at my very first job, KPMG in their National Marketing department. Barb was a writer and I was the Senior Manager in the Design Department. We’ve not worked for KPMG for many years now, but we’ve been good friends ever since. Barb has always loved cooking and this blog is the perfect succession to her passion. Please do pay her a visit, she knows all about my blogging ‘friends’ and is excited to hopefully meet you!

The chili is pretty much to Barb’s recipe, with a few minor alterations as I didn’t have some of the ingredients on hand. I only had 300g of ground beef and turkey, so I added chopped Chorizo so that we could get 4-6 meals out of it (I’ll freeze it in batches of single servings so we can have a quick lunch on the weekends we’re too busy to cook). I also didn’t have canned beans, so I used 1 cup of dried Navy Beans; and because they had to reconstitute while cooking, I added 2 additional cups of stock to the pot. I also used home made tomato sauce, made with the tomatoes from our generous neighbours to the north. I added some mushrooms because I had them and they needed to be used up. The chili turned out quite delicious, richly flavoured with all spice, cocoa and chili powder. We served them in our little single serve Le Creuset casserole pans, topped with the delicious cornbread topping. I dolloped some non-fat Greek Yogurt with the chopped green onions on top. YUM! Thanks Barbie!

Barb's delicoius Crock Pot Chili

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