Slow Cooker Winter Minestrone with Cheddar Toasts

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With a few freezer ingredients and a vacation timer, you can make this Slow Cooker Winter Minestrone with Cheddar Toasts. It’s perfectly comforting for cold nights.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE my slow cooker.  And it’s HUGE!  So, I can easily cook up a large pot of something and freezer half of it for another meal.  Consequently, half of this is in the freezer for later.

It’s just too easy to throw ingredients in there, set the timer (I use a vacation timer because I don’t have one of those fancy schmancy cookers with a built in timer).  I kick it olde skool and use a $10 vacation timer to make sure that my food doesn’t get over cooked while we at work.

You see, we leave at about 5:45 – 6 in the morning.  We don’t usually get home until 5 at night.  That’s roughly 11 hours.  If I don’t fill it to the brim, anything cooking that’s only half full is usually a bit, let’s just say, extra tasty? by the time we get home.  I was tired of burnt bolognese, and charred veggies when I used it.  $10 solution later, I can start and stop it when I want.  It’s perfect!

 

This is one of those clean your freezer type meals.  We I collect bags of frozen vegetables.  I’m not a veggie hoarder.  I just forget to check the freezer for veggies when I make the menu.  Consequently, when S and I inventoried the freezer, there were at least 2 bags, I think?  Not including the corn and peas.

We always have corn and peas.  Corn doesn’t really belong in minestrone in my mind.  Maybe it’s just me.  *shrugs*  I don’t count peas either, because they’re essential for tuna casserole, so they’re always in the freezer.  Just saying.  I should make tuna casserole next week.  I haven’t made that in a while.  Hmm…

In any event, this is an easy meal.  Some bags of freezer veggies, a package of chicken kielbasa, and a can of beans or two and you, too, can have a tasty. minestrone meal.  You don’t even have to thaw all the frozen veggies out.  You can toss them in frozen.  You can add the turkey from Thanksgiving.  You can add the chicken broth made with the carcass from the turkey.  Speaking of which, I still need to cook the rest of the tasty goodness from the carcass to make some broth.  I actually used some frozen chicken broth from about a year ago.  It tasted yummy, still, and was a perfect accompaniment for this veggie soup.

This, plus the fresh zucchini, onions, peppers, and the frozen carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and peas made for an extremely tasty minestrone.  It was very hearty and full of veggies and sausage.  You simply throw it all in the slow cooker, set it and come home to a tasty dinner that can easily fill you up.  S says that soup alone will not fill him up, so I made some cheddar cheese toasts to finish up the meal.  The trick to melting fat free cheese is to spritz it with a little cooking spray.

Okay.  For those of you that are new to my blog, S’s step-mother is a nutritionist.  She has based her nutrition program, PEP, on the USDA food pyramid.  It does work.  So, for those that don’t want to omit carbs from their diet, please try PEP.  You can consume A TON of carbs on this program and still lose weight.  Yes.  Eat pasta and bread and still lose weight.  The key is to consume little to no fat.  It’s not easy, but it’s possible.  When we were absorbed in the program, we lost about 10 to 15 pounds in a couple of months.  Insagn.  I’m trying to get back on that bandwagon.  After quitting smoking and getting older, my metabolism isn’t what it used to be.  I need help.  So, I’m getting back on the PEP bandwagon.

I’ve created a spreadsheet that pulls ingredients for a meal, and meals from categories to make tracking counts easier.  Yup.  Leave it to me to turn it into a spreadsheet.  Me?  Write something down?  NEVAH!  *snickers*