Not My Mother's Slow Cooking

Ever since I started using my slow cooker last year, I've been wanting Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. When I had accumulated enough points on my Amazon credit card, I went and ordered a copy. My brother has also, marvel of marvels, recently bought a slow cooker of his own, and I wanted to try out simple, delicious recipes that I could pass on to him.

The first one is a corn chowder. Not too many ingredients, I thought. Well, I guess young men think differently. I think he was opposed to all the chopping of onion, celery and potatoes. Go figure. The chowder turned out very well, though. I will definitely make it for myself again.

I also tried a pork ribs recipe, that used mustard and molasses. At the time, my local supermarket was renovating, and I wandered the aisles (up and down, up and down, and I wasn't the only poor, lost soul) for almost an hour trying to find molasses. Finally, I went to another supermarket. The ribs were nice and tender, but the flavour was not spectacular. I'm not sure my brother would go out especially to buy molasses for a non-stellar recipe. So, I guess the search for college-aged-male-friendly recipes continues.

I would like to report, however, that I tried a favourite of Moocow's, truffle french fries. I bought some frozen french fries from the supermarket and baked them in the oven (really, it's rather miraculous how nicely they turn out!) and dashed a couple of drops of white truffle oil (which I bought in Seattle's Pike Place Market when I went there this past winter break) on top.
The aroma of truffles, and truffle oil, is very strong and heady, and rather unique. It may not appeal to everyone, and truffle oil is quite expensive (truffles, even more so), but I liked the truffle fries. I also sprinkled some of my truffle oil on top of a mushroom risotto I'd made, and it was wonderful.