“I'm not drunk, I'm pleasurably inebriated so I don't say anything stupid.”

Seriously, I'm not that big of a lush. And I'm drinking my daily dose of coffee intravenously. Oh, glorious coffee. Hmmm....

Well past that moment which my doctor/mother/healthcare provider would question my addiction level (I'm not addicted, I don't go to meetings) today was the first day since the accident which I rode my bike. I'm a bit tender, but I took it easy and made sure I didn't do anything incredibly stupid (no more than usual) (and my doctor was kinda pissed at my definition of short compared to his definition of short). Of course this means my short bike ride to the coffee-shop was a bit slower than usual, but still a fantastic day for such an excursion.

Several weeks ago while I was still gimping around the house with a cane I had an overwhelming urge for kosheri, but I wanted to determine if I could make the sauce in a slow cooker. By the drool currently running down my chin thinking about the sauce, I know I was more than successful, I think I actually improved upon the recipe. If you don't know what kosheri is from one of my earliest blog entries, it Egyptian soul food: a starch fest including rice, pasta, chickpeas, lentils, vermicelli, fried onions, and chili oil all covered in a slow cooked tomato sauce. This stick to your ribs dish is perfect to make when you have to feed a lot of people on the cheap, guaranteed to fill any teenager in two bowls.

Slow Cooker Kosheri Sauce


Tools:
Small slow cooker
Cutting Board
Knife
Potato Masher
Slotted Spoon that won't ruin your slow cooker.

Ingredients:
1 large onion and 1 small onion, diced.
1 head of garlic, roughly chopped.
1/2 cup of good olive oil (I'm a fan of Spanish Olive Oil)
4 8 ounce cans of cheap tomato sauce (By cheap, I mean the supermarket plain label brand that has no extra flavors added in, like spices or other veggies. You want this sauce as plain as possible to absorb the awesome flavors you are creating. I use the Kroger white label brand of tomato sauce.)
2 8 ounce cans of water (I fill all four cans to the halfway point and slosh it around to get all the tomato sauce out)
4 heaping tablespoons of cumin (If you have a fantastic Middle Eastern grocery nearby, get your cumin from them! Seriously, It'll be about the same price but a million times better flavor!)
1 tablespoon of parsley.

Before you even get started, I need to point out this is a 48 hour recipe in the slow cooker, you can't rush this for it to be perfect. And the best part of this recipe is that your house will smell FANTASTIC the entire time you cook it.

Get the slow cooker out, plug it in, and set it to "low." Chop the onion and garlic up and add it to the slow cooker. Pour the olive oil over the veggies, then close the lid. Now walk away for 24 hours. And I'm not insane, this is how long you will want to do this! Right now what you're doing is caramelizing the onions and garlic in the slow cooker, releasing all the natural juices. In about an hour you will start to drool as your home fills with one of the most holy smells in all of creation. The urge to toast some bread and smother the garlic/onions on it will be tempting, but resist! RESIST!!!!!

Alright, every 6-10 hours go visit your slow cooker with that spoon and mix everything. What you are aiming for is a brown coloring in the onions and garlic as they slowly dissolve into tastiness. If your slow cooker is cooking it too fast, feel free to turn it off every so often, you do NOT want to burn the onions and garlic, it will leave a horrible bitter flavor in your sauce that no one will enjoy.

After it has cooked for 24 hours, get out your potato masher and genitally smash the onion and garlic into a mash. You don't have to press hard, and you'll barely have to press at all to turn the garlic/onion into a liquid.

Pour in all the tomato sauce, cumin, and parsley into the slow cooker. Add water to each can to help you get the last of the tomato sauce out of them, and then rinse the potato masher off with the water, into the crock pot. Stir until everything is mixed, and then seal the slow cooker for another 24 hours. This will let all of those flavors meld into bliss. Every so often (every 6-8 hours or so) open the slow cooker and mix it with your spoon.

And this, my friends, is my kosheri sauce, version 2.0. I will still make my original sauce, but this sauce is FAR superior in every way to the first. There's something about slow cooking that makes all the difference.

Well until next time, eat well!

Bien Camino!

PS: the title of this post is a quote from my upcoming book, The Zombie's Diary, which should be out soon.