Ethnic/Exotic Crock Pot Recipes?

[Katigre]

The only 'meat' DH and I cook with is poultry and seafood and we cook vegetarian 80% of the time. We have a crockpot and have only used it a few times in our 2 years of marriage. We just can't find recipes that we like! We don't enjoy typical 'american' style food (like meat and potatoes, carrots and celery type of taste) which is what most crock pot recipes tend to be.

Any suggestions/recipes for crock pot meals that are vegetarian or use a different set of flavors? (ethnic cuisine like mediterranean, latino and asian are what we mostly cook). Thanks in advance!

(cross-posted to vegetarianism b/c i didn't see the cookbook forum until now!)

[jujubnme]

I'd be interested in crock pot recipes too. My dh is definitely *not* a meat 'n' potatoes kind of guy. For easy one-pot dinners, Trader Joe's has some yummy simmer sauces of various ethnicities... Just saute onion, chicken, whatever veggies you want to include and then pour on the sauce. We also do a lot of curries from premade curry paste that also don't take too much fuss. Start like above and add curry paste and coconut milk (Thai) or water and canned tomatoes (Indian). Just put rice in the rice cooker, and you've got a meal .

[jenny_islander]

I like to mine Chili Dog's Kitchen (cdkitchen.com) for recipes; they have a great slow cooker section, including chicken with forty cloves of garlic, vegetarian lasagna, and tamale pie. (Just replace the layer of meat with a layer of seasoned beans.)

I just checked out Best-Ever Slow Cooker, One-pot & Casserole Cookbook by Catherine Atkinson and Jenni Fleetwood. It was published in London and has a fantastic selection of recipes from all over the world. Random selection from the slow-cooker chapters: Genoese minestrone (made with pesto); cheese-stuffed pears to serve as a light meal with salad; cannelloni Sorrentina style (stuffed with anchovy-seasoned ricotta); tarragon chicken in cider; root vegetable casserole with caraway dumplings; a bread pudding that tastes like blueberry muffins. There are tons of photos and all techniques and unusual ingredients are explained. It's a huge book, however--you could put a kid on it to raise him up at the dinner table--so be sure that you have space on your counter!