Yeah it's pretty hard to mess it up too much. Keep in mind that because the oils from herbs and spices aren't boiled away like they would be in an open pot, you can use less. But I find that I often love the richer herb flavors you get from using a crock pot or pressure cooker, and don't want to cut down on them at all.

I eat lentil soup made this way all the time, either by itself, or throwing in chicken or sausage. It comes out great. I'll often throw chunks of potatoes in, but find that rice tends to dull the flavor of the soup. Some people would also just prefer bread on the side, or to eat the soup as is and avoid too many starches.

Pea soup and chili are also great to make in SC's or PC's. And if you cook a chicken this way, the herbs tend to really pass their flavor on to the flesh.

Here's about how I do my lentil soup most often, off the top of my head. It's really off the top of my head from experience though, so you'll have to vary depending on the size of your crockpot or pressure cooker. This is for an 8-quart cooker.

1 pound of dried brown lentils, soaked from the night before
1/2 pound of dried northern white beans, soaked from the night before
2 large yellow onions, roughly chopped or diced
4 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
Fresh celery leaves, chopped fine
4 carrots, chopped horizontally(so you get circles)
2 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced(too much can make me gassy)
1 big ass can of tomatoes, with sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
Two tablespoons dried thyme
Water to cover, plus a little extra for the pot

Optional:
2 to 3 russet potatoes, cubed to easy bite size
1 pound of uncooked chicken, diced OR
1/4 to 1/2 pound turkey sausage, sliced very thin
(Note: you can use both meats, but then your soup can become very meat-heavy)
Tofu, diced

Optional spices/flavorings:
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
White pepper
Hot sauce of choice
Soy sauce

Throw it all in the pot and cook at low heat for 8 to 12 hours, depending what setting you have. Save salt and pepper for after everything is cooked, as pepper can become bitter when cooked and salt can, they say, toughen beans during cooking. The soup may come out fairly thick, so you can eat it like a stew if you like, or add more water. I often put some in a bowl and add some water, but store the rest in the fridge or freezer without more water to take up room. It can always be added later.

The basic recipe is very happy to be played with. You can add more thyme, or garlic, or dose the heck out of it with pepper. You can add garlic powder if you don't have fresh garlic, or to top the flavors off, but it makes a lot of gas in a dish that already has beans in it, so caution is in order. Fresh cooked garlic tastes better and isn't nearly as gassy, FWIW. It's especially good with white pepper or freshly ground black pepper. You can also add more canned tomatoes instead of water to provide liquid, if your cooker has room. Also, a half or full small can of tomato paste can do a lot to punch up the tomato flavor.

As always with soups, you can get more flavor from your starters -- onions, garlic, celery, and carrots -- if you saute them a bit first, especially if you let the onions begin to get a little caramelization. It's not necessary, but a nice touch occasionally. Newbie cooks be warned though -- even a little bit of burnt stuff in your soup will wreck the flavor. If you actually burn anything, throw it out.

This is also a soup that is good to make as if it were a side dish and add body to it later if you want to make a meal. Meaning, you can leave the meat and/or potatoes out and just cook some up and add them to the soup later, if desired. Saving those steps for later means you wind up doing much more work, but can let you store up much more in the fridge/freezer so you can have a light meal or snack instead of a heavy one sometimes. The lentils and beans will still give you good protein regardless. Your choice.

General soup tip: water-rich stuff like onions and celery and even tomatoes tend to bulk up a pot before you cook them, then surrender their liquid to the soup and cook down much smaller. Onions can almost disappear, which you may or may not like. So, if you want a more dense or perhaps more flavorful soup or stew, you can overpack your pot or slowcooker a bit with water-rich ingredients, as experience shows you, and not overflow the pot. You may or may not want to reduce the amount of water or stock you might have been adding, to compensate. Conversely, don't be surprised if an action packed pot full of ingredients cooks down to something a little thinner than you had expected. Finally, sometimes you want to add stuff late in the game and so really need some space in the pot. Seafood is a good example, as it is often best when cooked only a few minutes.

I think Pasta is being vilified in this thread. White spaghetti has a low glycemic index(30-40) and insulin index(40) where 100/100 is white bread. Even apples for example score a 50/60, oranges 40/60. Cook the pasta al dente to minimize glycemic and insulin responses. The main problem I have with pasta is caloric density--very easy to overeat if you're not mindful.

I can feel the surge of sugars in my blood after eating pasta. It gets me sleepy. It's also the thing that can put fat on me far faster than anything else, except maybe, and just maybe, beer.

If you eat a ton of pasta in a sitting, it's going to spike your blood sugar and insulin, just like any other type of carbohydrate. But gram for gram the responses are low. Pasta has been tested extensively for its glycemic and insulinemic properties, the data is reliable.

No offense, but I don't trust anecdotal reports like yours, especially where the placebo effect and confirmation bias might creep in.

Blarg,

When you eat pasta you're likely consuming far more carbs than at any other meal you eat.

Yeah. That's why I keep it to a minimum. I can get a bit of the same feeling from eating a lot of rice, but the insulin call-out from pasta is off the charts for me. Plus, when I eat pasta, most of the things with it will tend to be high fat and high calorie too, like cheese and butter and fatty meats.

I have to agree with the lentil soup. Its excellent and only tastes better the longer it sits. Mine looks something like this.

1.5 to 2lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
1 onion diced
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup uncooked red lentils (no need to soak)
4 cups chicken stock
1 can tomato puree
5 cups baby spinach
1 container trader joes european style yogurt
salt, pepper, herbs, spices

Brown the cubed chicken with the onion and garlic. Add the stock, lentils, and tomato puree. Bring to boil then simmer for 45mins. Add spinach, S&P, herbs & spices and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add tempered yogurt. I like to eat mine with hotsauce.

Also an enchilada torte

2 lbs lean ground turkey
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 large can diced tomatoes
2 or 3 cans enchilada sauce (I like to use green, but red works as well)
1 can black beans
shredded cheese
6 Mission "Carb Balance" Tortillas (10g net carbs)
chili poweder
cumin or taco seasoning
S&P

Brown ground turkey with onion and garlic, add can of tomatoes, spices, let simmer 5 minutes. Grease a 9x13 baking pan with a little olive oil. Layer 2 tortillas, then the turkey, then black beans, then cheese and enchilada sauce. Repeat for second layer. Top with last 2 tortillas, enchilada sauce and cheese. Bake @ 400 degrees until brown and bubbly (about 1 hour).

Also, buy a Black & Decker food steamer. Got mine at Sears. They are the most awesome thing ever. I have some asparagus cooking in one right now.

Those folding metal steamer inserts you can get for a few bucks at a grocery store are also pretty darn useful. You can put them in a regular pot or in a rice cooker to steam stuff.

Never thought about putting yoghurt in a lentil soup before. It seems you can add almost anything to a lentil soup and have it come out well, though, so now I'm intrigued. I still have a couple bowls of lentil soup in the fridge, so I think I'll try that on one of them.

Another tip on lentil soup is that squeezing some lemon juice into it right before serving and then stirring it in can really brighten up the flavors a lot. Other acids will do, too, like a bit of vinegar, but lemon juice is better.

I use unsweetened cocoa powder in my chili, definitely adds good flavor. Peppers+Chocolate is an old school flavor combo that goes back to the Aztecs IIRC.

I also absolutely think that chili peppers should be used and not chili powder. "Chili" is a shortening of chile con carne -- peppers with meat. 4 peppers per pound of meat is a good amount. I usually use a mix of milder(big) peppers like pasilla and hotter(small) peppers like habanero.

When I use beans, I like black beans the best. Normally I make bean free chili, though and I don't use any vegetables besides peppers and tomatoes.

Also, FYI the new Cook's Illustrated (Soups and Stews) has a fine article on chile con carne.

I haven't seen this issue yet (I take old copies from my parents every once in a while, since they subscribe) but I just want to say that this is probably one of the best periodicals you could read. Not necessarily for recipes, but just to learn about cooking techniques and methods.

They actually have a book called The Best Soups & Stews that I bought a few weeks ago. Recommended, like all of the stuff from these guys I've seen or gotten. One thing about the above book though -- to make something "the best" sometimes requires some extra steps and a good bit of equipment. But with many recipes, you can do less complex versions and still come out with decent results.

chili with ground turkey is pretty much the nuts for something that makes great leftovers.

hardest part of getting in 5/6 quality meals per day if you work full time is cooking in advance, but not getting sick of the same old stuff.

i had to give much love for this. i just did a variation of this, and it came out great. this is from someone with little to no cooking skills, super easy.

this is what i did, but basically the same thing

in crock pot. added
1 can tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of black bean
1 can of pinto beans

i browned lean ground beef, drained added to crock pot.

diced up 1 onion and 1 green pepper, and sauteed, till it got a bit carmelized. used olive oil for this. added to crock pot.

seasoned to taste with salt pepper, and chilli peppers, didn't have any garlic, but i probably will throw that in with the peppers and onions, next time, and whatever crazy spices i pick up.

covered and slow cooked for about 6-7 hours.

thanks again. i will probably try this out with ground turkey or maybe buffalo next time.

As non masculine as this magazine is, I subscribe to Taste of Home's Light and Tasty. My mom got my a subscription last year and it's amazing, comes out every two months, usually 80 or so recipes of really really good food that you can easily make in large bunches, check out the Jamaican Beef Stew from this month. Not sure if all the magazine recipes are on the website, but worth checking out.

http://www.lightandtasty.com/