Smothered Vegetables

I love my crockpot so much. I got it for seven dollars at Goodwill, and it makes cooking so easy - not a lot of cleanup, not too time-consuming, and my dorm room smells so very good by the end of the day. Smothered Vegetables is a variation on my mother's Smothered Steak recipe. I am a vegetarian, so smothered steak does not appeal to me, but these veggies sure do. Yummo.


You need: a can of diced tomatoes (I use no-sodium-added), frozen green beans, flour, soy sauce (I use low-sodium), salt, pepper, peppers and an onion.




You also need molasses but I forgot to put it in the picture. Please do not forget the molasses. It is essential. Also, this recipe is the only thing I use molasses for. I know I could make cookies with it, but I don't.


First, cut up your peppers. I just do them in strips, but if you want to dice them it's fine. Do what feels right.


Chop, chop, chop.


Dump them in your crockpot. They looks so festive and pretty! Full disclosure: I only used one green pepper and one red pepper in this batch, even though there is an extra green pepper in the ingredients picture. Again, just do what feels right. I was worried my crockpot would run out of room.


Add your chopped-up onion.


And some frozen green beans. I just looooooooooooove green beans. I eat them all the time.


To your veggies, add 1/3 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper.



Give it all a good mix to coat the veggies.


Now, dump in your can of tomatoes (undrained!).


Add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce...


...and two tablespoons of molasses. Do you like my nail polish? It's called "Electric Pink."


Give 'er a stir. As you can see, it just looks like messy vegetables. But in a few hours, oh how lovely and saucy and melded and delicious it will be!


Set your crockpot on low and leave it there for eight-ish hours.


(Time elapses)

Oh my. Oh my head. Look at this beautiful pot of deliciousness.


The vegetable juices and soy sauce and molasses have all turned in to the best sauce in the world, and the vegetables are all soft and mushy. This stuff is seriously like crack, except it's good for you. And not illegal.



I like to eat my smothered veggies over rice. They would also be good with some crusty bread for sopping up the sauce, or maybe even over noodles. Yum, yum yum. Please make these veggies.