Slow Cooker Tomato Sauce

I'd been wanting to try making tomato sauce in the slow cooker. It's so easy and you get a really rich tomato flavor. 

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup

So my slow cooker is my new toy, hence the multiple slow cooker posts this week. This soup is super easy, tasty, and healthy. I've frozen it in individual lunch size servings so I can just pop it in the microwave at work. It made five individual servings. (Got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen.)

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
2 medium size red onions, chopped
1 medium size red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium size green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tsp ground cumin
1 16-oz package dried black beans
1 tbsp chopped chipotle chiles, from a can
7 cups hot water
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Slow Cooker Dal Makhani

When we were in India, Jamie and I fell in love with dal makhani. It's a black lentil dish that's rich and creamy and perfect when sopped up with fresh garlic naan. When I got the new slow cooker, I did some googling and found a recipe for dal makhani using a slow cooker. It's a time commitment, but not labor intensive. You just need to start the night before you want to eat, and you need to have a lot of spices. The ingredient list pretty intimidating. (If you don't have all this stuff and live in New York, go to Kalustyan's - they have EVERYTHING. You can also order online.) I served this with some vegetable jalfrezi and chicken tikka with raita, mint-cilantro chutney, and naan. I can't wait for dinner tonight to eat the leftovers.

Serves 6
Ingredients:
1 cup urad saboot (whole, unskinned black lentils)
1/2 cup red kidney beans
2 tbsp chana dal
2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter), if you don't have any, you can just use butter and skim off the milk solids form the top
1 1/2 tsp salt (more to taste)
4 cups water
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
1 tsp cumin