Simple Slow Cooker Stew

It's another gloomy grey day here, so I wanted a good southern stew to warm up my mood. I don't use my Crockpot very often, but on a day like today, where I'm planning on getting a lot done around the house, it's a good way to "multitask", aka letting it do all the work. I'm making a sweet potato, white bean, and kale stew.
Here's what's up: Put on Cat Power's You Are Free, and start cooking.

• olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• one medium onion
• 1.5 lbs sweet potatoes
• 30 oz cannellini beans
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 14.5 oz undrained diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 bunch chopped greens (I used kale, but you could use collard, mustard, etc)

I added a tablespoon of olive oil to the crockpot, on high heat, and tossed in 2 minced garlic cloves, and one chopped medium-sized yellow onion. Next, I scrubbed up my sweet potatoes and cut them into 1-inch pieces. You can peel them if you like, but I'm partial to the skins.  Put them in the crockpot and also add about 30 oz of cannellini beans (I cheated and used canned beans, I wasn't feeling quick-cooking dried beans). If you also use canned beans, be sure to drain and rinse them well! Then I added 3 cups of water and 2 vegetable bouillon cubes. You could use 3 cups of vegetable broth/stock instead. Add the diced tomatoes with their juice. For seasoning, I threw in the remainder of the above spices. Don't add the greens yet!

Let this cook for about 4-6 hours on low, and get other stuff done. With about 30 minutes left, add your greens. Be patient for a little while longer, then serve it up with some fresh garlic bread! Yum!

Meanwhile, you should probably go ahead and make a really unhealthy and mouthwatering dessert. I'm making some chocolate peanut butter pretzel bars, for which I would appreciate a better and shorter name. Give me your suggestions! These are really easy, especially so since I decided to forgo making my own crust, and went with a no bake option. I switched to Kim Doo Soo's International Sad Hits, Vol. 1: Altaic Language Group for this recipe. Here's what you need:

• an 8"x8" pan
• graham crackers
• 11.5 oz dark chocolate chips
• 3/4 c unsweetened almond milk (you can use regular milk, or soy milk, or whatever)
• 2.5 c chopped peanut butter pretzel sandwiches

THAT'S IT. Seriously. Line your pan with the one layer of graham cracker squares. Taste test a few for good measure. You can see that I got a little creative with the shapes.

Create a bain marie by putting a slighty smaller sauce pan into a larger one that has a few inches of simmering water. Add the chocolate chips to the smaller pan and slowly melt them down. It's probably a good idea to try a few of them first, just to make sure they are delicious enough ;) Whisk in the milk.

Fold in the pretzel sandwich bits, and spread the whole mixture evenly over the graham crackers.

Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Eat and die of scrumptious overload. It's seriously that easy. (Also, I can't lie, I totally added a tiny dash of ground cayenne pepper to the chocolate as it was melting. I couldn't help myself!) Look at this goodness: