By Katie Leslie

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If my fridge is preparing for a hard winter; my body is getting ready for famine.

It didn’t take Elissa and me long into our slow-cooking journey to realize that just because it simmers all day doesn’t mean it needs four tablespoons of butter and a cup of cream to be good. We also learned we have to trust our gut when it comes to questionable ingredients.

The fat fiesta that broke our expanding backs? Elissa’s King Ranch Casserole, made with the following basic ingredients: butter, cheese, sour cream, butter and more cheese. Oh, and some chicken.

She prepared this hot mess by boiling and shredding the poultry at 8 a.m. before work. (She astutely notes that smelling meat — except bacon — in the morning is wrong on a number of levels.) And because her crockpot doesn’t have a timer, she had to come home midday to flip the switch. Wasn’t slow-cooking supposed to save time? And what about all of the prep work and browning and stove-top cooking many of these recipes require before pouring into the slow cooker?

This is like Slow-Cooking for the Complicated Soul. Or Cooking Made Complicated by a Slow-Cooker. Or Complicated Slow-Cooking for Lazy Ladies.

But back to King Ranch ...

“There it was, a bubbling casserole that looked like you might just have a heart attack if you ate it,” Elissa said. “It tasted good, but not great. It just needed something, but I don’t know what because I can’t cook.”

We tried to remedy the cheesy yellowy wonder with tortilla chips, hot sauce, even salsa. Nothing really helped. No matter our efforts, it still was a dish you eat and somewhat enjoy, but feel dirty inside afterward. Like you need a grapefruit to cleanse your tummy, which is what Elissa did after dinner.

As she put it: Something we thought was going to be a guilty pleasure ended up a guilty guilt.

My petite partner talked me off the ledge when I nervously wondered whether we had picked the wrong cookbook in “Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever With More Than 400 Easy-to-Make Recipes” by Dianne Phillips. She then confided that she picked our first week’s worth of recipes while hungry, perhaps subconsciously picking fatty comfort foods

Thankfully, author Dianne Phillips had plenty of healthier choices than King Ranch, such as a tasty-looking Tomato, Zucchini and Leek Gratin that Elissa prepared later in the week. Elissa was attracted to the recipe because it required no cooking in advance.

She assembled the dish the night before to save time. All systems seemed a go for this healthy dish, with just one problem: The recipe called for a questionable amount of salt. And by questionable, we mean so outlandish it had to be a typo. How much? Three tablespoons of salt. Tablespoons!

“I knew it was wrong when I was doing it. ... But I did it, because, customarily, when I am in the kitchen, I get anxiety about keeping things going on different burners and chopping things and mixing, so I often throw out the rules and end up with something weird,” Elissa said.

She brought the dish to my home the next night and we cooked it on high for three hours. It didn’t smell that great to either of us, but we’ll eat anything. So I thought. Keep in mind that while she mentioned to me it called for a lot of salt, I didn’t realize the depth of the error.

As soon as the spoon hit our mouths, we knew it was tragically wrong. I couldn’t eat it. Elissa ate a whole bowl of the gratin, not wanting to give in to this mistake.

We learned a valuable lesson from this dish, and not just about ingredients. As Elissa said, she was wrong for doubting her instincts.

“I do this sometimes with my photography. Anytime I don’t listen to myself, it results in a bad photo. Anytime I don’t go with my instincts, it seems forced, fake and wrong,” she said. “This dish was all of these things. Maybe this is what this project is all about. Perhaps in some way, the confidence I gain from cooking will translate to the rest of my life. Follow the rules, but always listen to that little voice inside your head. And, most importantly, taste everything along the way.”

For recipes and to follow Elissa and Katie’s daily slow-cooking adventure, log on to blogs.ajc.com/holiday-guide/ .