Crock Pots: The Busy Cook's Friend!
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Coming Home To a Fuss-Free Hot Meal
I love to cook, and I love to provide my family with a good homecooked meal, but I find afternoons my busiest time. After half a day of homeschooling kids, working and house cleaning, and with an evening of errands, chauffering children to activities, volunteering and classes, it's hard for me-- time-wise or energy-wise-- sometimes to hault everything and start cooking in the middle of a busy day, and daunting to think about the clean up. The fast food drive-throughs and frozen pizzas are all too tempting to use.
That's why I fell in love with crock pots. I find it much more convenient to wake up 20 minutes earlier and start my cooking in the morning, or spend 20 minutes before bedtime throwing together ingredients that I can refrigerate overnight and just throw in the crock pot in the morning.
I love coming home in the middle of the afternoon with the kids and being able to sit down with them for a half hour or so to talk, or have my coffee and read a book, then serve out a nice, hot, reasonably healthy, ready-made, home cooked dinner for us to eat together.
I also love having clean-up as easy as just having a few things to throw into the dish washer, rather than pots and pans to scour, a counter to sanitize, a floor to mop and a stove-top to scrub (okay, I admit it, normally I'm a messy cook, which makes one-pot counter-top cooking all the better).
As my crock pot collection has grown, my crock pot uses have extended past the dinner table. I have started enjoying waking up to crock-pot breakfasts, desserts, heating leftovers for hot lunches, making holiday side dishes, sauces, gravies, and one of my new missions in life is to perfect baking in the crock pot.
That's why I fell in love with crock pots. I find it much more convenient to wake up 20 minutes earlier and start my cooking in the morning, or spend 20 minutes before bedtime throwing together ingredients that I can refrigerate overnight and just throw in the crock pot in the morning.
I love coming home in the middle of the afternoon with the kids and being able to sit down with them for a half hour or so to talk, or have my coffee and read a book, then serve out a nice, hot, reasonably healthy, ready-made, home cooked dinner for us to eat together.
I also love having clean-up as easy as just having a few things to throw into the dish washer, rather than pots and pans to scour, a counter to sanitize, a floor to mop and a stove-top to scrub (okay, I admit it, normally I'm a messy cook, which makes one-pot counter-top cooking all the better).
As my crock pot collection has grown, my crock pot uses have extended past the dinner table. I have started enjoying waking up to crock-pot breakfasts, desserts, heating leftovers for hot lunches, making holiday side dishes, sauces, gravies, and one of my new missions in life is to perfect baking in the crock pot.
Crock Pot Cooking Tips
GENERAL TIPS
- IMPORTANT: AVOID EXTREME TEMPERATURE FLUCTUATIONS
Never put a hot crock pot stoneware basin or glass cover onto a cool counter top, sink, or submerge in cold water. It can shatter from stress! Likewise, never put a cold crock pot stoneware basin that has been holding frozen things for a while into a hot heating unit or oven suddenly. Warm it gradually.
MAKING COOKING QUICK AND EASY
- Dice or cube bell peppers and onions and store them in baggies in your fridge. Whenever you cook in your crockpot, to add a bit of flavor, just chip off the amount you need for the pot.
- Keep chopped garlic in a jar and jars of roasted red peppers on hand.
- Pre-cut or pre-measuer your meat when you come home from the grocery store so you can freeze it in crock pot ready portions.
- Keep the fridge stocked with bags varieties of frozen vegetables.
- Keep the pantry stocked with lots of pre-mixed dried seasonings: Goza Sazon packets, old bay seasoning, barbecue seasoning, italian blend, chinese 5 spice, etc., that can be used with just about any meat or vegetable. Makes for a fast "grab, throw in and go" morning.
- Keep your pantry stocked with lots of cans of broth, tomato sauce, canned or jarred gravy and condensed soups, again for easy "grab, throw in and go" days.
- IMPORTANT: AVOID EXTREME TEMPERATURE FLUCTUATIONSNever put a hot crock pot stoneware basin or glass cover onto a cool counter top, sink, or submerge in cold water. It can shatter from stress! Likewise, never put a cold crock pot stoneware basin that has been holding frozen things for a while into a hot heating unit or oven suddenly. Warm it gradually.
MAKING COOKING QUICK AND EASY
- Dice or cube bell peppers and onions and store them in baggies in your fridge. Whenever you cook in your crockpot, to add a bit of flavor, just chip off the amount you need for the pot.
- Keep chopped garlic in a jar and jars of roasted red peppers on hand.
- Pre-cut or pre-measuer your meat when you come home from the grocery store so you can freeze it in crock pot ready portions.
- Keep the fridge stocked with bags varieties of frozen vegetables.
- Keep the pantry stocked with lots of pre-mixed dried seasonings: Goza Sazon packets, old bay seasoning, barbecue seasoning, italian blend, chinese 5 spice, etc., that can be used with just about any meat or vegetable. Makes for a fast "grab, throw in and go" morning.
- Keep your pantry stocked with lots of cans of broth, tomato sauce, canned or jarred gravy and condensed soups, again for easy "grab, throw in and go" days.
Great Crocks!
Crock pots you'll love
Crockpot Cooking Tips: Meat
Cooking meat in your crock pot
-crockpots stew meats, rather than brown or sear them. If you like your meat browned or seared, you can throw it in a pan for a few minutes on each side before placing them in the pot, or you can put them under the broiler for a few minutes after they come out of the crock pot.- Chicken skins: I usually love them crispy, but that's not easy to do in a crock pot so often I'll just use skinless. Accidentally I discovered that if they are out of the liquid and flat against aluminum foil, they get sort of crisp- I have to experiment with this more, so more to come.
- If you don't have a wire rack to elevate meats, use balled up tinfoil to raise them out of the fat drippings.
- Because crock pots cook so slowly, evaporation is cut down, so they require much less liquids than you would put in a stove-top pot. Reduce your liquids in your recipes at the start of cooking, and add more when needed.
CafePress For Foodies
Great gifts or fun kitchen items for people who love to cook!
Crock Pot Cooking Tips: Vegetables
Cooking Veggies in a Crockppot
- If you want crisp-tender veggies, throw them in the last hour or so to avoid over-cooking them.- to keep meat juices from mixing with vegetables, place your veggies in a foil pouch (add your butter or seasonings), seal and tuck into the pot on the side.
- For defrost-free, fuss-free meals, take your frozen leftover veggie stews out of the freezer and dump them in the crock pot in the morning; they'll thaw and cook.
- For a quick and hearty veggie stew, keep bags of frozen veggies in the house. Dump in an assortment; add a can of tomato soup and some of your favorite seasonings. Let it go on low all day.
- Want more flavor? Saute or roast your veggies a few minutes before adding them to the crock pot.
eBay for Foodies
Try My Recipes
Click links to view my published recipes on-line.
- Ground Beef Recipes
- Easy American Sheperd's Pie; Versatile Spanish-Style Beef Filling; Autumn Soup; Broccoli & Beef Casserole.
- Easy Chicken Recipes
- Orange Chicken with Onions; Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches; Versatile Spanish-Style Chicken Filling
- Complete Lemon Chicken & All The Fixings One-Pot Meal
- This is a favorite of mine-- Chicken, stuffing and veggies, cooked together in one pot but remaining separate.
- 5 Side Dishes For Holiday Meals
- These are some of my favorite holiday side dishes because they are easy, and those classic flavors and ingredients everyone in my family seems to love. If I'm doing the cooking, I have several crock pot side dishes going; if not, I tote one of these along. Always a hit.
Crock Pot Accessories
Leave Your Calling Card!
I'd love to hear from you.
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poutine
May 7, 2009 @ 2:17 pm | delete
- I don't know about you, but I find that the food cooked in a crockpot
has a strange "TASTE".
I don't use it very often.
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JaguarJulie Feb 17, 2009 @ 4:46 pm | delete
- I love cooking with a crockpot and have 3 different sizes of crockpots! The largest one is oval and can accommodate a turkey if I decided to cook one in it. So far, I haven't -- but use the crockpot to keep stuff warm when we have tailgating parties or when I make my much-requested chili!
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OhMe Jan 7, 2009 @ 1:09 pm | delete
- Our Cock pot is over 30 years old and still works great but I don't use it near enough. You have inspired me. I am going to start using it more and may even break down and get a new one. Great job on this lens.
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KimGiancaterino Sep 22, 2008 @ 3:02 pm | delete
- Very nice lens. I love my rice cooker, but need to get a crock pot. Welcome to Culinary Favorites From A to Z (and to Squidoo!)
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EverythingMouse Sep 19, 2008 @ 10:08 am | delete
- Welcome to Squidoo! A crock pot is a great idea. I have recently bought one and now am enjoying trying out lots of new recipes. Thanks for the resource!
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My Favorite Crock Pot Sites
- About.com-- Crock Pot Baking
- Recently found this and planning to try some recipes & tips soon.
- A Crock Cook
- Great info, great recipes.
- Family Crockpot Recipes
- Just lots of good info.
by M_S_Beltran
I'm a regular mom-- always busy. Raising and homeschooling kids, working, volunteering... anything that makes family life easier interests me.
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Little Dipper Crock Pot
Crock-Pot 32041-C 16-Ounce Little Dipper, Chrome
Amazon Price: $11.67 (as of 05/31/2012)
This little pot is excellent for parties. Melt chocolate, cheeses, gravies or sauces and keep them hot for the whole event; or have a fondue party!
Crock Pot Cook Book
Crock-Pot Best-Loved Slow Cooker Recipes
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Take the guesswork out of crock pot cooking with tried-and-true recipes.
Fix-It And Forget-It Big Cookbook: 1400 Best Slow Cooker Recipes
Amazon Price: $15.00 (as of 05/31/2012)
