Crock Pot Dinners

The hour between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. can be one of the WORST hours of the day! You have just picked up the kids, you are home, and now the daunting task of dinner! You start rummaging through the fridge, pantry and realize everything you have will take too much prep time and there are screaming children in your living room. Cereal it is!!! All of this can be avoided if you invest in a crock pot! They can be your best friend! I learned this from my mother and it has saved my life.

You can cook anything in a crock pot. My favorite thing to do is when going to the store by a beef roast, turkey breast, whole chickens, Cornish game hens, hams, and others of the like. You also need to invest in some onions, fresh garlic, carrots, browning bags(for crock pots) and a few bottles of cooking sherry. What I do is, when I get all these items home, I prepare meals for days and weeks at a time. I put, for example, a rump roast in the browning bag, chop some onions, a few cloves of garlic, slice a few carrots and throw it all in the bag. Then, I toss that bag in the freezer. A day or week later before I leave for school around 7: 00 a.m. I take the browning bag out of the freezer, dump the bottle of cooking sherry in the bag, seal it, and put it in my crock pot on LOW and leave. Magically throughout the day all these flavors merry and the meat cooks. When you arrive home at 5:00 p.m. dinner is complete! I usually open a can of peas or green beans, and a package of instant potatoes to add to the meal. The BIG BONUS, inside the bag, are veggies and meat of course, and GRAVY for those potatoes!!! Strain off the juice and you can use as is or turn it into a creamy gravy with some flour and water in a skillet. VOILA! You spent about 10 minutes preparing a meal that tasted like it took all day!!! Use those paper plates and plastic forks and you have a well balanced simplified meal with your family.

Recently, at a book fair at school I bought a book titled CROCK POT - THE ORIGINAL SLOW COOKER RECIPES. Invest in one of these books and you have a mountain of meals that cook for you!

Many may ask, "What about cooking food while you are not home? Aren't you afraid of something catching on fire?" When used correctly crock pots can be one of the safest forms of cooking. Unlike pressure cookers and stove tops they are designed to stay on for long periods of time and can with stain the task of cooking for 10-12 hours at a time. My mother has done this for 30 years, at least once a week, and has NEVER encountered a problem! Unlike the pressure cooker, where we now have the infamous, "Exploding Dinner", these are safe!

If you do not own a crock pot, now is the time to invest in one! Or two!!!