Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Crock Pot Love

First of all, let me say how happy I am that Shannon from Rocks in My Dryer is back from her blogging hiatus, and therefore we have the return of Works for Me Wednesday! Hooray!

Now...on to my current life hack...
Right now life is hectic. Chip and I both work until almost (if not after) 5:00 every day. By the time we pick up Patrick from school, it is at least 5:45 when we get home, so that is a terrible time to start cooking a nice dinner most nights. Sure it works for some quickies like tacos and such, but for the most part, there are not a lot of meals to prepare, cook, and serve that we can finish before 8:00.
Suddenly I had an epiphany...we own a crock pot. Of course I was limited in the recipes that I had, and although I love my super duper easy pork chop recipe (chops in crock, cover with Italian dressing, add chopped onions, cook, add green peppers 45 minutes from end), we certainly can't have them every night.
What did I find? This super blog called A Year of CrockPotting. Stephanie has made a new year's resolution to use her crock pot everyday of 2008. It's awesome. There are a lot of things you can make in a crock pot that I was unaware of (like meatloaf!). So this last week we have tried the following recipes: Peppercorn Steak, our beloved pork chops that I mentioned above, Bacon and Cheese Chicken (which I messed up by my own error! GRRR) and tonight is Chicken Cordon Bleu. Yummm.
The site has details of the preparation, ingredients, pictures of prep and finished product, and a review of each recipe via her family. She is a health nut, so you can guarantee if the recipe isn't to her personal standard, she will give you an alternative to make it more healthy. She carries a lot of ethnic choices as well, such as Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, TexMex, Mexican, and others and even some vegetarian meals...so you can find something to spice up the evening and fit any taste!
Seriously...go check her out. I am loving this site!
So at our house, the prep work is done in the morning...none of which has taken more than 15 minutes yet, the last person out the door for us turns the crock pot on low, and we arrive home to a meal that just needs a side or so added. It's wonderful and with our current schedules, leaving a healthy meal followed by time to do stuff as a family before bedtime. So right now, it really works for me! Thanks, Stephanie!

12 comments:

  1. I have been reading that site every day for about the whole year! I love it! i have yet to make anything from in, but its still pretty cool!

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  2. Hi Kaye, thank you for this wonderful write-up! I'm so glad that I can be of any help to your family. I'm happy to spread that crockpot love. :-)
    xoxo
    steph

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  3. Thanks for this link. We are looking for easier ways to make good dinners too! I'll be checking it out!

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  4. Love her site, and Love my crockpot.

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  5. Oh I am so definitely checking this site out! Thanks for the comment and the tip!!

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  6. thanks for this great tip.

    Crock pots are great!

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  7. My crockpot is at this very moment cooking a pot roast with all the trimmings. I've been thinking about it all day and can hardly wait to get home for dinner! With both of us having full time jobs and heading up a ministry in addition to that, dinner prep is something that has become tedious. I just said last night that I need more recipes for the crockpot! I can hardly wait to try some of the things from this site. Thank you SO much for including it in WFMW!

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  8. Oh, thank you for this! I love crockpotting but have no clue what I'm doing with the thing.

    I'm so thankful I posted about it on my own blog - giving credit to you, of course.

    Thanks so much for sharing! :)

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  9. Ok- that is one cool site! Thank you so much for posting! I am also a working mom and serving my family real meals makes me feel so good but it's pretty tough sometimes. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. I am a big fan of Stephanie's blog! And she has such a great name too (hint, hint, you'll never guess my real name,lol).

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  11. I love my crockpot, too, even if I don't use it as often as I ought. If you find any frugally-priced copies around, I love "The Busy Woman's Slow Cooker Cookbook." The magazine "Quick Cooking," that Reiman Publications put out for a while (I can't see that it exists anymore -- too bad) also had a lot of quick recipes, including ones feauturing "kitchen tools" like the crockpot and the microwave -- that's the way I cook stroganoff, for example.

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  12. I love that site! If you like curry, try the Indian Chicken Curry recipe she got from Rachael Ray. It's delicious!

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