Crockpot Cooking

For as long as I can remember in my adult life I have owned a crockpot for several reasons. I've always worked and my commutes usually average anywhere from an hour to 2 1/2 hours one way. With that kind of commute it doesn't leave a lot of time for meals and meal preparation. Since soup and sandwiches get old after awhile I use my crockpot on an average of twice a week.

There are a lot of recipes that requires a long cooking time so those are the ones that I like to adapt for crockpot cooking. The important thing that you have to remember is things cooked in a crockpot normally don't require that alot of water since the meats will create some juices as it cooks.

To make chili in the crockpot brown ground beef and drain. The put in the crockpot with tomato sauce, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, and I use the two alarm chili kit. It has all the spices and is premeasured for a full crockpot of chili so you need to do is add it. I don't usually use the mesa flour though and only a little of the red pepper. All you need to do when you get home is cook rice or spaghetti if you like to put your chili on something. Or eat it just as a soup. I love to top mine with cheese and let it melt.

For an easy Italian chicken recipe I put chicken pieces in the crockpot and top with pasta sauce and let cook for 8 hours. Very delicious! For pulled pork just cook your tenderloin with some bay leafs and crushed red pepper for 8 hours and then pull the tenderloin apart with a fork and add your bar-b-que sauce. I also created a beef stew recipe that I think is very good and super easy! Just put a pound of beef stew meat cut up into bite sized pieces, 2 cups of mixed vegetables, 3 potatoes diced and 2 cans of vegetable broth and a package of beef stew seasoning mix. Let cook for 8 hours and eat! I've also used my crockpot to cook corn and baked potatoes in the summer. Don't use foil to wrap your corn in! When I tried it when unwrapped the corn had a brown look to it and it tasted funny so we ended up throwing it out. I've been reading where some folks cook the corn the husks. I haven't tried it yet but intend to. I've also make dry lima beans in the crockpot. Those normally take a long time to cook. Let beans soak overnight and then cook in the crockpot all day. Add a ham bone or ham hock for flavoring and some vegetable broth instead of water. If anyone has any crockpot recipes they'd like to share I'd love to hear them and if anyone has cooked their corn in the husks using their crockpots I'd love to hear that too!