I went searching on amazon.com for a good crockpot cookbook, but it seems that most people review them as having too much comfort food or condensed soup filled recipes with very little healthy ingredients.
Does anyone in the group have any good recipes for a medium sized crockpot? I'm one of those people that hate to cook in the evening and would prefer to start at noon and have it cook all afternoon and be ready for ALL of us to sit down in the evening.
Jenn, I LOVE the crockpot but I need to keep it healthy as well. Try a google search "healthy crock pot recipes" and you will find a bunch. I especially like this one:
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has this has their bestselling crock pot recipe book -- NotYour Mother's Slow Cooker CookbookDon't own it so I can't say but the reviews are impressive Padishar Creel
Hello Jenn, Here's a link that might help you find what you are looking for. I also love the crockpot. I use it often... I usually just put in it what I like, flavor it with Mrs. Dash and let it cook. That way there is no soup or high calorie items that I don't like. Lots of veggies and whatever meat (if any) slowly cooking all day. Have a Wonderful Day!
Jenn, last winter I went through a crock pot obsession and got 3 books that I use quite a bit.
The Gourmet Slow Cooker by Lynn Alley has great recipes, but require more than just "fix it & forget it" that crock pots were originally designed for.
The Everyday Low-Carb Slow Cooker Cookbook, by Kitty Broihier & Kimberly Mayone has good low carb recipes with nutrional info (I usually decrease the salt a lot in these recipes.
My most used is Slow Cookery printed by JG Press (I couldn't find an author, but the editor is Lynda J. Selden) has good recipes (a few duds) and nutrional info.
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:50:01 GMT, Jenn Vanderslice spewed forth :
Salt and pepper is assumed for the following.
Split pea soup is easy: Dump in a bag of dried split peas, add a bay leaf, half a chopped onion and a ham hock, fill with water, clap on the lid, cover with a towel, set on low, go.
Beef stew is a little more work but not by much. Flour and brown beef chunk, carmelize some onion in the same skillet, scrape it all into the crock. Add chopped carrots, bay leaf and other assorted seasonings to suit. If you can swing it put in the potato around noon the following day; overcrocked potato disintegrates :P Or, boil the potato separately after work and add it to the crock for a couple of hours so it can absorb the seasonings.
Red sauce: Two cans tomato paste, canned tomato to fill, Italian-type seasonings to suit.
Crockpot chicken: Line the bottom of the crock with sliced carrot, a rib of celery and some onion. Stuff in a bird ass-down. Crock on low, go. Toss in a bag of frozen peas when you get home. Siphon off the fat for use elsewhere, make pan gravy with hte juices, serve with noodles or biscuits and salad. Save the carcass for making stock.
Basically anything that you'd braise in the oven for hours or put on ultra-low heat on a back burner all day can work in a crockpot.
Rumor has it that one can make desserty-type items and breadish sorts of things in a crockpot but I've never been inclined to try.
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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...
I'm no expert (since I've never used one), but I'm sure you'll get the right answers by others who do have them and use them. From what I can remember from seeing them, and hearing about them... a crock pot is an electric cooking pot with a sealing lid. You put all your food inside, seal the lid on it, and set the timer to cook at whatever temperature for whatever length of time and the meal will be cooking while you are doing other things. :o)
Some people leave the crock pot turned on all day and come home after work to a cooked meal. I'm a little nervous about the idea of leaving something turned on while no one is home... I have visions of the house being burned down.
An electric pot that you use for cooking food for long periods of time at lower temperatures. It means that you can put the ingredients in the pot in the morning before you go to work, and when you come home, dinner is ready. Yum!
Chicken: put boneless, skinless chicken breasts in crockpot. Top with a can (or 2 - depends on the number of chicken breasts you use) of tomatoes. We like to use the mexican or basil tomatoes. Other items that can be added: mushrooms, onions, etc. Serve with rice, pasta or hot bread.
Roast: use a lean cut of beef or a roast. Add potatotes, carrots and a pkg of dry onion soup mix. add a couple of cups of water. A very lean cut of meat becomes real tender because of the slow cooking.
BBQ Brisket: Use brisket, trimmed. Add 1 pkg dry onion soup mix, 1 cup bbq sauce, 1 cup water.
Thank you Gemini, I thought it was some kind of pressure cooker but I'm with you on that one. I certainly wouldn't trust something like that working all by itself "alone at home". I don't even let my Christmas lights on when I go out or to bed. Really, the siren is not my favourite piece of music :-) But I guess I'm only being paranoid.
Perfect description of a crock pot, IMO. One caveat is they tell you in the fine print to not use as much spice as you would in a regular cooking pot or skillet. I really like to use my crock pot to make meatloaf. It comes out moist, and since it's cooked slowly, it's got excellent flavor.
My recipe calls for:
2 pounds of ground meat. I use ground turkey for less fat.
2 eggs
1/3 cup quick cooking oats
1/4 teaspoon dried garlic
1/2 tablespoon dried minced onion
1/2 cup ketchup divided in half
In a large bowl, you mix the meat with both eggs, oats, garlic, onion, and 1/2 the ketchup. Press it into the bottom of the crock. Cover the top with the remaining ketchup. Set crock on low and let cook 6-8 hours. This will also cook on high in 3-4 hours, depending on how crisp you like the outside, as the outside ring gets a little bit of crunch to it, though it doesn't seem too burned in our opinion. It makes for several hearty servings of meatloaf, which is also good sliced on bread for sandwiches the next day. I also add some other herbs, crush up a little dried parsley, thyme, sweet basil, and oregano in mine, probably 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of each; I never measure it.
For a roast, I get boneless and put it in there with herbs and spices to taste and add about 4-6 cups water, turn on low and leave it all day. The meat simmers long enough that it pretty much falls apart with your fork, and it makes its own broth while cooking. Pork roast is especially tasty this way. If I can't watch it, I'll set it up and after coming home, I'll add drained canned vegetables the last hour of cooking so they don't fall apart from cooking all day. A can of sliced carrots and a can of cooked potatoes goes really well. I get whole canned potatoes and cut them into stew type chunks when "cheating". You can add other canned veggies for variety, including Veg-All, variety veggies, but we generally like potatoes as a staple with carrots and sometimes peas and very rarely canned corn. I like corn, he doesn't.
Using canned veggies to make quick stove stew also works. I cook any meat available, even ground, in the pot on the stove, add water, simmer an hour, then add canned veggies for another half hour on medium heat on the stove. Serve with some type of bread, or make up a recipe of biscuits and drop them into the pot to make fluffy dumplings, cook 10 minutes uncovered with dumplings in, then cover and simmer 10 minutes more, and the dumplings turn out perfect every time.
As long as your cord isn't frayed and isn't near water/the sink or the edge of the counter where a pet could knock it off, it should be fine. If still worried about odd sparks or surges maybe during a storm, plug the crock pot into a surge suppressor and plug the suppressor into the wall. That way if anything strange goes on, the suppressor should trip, cutting off power to the crock.
No, you aren't paranoid at all. We don't use the crockpot either as we don't like to leave anything on when we leave the house. We also turn off the Christmas lights when we go out or to bed. Now that so many people are doing here in the states is leaving candles burning and going into another room. Then they wonder why the house or room burned.
Just to let everyone know, I'm a stay home mom. My problem is that I love to spend my days keeping busy and I'm just to lazy and tired to cook at 5 pm. So in my case, the crockpot won't be left home alone. ;-)
I just want to thank everyone for their help and recipes. And to Leah, I've especially saved your meatloaf recipe to try out this week.
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