My Crock Pot

Even if you have a sad kitchen like me, you can find some pretty great small appliances to bring you into the 21st century. For some reason, I never had a crock pot until recently. I didn't receive one for a wedding gift, but got three ice cream makers - you know how that goes. Or used to go. Now everything is a gift card. No more fun of boxes arriving at the door containing beautiful china and crystal. Now my friends' children are getting married - that's the only reason I know. But I digress.

It's just as well I didn't get one of the original ones (I remember when they came out!) with the cord attached. I don't know how you could wash anything you can't submerse into water. I think all the new ones have inserts for easy cleanup. Except it's not so easy when the insert is bigger than your sink! And I have to warn you that the crock pot takes up HALF my counterspace. Seriously.

You can get a crock pot like mine for $30 - $40, check Amazon - they ALWAYS have the best deals. I've never been a slow cooker fan, but I've discovered a few things that are really good and easy, and instead of cooking them on the sad little burners on my stove, I've shifted to the crock pot.

One example is beef stew. It's really much better that way. Start it in the morning and add the potatoes and carrots about an hour or so before you plan to eat. I buy the already-cut-up beef stew meat (I have no idea what cut it is), and throw in beef bouillion and let it go. The other day I only had one beef boullion cube, so threw in a can each of beef consomme and french onion soup, and it was fine. At the very end, I used a couple of packets of brown gravy mix to thicken and wound up with a very happy, simple beef stew. You could substitue french onion soup mix with less liquid to make more of a pot roast. I hate big cuts of meat, and the stew meat is nice because there's not all the fat to deal with.

No pictues of the stew (it doesn't photograph well). I'm going to be thinking of more things I can make in my lovely, modern crock pot.