Crock pot

[makbike]

Denise:

I recently purchased, The Busy Mom Slow Cooker Cookbook, by Jyl Steinback. It has 40 pages of meatless crock pot recipes and they look pretty darn tasty. All the recipes in her book are low-calorie and low-fat, for those watching their girlish figures

Hope this helps!

[Denise223]

Hi makbike!

Thanks for letting me know about The Busy Mom Slow Cooker Cookbook I'll have to check it out.
I have about 5 cookbooks (not veggie) from Rachel Ray (the "30 min recipes). I don't really care for them - lots of ingredients....and, I've never been able to finish any of them in 30 minutes..

Have a great day!

Denise

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

It's getting cold out, and I've hauled out my crockpots. Thought I'd use this old thread.
Last month I made tons of apple sauce and apple butter in my two crockpots and froze it all.

Today, I made a vegetable soup from various stuff i had around the house....

I had a whole big eggplant, which I peeled, chopped, and browned in a pan with a large chopped onion in a little olive oil. Browning onions and such first gives a flavor that can't simply be gotten by just slow cooking it alone. (Only takes a couple minutes and then you clean the teflon pan pretty quick.)
Anyway....
Threw the browned onion and eggplant into the big crockpot with 6 cups water, salt and pepper, and:
4 sliced carrots
2 cans drained pinto beans
2 small cans drained yams
some garlic
some pieces of sundried tomato cut into chunks
parsley
a couple pinches of roasting rub herbs.

Cooked it all on high for about 5 hours.
just before serving, I removed a few ladles of chunks of veggies to one side, then zapped most of the soup with my stick blender to make it thick and creamy, then put the chunks back in for texture and color.
We had a wonderful loaf of roasted garlic crusty bread that we dipped into the soup. It was yummy- DH went nuts over it. It also used up the eggplant, beans, yams, and carrots I had just sitting around here.
I love how the house smells when the crockpot is going all afternoon.

[kelownagirl]

Hey Lisa, I "crockpotted" for the first time this season too! Made chili because my little guy has been asking for it for ages. Browned the meat last night, threw everything into the pot and turned it on before I left for work this morning. It's SO nice to come home to dinner simmering. Yum.

[singletrackmind]

Ha, same here, but browned ground turkey, bell peppers, onion added and cooked the tomatoes and tomato paste in the skillet first, then dumped it in with the beans and stuff. Crock pot is good.....but it sure does heat up my countertop.

[kaybee]

Crock pot is good.....but it sure does heat up my countertop.

I noticed that too. If you have an outlet near the stove, and the cord will reach, put the crockpot on top of the stove, in the center. The heat won't hurt the stove top.

KB

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

That's what I do, on the stove top surface.
I guess you could put a cookie sheet under it on the counter to feel safer.

But...my 2 crockpots are new, and they stand on little legs. They don't seem to get the under surface too hot. -Are you sure your pot isn't getting too old or burnt out coils or something? No fire hazards I hope?

I have a friend who uses an ancient crockpot from the 70's she got at a garage sale- it kind of gives me the creeps, thinking it might do something dangerous.
I worry.

[surgtech1956]

When I worked second shift, I would come home and throw some frozen boneless/skinless chicken breast in the crock pot with onions and cream of mushroom soup and let it cook all night and turn it off around 10am and I had lunch and/or dinner ready.