Shhh.....all's quiet on the appliance shelf in my closet. My crock pot is ready and waiting for your recipes!
I have had a crock pot since I had my bridal shower in 1995. I love it, or should I say I love the IDEA of it.
I love the IDEA of my house smelling fabulous all day long.
I love the IDEA of dinner cooking without me while I’m at work.
On occasion, those wonderful ideas actually come to fruition. For example, yesterday’s crock pot oatmeal, that’s a good one and in the winter we have that a few times a month for breakfast on a school day. I’ve made a crock pot applesauce but other than the fact that it cooked while I was gone, it’s faster to cook it on top of the stove. The Hanukkah brisket, always delicious when we make it…every once in a while. We make a great pulled pork in the crock pot for our birthday party feasts, and next week during Superbowl Recipe Week (gasp…. I told!!!!) you’ll see that Don makes a great crock pot chili.
I have several crock pot cook books, but I just haven’t found “the” recipe or recipes for a regular night’s dinner, something I could do on a regular basis once or twice a month. First off, I hate the ones where you have to cook it all first on the stove and then just throw it all in to the crock pot to cook for 3 hours. That doesn’t seem all that helpful to me really. Second, I hate beef stew. Third, how many cream of mushroom soup recipes are there? Tons. And, I’m not knocking them because I happen to like cream of mushroom soup recipes (I posted one today, non-crock pot, but still…) And last….I hate my food to touch, so that presents a problem. Some foods are supposed to go together, others, not so much. Very tricky….ever see on my dinner plate photos just how far apart my foods are from each other? Uh huh.
So. Where does that leave me? It leaves me asking you for your help. I’ve been providing you with tons of recipes as the days and weeks have gone by on this blog, and I’ve got TONS more that I haven’t even touched yet. But, they aren’t crock pot recipes.
Where do you get your best recipes for the crock pot?
What good ones have you tried and loved?
Send them to me at jenniferlcowart@gmail.com and if I try them and like them, I’ll feature them on my blog in the future.
In fact, let’s make this worth your while. I’ll throw in a little prize for one lucky person who sends me a recipe. On February 2 I’ll use a random name generator to pull one name from all of the people who email me their favorite crock pot recipe(s) between now and the end of the day on February 1, and send one lucky winner a treat. I won’t say what that treat is, but it’ll be a little treat from me. (Don’t go crazy it’s not going to be a brand new crock pot or even a crock pot from 1995.)
Thanks for your help and good luck!!
The Whole bag of Chips 
My two favorite Crock Pot cookbooks to use are Jyl Steinback’s The Busy Mom’s Slow Cooker Cookbook and Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining by Phyllis Pellman Good and Dawn J. Ranck.
However, my two favorite things to make do not come from either one. In fact, both recipes came from my grandmother.
The first one incorporates your own favorite meatball recipe: Prepare the meat mixture and shape meatballs. Using a package each of hot and sweet sausage, quarter the sausage links. Slice one stick of pepperoni into 1″ pieces.
Depending on the amount of meatballs, open 2-3 cans of Kitchen Ready tomatoes.
Start by adding tomatoes to bottom of pot, add approx 1/2 of the meatballs, sausage, and pepperoni. Repeat until pot is almost full, topping off with remaining tomatoes (leave room at top so it does not spill over).Cook on low 6-8 hours, depending on size of the meatballs. The meats will all cook completely, no need to precook. They will be unbelievably tender. No seasoning is necessary as the meats flavor the sauce.
The second recipe is a bbq shredded pork recipe. Before starting, trim excess fat from the the roast.
Ingredients:
3 cups chopped celery 1 cup chopped onion 1 cup ketchup
1 cup bbq sauce 1 cup water 2 tbsp white or cider vinegar
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce 1 tsp chili powder 1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper 2 tbsp brown sugar 1/2 tsp garlic powder
Combine all of the above together and mix well.
To pot add trimmed 3-4 pound pork roast (may also use boneless chuck if preferred)
Top with mixture above.
Cook on high 6-7 hours until tender. Remove roast; cool. Shred and return to pot. heat through
Serve on rolls.
Also try making your favorite Chicken Caccitore recipe or a roast with just onion soup mix.
Good luck 🙂
I can’t wait to see this, cuz I have a crock pot that I never use. Any time I have tried a recipe from a cookbook, I have not liked it–the meat is chewy or fatty ( I think they say to use chuck meat, but it never seems to come out right for me), or the chx breasts are dried out or something, even though they are in a liquid/sauce…so, I can’t wait to have a recipe that someone I trust actually cooked and liked!!! Bring it on! Unfortunately, I cannot enter the contest, cuz I have no decent recipes, except Jen’s crock pot oatmeal!!! (also, we don’t eat pork or sausage or anything like that, so that eliminates a bunch of stuff for me 😦 )
I have a really good recipe for Apricot Chicken!! nom nom nom… I’ll send it to you!!