Love Affair with a Rival

Rival Crock Pot, that is.  I'm in love with my crock pot.  Our last three meals have been crock pot meals.  It's been wonderful, as we are all sick sick SICK in this house. A child with sinusitis became a child with bronchitis who shared with momma, and now daddy is sick.  We're all low-energy and coughing and hacking and spreading our germs wherever we go.  (Wanna come for a visit?  ;-)

I have a crock pot recipe book - actually, I have a few - but I'm quickly becoming disillusioned by them.  Lots of canned ingredients, high calories and high carbs, lots of salt.  So now I'm venturing out on my own, using print recipes as inspiration and seeing what can be done.

Dinner One: Chicken.  The recipe called for four frozen chicken breasts, a package of italian dressing mix, and a can of chicken broth.  Okay.  Well, at the store they were having a 2-for-1 sale on dressing mixes and I picked up a garlic cheese mix that looked yummy.  So into the pot that went, instead of the italian mix.  I also had some leftover chicken stock from a previous dinner, and I used that as well.  Four hours later on high, the meal was done.  But the chicken didn't look so good, so I took it out and browned it on both sides in a skillet.  I also reduced and thickened the cooking sauce with a slurry of flour and stock.  Dinner was fast, easy, and yummy!

Dinner Two: Irish Stew.  This one came from a friend in my mommy group who is from Ireland.  A bottle of Guinness, a cup of wine, beef stock, carrots and potatoes, some thyme...  So very good!  To thicken the soup when it was cooked, I ladelled a couple of cups of the broth and carrots and potatoes into the blender and let it whir.  Scrumptious!

Dinner Three: Brisket.  I had none of the ingredients I needed for this one, except the brisket.  So I made a rub of paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Popped the brisket in the crock pot fat-side-up, and dumped in about half a bottle of pale ale.  That's tonight's dinner.  I'll let you know how it tastes.

My point is this.  For the past week, my butt has been dragging.  I spent yesterday afternoon in urgent care getting a diagnosis and prescriptions for bronchitis.  My toddler has been sick for about a month now, one thing leading to another.  And my husband has been super helpful around the house, doing dishes and laundry and taking care of the tot so I can sleep.  But now he's sick too, and we still need to get a healthy  meal on the table for dinner.  The crock pot is letting me do this with very little effort, few dirtied dishes, and I can do it all in the early day when my energy is higher than it is at actual dinner time, after chasing a kid around and fighting to stay awake and alert all day. 

Our produce box also arrived today, so we have our choice of fresh green veggies to serve with dinner.  I'm thinking a salad and some asparagus roasted with olive oil and some garlic powder might be the easiest solution.

Comments

[A.Marie]

Hi there! I found your blog while I was over at Almost Frugal. I thought I'd hop on over and here and take a look! :)

You have a great blog here! I am going to use some of your crock pot ideas; they sound awesome! I have a husband and two teenagers who like to EAT! and I am always looking for great meal ideas! :)

[Jessica B]

I'm glad you like it! It's a new blog I'm trying out. I've gained so much from the online crafting community, I wanted to give a little something back.

The brisket was okay, a little dry. I need to have faith in the Low setting on the crock pot. I get anxious and worry that the meal won't be done in time. I need to just let it go. I can always finish up the meat in the oven if I need to, or in a pan on the stove. It's not so easy to uncook overcooked meat!