Why I love my: Crock-Pot slow cooker

Image source: Amazon.com

Y’all, I’m still coming down from C’s party, and have been generally behind in life this week. As a result I’m a bit late on some of my regular series (like this one). And, I’m also still catching up on my reading – I’ll post my review about The Time Keeper soon! Bear with me.

So, let’s get down to business. Slow cookers are awesome! We especially love ours, the Crock-Pot 2.5-Quart Slow Cooker. This little guy is perfect for our wee family in that we can make enough food for dinner and leftovers for the next day or so — but, it’s not so big that the amount of food it yields is enough for a small army. I don’t have enough room in my fridge for that kind of business!

Since I’ve kicked off a new dinner routine for our family, my slow cooker and I have been especially tight. It’s so awesome to throw a bunch of ingredients in the pot before work and come home to a meal that is basically ready-to-eat, and a house that smells delicious!

Do you use a slow cooker at your house? Tell me some of your go-to recipes in the comments! And, here are a few of mine…enjoy!

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Cody’s Chicken Tacos

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. raw chicken breast
• 1 cup salsa of your choice
• Taco fixin’s of your choice

This tip was passed along to me by a friend years ago, and has been a steady in our dinner rotation ever since. It really couldn’t be easier! Throw some chicken and some salsa in a pot and let it cook (you’ll want about 1 cup salsa for each lb. of chicken). The result is moist, yummy, shredded chicken for a delish taco night. We love to switch up the salsa flavors — tomatillo one night, chipotle another. You get the idea!

Beef Stroganoff

There are a ton of recipes for this out there, and to make things easy you can just buy a seasoning mix. But, as a fan of scratch ingredients, I love this recipe from Cooking Light most of all.

Sausage and Bean Stew

Another one with a ton of variations, but my go-to is this recipe from the Food Network. This particular stew is made with pasta, but if you prefer to serve over rice, you can take the pasta out of the mixture and reduce the water by 1 cup. The parmesan rind in this recipe is my favorite part, as it gives it a bit more of an exciting flavor than some of the other sausage/bean stews out there.