Crock Pot Ideas

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A simple one I made tonight was pulled pork. I make it plain so I can mix different sauces with theleftovers throughout the week.

Slice up an onion or two and put on bottom of the pot. Add about a cup of broth and placed pork butt shoulder on top. I seasoned salt and pepper but you could add any seasoning you like. Cook low 8-10 or high 6-8. Remove meat to shred and drain liquid (great for sipping broth or to flavor another dish).

Heres one that takes 5 minutes to prepare and is yummy! Take a whole chicken (4-5lbs) remove anything in the cavity, rinse chicken, pat dry. Make 4 or 5 balls of tin foil, place in bottom of crock pot. This will keep your chicken from "stewing" in its juices. If you prefer, you can use a "bed" of chunky cut up onions and carrots. Place chicken breast side up in crockpot. Sprinkle with a package of Italian dressing mix (dry). Do not add any liquid. Cover and cook on high 4-5 hours or on low 6-8 hours until chicken reaches internal temperature of 160 degrees. Fall of the bone tender. You can strain juices for a skinny gravy.

For variation, you can really use any kind of dry seasoning packet you like. I've used ranch dressing, spaghetti sauce, mesquite mariande mix. All good. You can also put a cut up onion or lemon or orange in the cavity, but it isn't necessary. Comfort food!

I had a variation on this http://forums.compuserve.com/discussions/Cooks_Online/Soups__Sauces/Your_Favorite_Soup/ws-COOKS/148816.63?redirCnt=2&nav=messages
for supper tonight. the main difference was in liquid - 6 cups broth rather than 10 cups (a figure I got from a designed-for-crockpots recipe).

1 lb dried split peas
1 package pork shank (meaty leg bones)
about 2 cups ham
1/2 tsp sage
4 Tbsp minced garlic (everyone here likes garlic)
1 container Creole seasoning vegetables (works out to about 2 cups diced onions, 1 cup each diced bell pepper and chopped celery. Or it may be 3 cups onions and a half-cup each of the other two.)
5 oz carrots (run through the mini-food processor because otherwise the guys in the household will eat around them)
2 bay leaves
6 cups beef stock
STEP 1 ENDS HERE

Final step:
1 lb sliced fresh mushrooms
1/2 c chives -- finely chopped (the store happened to have fresh chives in about that amount, and I always wind up most of the green onions I buy.)
4 dashes Tabasco sauce

put them into the crock in order given, with stock poured over all. Cook on low for 8 hours.
About 7 1/2 hours in, spray a microwavable something-or-other and 'wave the mushrooms for about 5 to 8 minutes. Dump them and the chives/green onions into the soup, shake in the Tabasco dashes, stir it all in and fish out the bony bits to retrieve the meat and toss the bones and fat.

I made two batches (I'd thought I could double the recipe, then decided the pot wasn't big enough), and forgot the shrooms the first time, is why 1 lb in the 2nd batch.

Oh - I'd come across a recipe that used parsley, so used that in both batches.

Chicken tacos. Only three ingredients and are really good.
http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-chicken-taco-meat-4957?photo=350957

Also consider pepperocini chicken. It's three ingredients and turns out pretty good. I just made it yesterday and ate it with rice and cheese.
http://www.food.com/recipe/shredded-italian-chicken-379069

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vvento wrote: »

Now for the weird part of weighing, Instead of guestimating how many servings that is, I weight a container (lets says 40grams of plastic container. then I would weigh all of the recipe in that container (this time it was 539g).

What I've been doing is storing what I've made (it's usually stewlike, to one extent or another) in 1-quart containers (from yogurt and from chopped onions or Creole seasoning mix), working out from that how many cups I made, and then using that number as the number of servings.

We use our crockpot to make shredded meats for future dishes. Usually boston butt or chicken leg quarters, we generically season them and then shred them and store for future dishes. Our goto dishes would be tacos, quesadillas, bbq sandwiches or just bbq meat, chicken salads or wraps... I love having baggies of precooked meat on hand!