Working mom needs kid friendly crock pot recipe's!!

My hubby and I both work full time so we've gotten really good at quick meals and meal planning. I usually make enough that we always have leftovers for a couple meals a week. I do use my crockpot but it's a little big so I find it overcooks our meals a lot so I tend to rarely use it.

Can you program your oven to cook when you're gone? I have a couple days a month where I'll make a double batch of lasagnas, chicken pot pies, or enchiladas and then I split it into 4 tin foil pans and freeze them. I put them in the oven in the morning frozen and set the oven to cook so that the meal is ready when I get home. I also do this with frozen chicken breast - put a few chicken breasts in a pan, put whatever sauce on it, and set the oven to cook so that it's just finishing up when I get home. I know some people aren't good with thawing chicken outside the fridge during the day, but it works for me.

The other thing I do a lot is actually cook something after the kids go to bed that can be warmed up easily the next day - pasta sauce, turkey chili etc. Or I make a healthy meatloaf mixture at night, put it in muffin tin in the fridge, and cook it when I get home in muffin tins so that it only takes 20 minutes in the oven. Again I set my oven so that it's pre-heated by the time I get home so all I need to do is pull out the muffin tin from the fridge and throw it in the oven.

We always have a big container of cut up veggies that I pull out as soon as we get home. My kids will munch on that while I finish getting dinner on the table.

I have some really good lasagna, enchilada and chicken pot pie recipes if you want. I just don't want to post them here in a crock pot thread if you aren't interested. Just PM me.

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Thanks for starting this post!! There are a ton of great ideas here!

I have a pulled pork recipe to add... easy and delicious.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 (4 pound) pork shoulder roast
1 cup barbeque sauce
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 extra large onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
8 hamburger buns, split
2 tablespoons butter, or as needed

Directions

Pour the vegetable oil into the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the pork roast into the slow cooker; pour in the barbecue sauce, apple cider vinegar, and chicken broth. Stir in the brown sugar, yellow mustard, Worcestershire sauce, chili powder, onion, garlic, and thyme. Cover and cook on High until the roast shreds easily with a fork, 5 to 6 hours.
Remove the roast from the slow cooker, and shred the meat using two forks. Return the shredded pork to the slow cooker, and stir the meat into the juices.
Spread the inside of both halves of hamburger buns with butter. Toast the buns, butter side down, in a skillet over medium heat until golden brown. Spoon pork into the toasted buns.

Source: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Texas-Pulled-Pork/Detail.aspx

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned but Gina (skinnytaste.com) has a lot of crock pot recipes!

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There is an interesting book called Once A Month Cooking. Check it out at the library. Its all about preparing ahead of time. It might be for you.

We made this AMAZING ham and bean soup the other day in the crock pot. We had some celery and carrots we needed to use up, and had a package of beans in the pantry so this is what we came up with:

(We used neck bones, can use whatever meat you want - just really adds flavor)
1 package of 15 bean soup mix, wash the beans very well
Carrots (to taste)
Celery (to taste)
Onion (1)
Garlic (we used quite a bit, go heavy if you like it, light if you don't)
Seasoning Salt
Garlic Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper

Put all in crock pot, fill crock with water. Stir in seasonings. Cook on low all day.

- Sorry, we season as we go and I rarely measure seasonings unless making a precise recipe. Just add seasonings to taste, this turned out AMAZING!

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This website has a bunch of crockpot recipes, I love it.
http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/2011/08/crockpotalooza.html

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