Housekeeping: Crockpot Edition

I used to cook dinner from about 4 to roughly 4:30.  Sometimes it was 4:15 or 4:30 to 4:45 or 5.  But the upshot is, my family is hungry by 4:30 or 5 and I spend about half an hour cooking.

But now, Nat is in school from 1:30-4:30 and we don't get home until about 5.  I spend her school hours near school, writing, while Selina is hanging with the babysitter.  Or, on days I don't have a babysitter, I spend the time at home with Selina until 4ish, then put her in the car to go pick up Nat.  Either way, though, cooking dinner doesn't fit into the new plan at all.  Not the way it always has in the past.

So we've been eating a lot of crap lately.  The kids will get frozen pizzas and mac and cheese from the babysitter and I will eat a plate of nachos after they're in bed.  When Cole is home, we've been mostly eating out.

I've been trying to figure out how to solve the dilemma of dinner.  One idea is to make a big soup or stew once a week.  Now that it is soup weather again, this should help.  I can make the soup before school and we can eat it later and it will not only be good but better than it would have been hot off the stove.

Still, we can't eat soup every day.

So here's my question for the crock pot people out there:  Would that help me?  Could I toss delicious dinner ingredients into a crock pot to be ready at 5 and the serve us all a tasty dinner the minute I get Nat home from school?

Can you make things in a crock pot besides the soups and stews I'm already making?

Advice, recipes, crockpot manufacturer preferences welcome--yea, encouraged!

Comments

[Denise]

Yes, you can make lots of things. I use it for for pot roast and pulled pork and other meaty things, but I know your family doesn't eat that much meat. I've also made baked beans, or pasta sauce, lasagna... When it's not cooking dinner, you can use it to make yogurt or chicken broth and other foods your family may eat.
This came in my email today (good timing!): http://tinyurl.com/yavmt6d
And this website has many recipes to peruse: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

[Andrew]

I'd be really interested in the responses you get (assuming they just don't come in the comments) if you don't mind sharing. Thanks!

[Wendryn]

We make sloppy joes, curries, layered veggies and sauce, and random casseroles in the crock pot - my approach is not scientific, much more throw it in and see how it goes. I like cooking chicken in a crockpot, basically stewed in a nice red sauce, and then putting the whole thing over pasta, which comes out very nicely.

On the not-quite-what-you-asked subject, though, we also have a few staples that are very fast. We make up huge batches of pesto during the summer and fall - basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, and a little salt (don't put int the Parmesan at this point) and then freeze it in ice cube trays. We have pesto all winter. Each ice cube tray is about one serving, so all you have to do is thaw it over the course of the day or heat it slowly while the pasta is cooking, add some Parmesan, cook some pasta, and life is good. We cook a big pot of beans at the beginning of the week (can be done in a crockpot, but I don't, generally) and use them in burritos, enchiladas, soups, or whatever sounds good. We've also been doing a whole lot of stir fry dinners, since the veggies can be prepped the night before and then thrown in to stir-fry as the rice gets cooked. We've also been known to make a big pan of lasagna and trade off that one night and one of the other options another night.

We're both busy, but we love cooking and eating, so we've figured out ways to try to keep eating good food despite having no time.

[marta]

i'm having a somewhat similar dilemma, which is that we usually eat later -- like 6:00 or 6:30, but trixie has swimming at 6:00 4 nights a week, so i'm trying to get dinner on the table by 5:00, which is killing me. i just can't really wrap my head around even thinking of food at 3:30 or 4:00, which is when i feel like i need to get started these days (i'm clearly a slow-poke compared to you!)

but that's the problem with crock-pots: you really have to think way ahead of time, and often quite early in the day, and it's just too much for me most of the time to be thinking of and preparing dinner food when i haven't even gotten my appetite for breakfast yet (i usually don't get hungry until around 10:00 in the morning). but yeah, there are lots of great crock pot recipes, which folks with better meal planning discipline than i have will surely share with you.

[Mary]

Hi Shannon,

I have found the crockpot great for meat, like pot roast and chicken, but not so great for vegetarian things. I ended up not using at as much as I thought we would because we don't eat that much meat and the vegetarian things just weren't as good.

One of our dinner solutions is to cook two meals at a time so that we have dinner for that night and the next.

[http://designermama-manaallamano.blogspot.com/]

You should check out the book:
Hungry Monkey, a book about a dad and his kid, he has some great crock pot recipes in it.

[Yondalla]

Lots of crock pot recipes here:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

[sster]

I would say it's all about prep. My mother used to make dinner at noon. Another lady I read about chops veggies in the morning, bakes at noon, and assembles at dinner time. I would say that when/if you have downtime you could chop veggies, grate cheese, make a sauce, put together a cassarole, etc. Boil the pasta and reheat for dinner. Make your brown rice in large batches and refrigerate.

I don't love my crockpot. I guess I expected it to make everything easier but it really doesn't, except for some meat dishes (as above commenter mentioned).

One more thing: as we've gotten busier I've gone simpler. If dinner is nothing more than warm bread, good cheese, steamed broccoli, and apple slices, we're doing OK. Other quick (15-min) things: cous-cous (even whole grain!), bread and hummus (bought or made ahead) with tomato slices, pizza sandwiches (grilled cheese with tomato sauce--healthier than frozen pizza)...

But our extra-special secret weapon? The WOK! If you've chopped ingredients and use bottled sauces dinner can take under 15 minutes, and it's healthy, too!

Oh, and our rice cooker is the bomb. You could put rice in the bottom (alas, not brown), veggies and fish in the steamer basket before going to pick up Nat, and have dinner ready by the time you get home.

[Shannon]

I just got a new rice cooker with a steamer basket. Maybe I'll focus on that for a while and see how things go...

[Heather]

I use the crockpot a lot in the fall/winter, not so much in the warmer months. It's great for meats (whole chickens, roasts, chicken breasts in sauce, etc.) and stews, but I find takes all the tasty out of fresh veggies.

When we're crunched for time, I sometimes put the ingredients in the crock the night before and stash it in the fridge. That way I don't have to be thinking about dinner during breakfast time, other than pulling the chilled crock out to cook.

It is pretty great to come home and smell dinner already cooked.

[Lindsay]

You didn't ask for quick recipes, but I thought I'd provide one anyway. It's the one I make when I get home late and need to eat without much prep time. And I usually have everything in the cupboards anyway:

-cut up and fry half an onion in a pot with some olive oil
-add couscous and let it lightly brown for 10-20 seconds before adding veg. broth.
-as couscous is cooking throw in frozen chopped spinach
-cut up and add any variety of sun-dried tomatos, broccoli, sugar snaps, corn, chickpeas
-Sometimes I also fry some salmon at teh same time adn throw salmon pieces in too.
-Serve with parmesean.

I like it because it doesn't have a sauce. The veggies still crunch. The parmesean and sun-dried tomatos add some good flavour.

I don't have a microwave anymore, but when I did I made baked potatos in a rush. Stab them with a fork, throw them in for 5 minutes and they're done! (even better if you then brush them with oil and put them on the bbq for a couple minutes)

[Susan]

We tried a crockpot for a while but couldn't find good vegetarian options for it, so we passed it on to someone else. In your situation, I'd probably do the dinner cooking in the morning, or cook meals on the weekends, or at night (after dinner) and then serve them the next day. It's not easy. We make breakfast for dinner once a week, too (usually pancakes or french toast), often on Wednesdays when Curious Girl has skating until 5:30. And I second the recommendation on the rice cooker!

[Anna]

I usually make a batch of meat/tomato sauce once a week and freeze in small batches. They defrost great in the microwave and you always have homemade tomato sauce at hand. Pesto sauce is a good subsitute. I usually also make couscous with the stew I make in the crockpot so as to have something different than the usual pasta (I live in Italy) or rice dish.

I keep fish sticks and chicken nuggets in the freezer to make a change from meat.

I usually have gouda cheese or another mild cheese in the fridge for a wholesome snack.

[sster]

Don't feel you have to confine the rice cooker to rice, either--you can boil potatoes in the bottom as well...or chunks of butternut squash...or darn near anything you can boil or steam.

[Kikilia]

chicken & roasts are what I usually use it for. Though you can use it for chili, spaghetti sauce, lasagna and loads of other stuff too.

I'd recommend looking up crock pot recipes online or get a book from the library.

[lori]

Most of our crock pot use is for meat so I am not much help. I also find the stoneware in the crock pot kind of hard to clean. I sometimes feel the time I save using the crock pot is made up for in washing the stoneware.

My son is very involved in sports which means we oft have late dinners after practice.

Black Beans and Rice is a stand by. I use canned black beans and minute rice ( they make an ok brown rice)

Bean Burrito. Again I used canned beans. I just heat the beans in the microwave.

Spaghetti is fairly quick. I try to keep a zip lock bag of cooked hamburger meat in the freezer.

Sandwiches. Sounds obvious but oft over looked. We have found these new ( to us) sandwich breads. They look like a flat burger bun. They are fairly high in fiber so I feel like they help make the sandwich option healthier.

I keep a bag of baby carrots on hand at all times. I also keep cans of Mandarin oranges on hand. This makes it quick and easy to add a fruit and veggie to a quick meal.

[finchfeather]

This thread is making me hungry!

In addition to what other folks have posted, I would strongly recommend the cookbook Fresh From The Vegetarian Slow Cooker - lots of good recipes and variations.

[holmgrrl]

I have two crockpots, a 4qt Rival Oval and a 6qt All-Clad. I use them both - Soups, stews beans go into the Rival, and meat cookery goes into the All-Clad. We eat more meat than your family does, and neither P nor S has a problem with eating soup several times a week, so that works.

I rely on menu planning, and doing big prep and cooking projects on the days while S is in daycare. So twice a week I might cook a big pot of beans (cranberry and borlotti are my faves for this) or a chicken or a roast, get two derivative meals out of each original cooking day, and leftovers/pasta/omelettes/takeout on day seven.

P really likes red meat, having grown up with it, S is eschewing it as part of picky toddlerhood, so I end up cooking a lot of legumes and poultry right now. I keep rotating veggies to keep things interesting.

[Sarah]

Shannon, i am a sucker for the crock pot. Although I too use it often for Meat. I know you dine on chicken on occasion. I like to take a package of chicken breasts dump them in there with a sauce of any kind or a can of soup. Cook all day and make meals all week ouf of them. I will add chix and cream of chicken and shred the meat and bake quesadillas later in the week (that wait assembled in the fridge until just before heating and eating)--baking in a 425 oven for 8-10 (until tort browns) or using the shredded chicken in sandwiches or atop noodles for a "chicken and noodles sort of thing". Some of the sauces I use: spaghetti sauce, cream of *anything* soup, salsa, can of diced tomatoes with 1/2 c. of chicken broth (this one is very versatile)! Good luck!