I Love My Crock-Pot

We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday the other day. As it is also his and my mother-in-law's anniversary, I thought it would be nice to give her a day off so I volunteered to cook dinner. I decided to cook a roast in the crock-pot (orange-glazed carrots, strawberry salad, and rolls for sides). Saturday night I put the roast in the crock-pot with a cup or two of water, a generous sprinkling of seasoning salt, and three sprigs of fresh rosemary. I turned it on low and left it until the next morning. Meanwhile I made rolls and embroidered a shirt.

One thing I love about my crock-pot is that I can let it work while I'm busy with other things. While the main dish is cooking I can prepare the side dishes, clean the house, do the laundry, or go to bed. The next morning I'm ready to pack hubby's lunch. Or I can get things going in the morning and have hot supper on the table that night.

I like that it frees up my oven for other things. I have one oven and there's not enough room for a huge pan of roast and rolls or veggies, too. It's also more energy-efficient to leave the crock-pot on for 10 hours than to leave the oven on for 4. And it doesn't heat the house up as much as the oven.

The other thing I love about it is that it tenderizes the toughest piece of meat. I used a spoon to cut the roast I cooked the other day. We eat a lot of venison and wild pork - both have a tendency to be tough - but they both end up melt-in-your-mouth tender in the crock-pot. In addition to roasts, I like to cook stews in my crock-pot. I can fit a whole chicken in it. I love that machine.