I love my Crock Pot

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This past Monday, I reminded myself how wonderful having a slow cooker can be.   I knew that I had a busy day and I knew I would not want to cook dinner after being gone all day.

I have to confess that I do not use my slow cooker/ crock pot appliance thing nearly as much as I could/should.  Once upon a time I had a 6 week rotating menu plan that was mostly crock pot cooking.   So many recipes called for cream of something soup and we stopped using cream of something soup in a can.  I could never get the home made version to work as well.  

Back to Monday.   I decided to make “Chicken Spaghetti”.  We hadn’t had that for a very long time.  It’s my simple version of chicken cacciatore but I stopped calling it that because I tired of my husband’s well worn joke “But I don’t want to catch a Tori.  I already caught a Tess”.  Yes for awhile I would answer, “Fine.  We’re having Chicken Cacciatess for dinner.”

I don’t have a real recipe for you and I don’t have any pictures but here’s what I did:

I threw 2 very large chicken breasts (boneless and skinless) into the crock pot.  I added one can of spaghetti sauce (this time I used Hunt’s Garlic Herb.. I think the cans are about 26 oz).   I added one large can (about 28 oz) tomato sauce.  One can (net wt 4oz) slicked mushrooms and some sliced black olives.   Cooked about 8 hours (give or take) on low.   My chicken breasts were frozen so when they were cooked I used my kitchen shears to chunk them up. I served it over (cooked of course) spaghetti noodles with a salad and some garlic bread.

It was so nice to walk in the door after a long (but wonderful day) to smell dinner already cooking itself.  I was so tired.  My feet hurt.  My children were tired.  If not for the beloved crock pot, I’m sure we would have ended up with cereal for dinner.

I am now inspired to see what other crock pot recipes and ideas I can resurrect to include in my new 6 week rotating menu plan that I am creating.

Do you have a favorite Crock Pot recipe?  I’d love some more ideas.  Especially ideas that do NOT use cream of something soups.

Comments

  1. MimiAugust 19, 2011 at 2:41:00 PM PDT

    Bwahahhahahahaha. Husbands :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. JenniferAugust 21, 2011 at 3:05:00 PM PDT

    I like using my crock pot, too. I like spaghetti sauce that simmers for hours. Last night we enjoyed spaghetti after the sauce cooked in the crock pot almost all day- huge crockpot full. Today we used the rest of the sauce and made lasagna. Yum!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rachel @ Finding JoyAugust 21, 2011 at 3:48:00 PM PDT

    Great ideas and great reminder for me to pull out that slow cooker of mine. I just need to find some gluten free recipes to love.

    Stopping by from the crew.

    Rachel

    ReplyDelete
  4. CatherineAugust 21, 2011 at 4:45:00 PM PDT

    I love my crock pot, too. I don't use recipes very often though.. Hmm. I have a cookbook just for slowcookers, somewhere, but I still end up throwing in some meat, and seasoning, and maybe some broth... If i am going to add veggies, I do it at the end, but I prefer to steam them.
    Catch a Tess. LOL.
    -Catherine

    ReplyDelete
  5. StefanieAugust 21, 2011 at 6:08:00 PM PDT

    My favorite crockpot recipe is what we call Mexican Chicken.

    Enough breasts to feed your family.
    Jar salsa
    frozen corn
    black beans

    Dump them all in the cp and cook until you can shred the chicken.

    Then I mix in some cube cream cheese and cook for about 30 minutes longer.

    We then put it on tortillas with our fav toppings. So yummy!

    I'm definitely going to be trying chicken catch a tess. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  6. JillAugust 21, 2011 at 9:31:00 PM PDT

    I love my crock pot and use it all the time. Your chicken cacciatore recipe sounds great. We like soup and almost any soup recipe can be adapted for the crock pot. Also I learned from one of the Molly Money Saving digests or cook book how to make stuffed peppers in the crock pot. I am amazed how great that works.

    ReplyDelete
  7. MichelleAugust 22, 2011 at 9:04:00 AM PDT

    That sounds very yummy! My crockpot broke a couple weeks ago and I have really missed it. I have to go get me a new one really soon.

    ReplyDelete

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