Crock Pot Cooking

I really love my Crock Pot. I really do. I love the concept of throwing a bunch of ingredients into one pot, and letting it do its thing, and at the end having an easy breezy meal, ready to serve. Such was the case this afternoon.

The Princess tends to work on Sunday evenings starting at five o'clock. That means, that generally we do dinner pretty early so we can enjoy a decent meal and so she isn't STARVING by the time she gets home from work. Since I do NOT work on Sundays, I prefer to have a real meal -- and not something of the heat & eat variety.

Thanks to a sale at the local Piggly Wiggly, I picked up pork tenderloin and asparagus yesterday. Threw the tenderloin in the Crock Pot this morning and with about 30 minutes of TOTAL prep time for everything you see above, we had an easy and fabulous dinner, albeit an early one!

That got me thinking though --- I really should use my Crock Pot more. I hear people rave about doing just what I did, but before work and having a tasty dinner waiting when they get home in the evenings. However, I just tend to use mine on weekends. Mainly because most recipes I come across call for 6-7 hours of cooking time -- I leave the house around 7:45 in the morning and get home around 5:15. That's 9.5 hours away from the house -- and my office is SUPER close.

If I left something cooking for that length of time, either it would be hockey pucks by the time I got back OR the house would likely be burned down. I've talked to some of my friends -- the Stay At Home Moms and the Full Time Work Outside The House Moms --- and it seems the SAHMs tend to use their Crock Pots the most. They adore them! The FTWOTHMs, well, they tend to do what I do, use it some on the weekends, but never during the week!

So what about you? Do you use your Crock Pot a ton? If so, which category do you fall in? Sometimes, or ALL THE TIME? And if you have any recipes that work great for super extended hours, I'd LOVE for you to share them!!!!!!!