Slow Cooking

OK, I am addicted to my slow cooker. I admit it. Its a wonderful contraption. You put food in it, toss in some sauce, set the heat, and several hours later, you have dinner. How great is THAT?

Well, there are some problems with slow cooking. First, with cheap cookers, you have to put the food in within certain time windows, or you're not having a slow-cooker dinner tonight. I have a cheap cooker, so I have to pay attention to how long stuff needs to cook, and be sure I am putting food into it in time for it come out for about 6 pm. Secondly, someone has come up with the not-so-bright idea of inventing slow cooker recipes that require you to open the pot and add stuff during teh cooking process. The point of a slow cooker is that the food cooks and you don't have to mess with it. Inventing recipes where I have to mess with it is completely pointless. However, now you have to wade through these complicated recipes to find good, simple ones.

To make the slow cooker easier, I started paying attention to the cooking times. If you are into experimenting, it seems to be a general rule of thumb that chicken cooks in about 2-3 hours on high, beef and pork take about 5 hours on high, 8 hours on low.

Here's my favorite easy-slow-cooker recipe:

2-3 pound beef roast
3-5 potatoes, medium size
2 tablespoons of Worchestershire Sauce
Seasoned salt to taste
Seasoned Pepper to taste
1/3 cup water

Clean and slice the potatoes. I leave the skins on. Place these at teh bottom of the crockpot. Place the roast on top. Add the water, then the Worchestershire, salt and pepper. I use about 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and liberally sprinkle the roast with the pepper.

Put the top on the pot, and set: high, 5 hours; low, 8 hours. I prefer high for 5 hours, because I can put everything in while one of my kids is napping. At 6 o'clock, we have dinner! Pot roast! Yum!