Bought a crock pot, now what the bleep do I do with it?
 

Hi all,
I was browsing at Target and for some unknown reason suddenly felt like buying a crock pot. I live alone so I thought throwing stuff into this pot would feed me for the week. It's about 1.5 quarts so it's not a big one. I have never used a crock pot before (I haven't even had a chance to open it yet to read the directions so I'm not even sure what it does or how it works!).

Anyone know where I could find some good low-carb crock pot recipes?

Thanks,
Tam

Do a search of the Kitchen Forum for 'crock pot'. I know there are recipes there. I do most any kind of meat in them. I posted a recipe for Crockpot BBQ Beef once. It should be in Main Dishes.

Marinate some pork tenderloin for a few hours in a low carb italian dressing you like, then pour the chops and the dressing into the crock pot. After about 6 hours, your have tender meat that just breaks apart, with some good taste to them.

The nice thing about a crock pot is that it can be a real $$ saver. You can take the toughest/cheapest cuts of meat, throw them in the pot with some water and seasonings, and come back 5-6 hours later to a feast that is so tender it will fall apart on your fork (and melt in your mouth). Turn it on before you leave in the morning, and come home to a house that smells like you've been cooking all day...great labor-saver, and very easy to get the hang of.

Try Pork and Saurkraut:
take pork but and place in crockpot with about 21-2 cups water, bay leaf, sage and black pepper.
Cook all day on low. About 30 minutes before eating drain and rinse saurkraut and put in crockpot replacing the lid. It's done when the saurkraut is warm.

The Crockpot is good for cooking any kind of roasts.
Beef chuck is particulary good. I add Campbells french onion soup and cook all day on low.

You can do chickens in it for chicken dishes. Just put the whole chicken in there with some water and cook all day on low. Bone and cut into pieces when done.
Erika

Yummy - I had not thought about the sour pork chops and kraut - have some pork chops that will be perfect for that!

I use neck of lamb. I add leeks and any other low carb veggies I've got (usually cauliflower and celery). It makes a Welsh leek stew.

A crock pot is a 'slow cooker' in British English by the way.

Pot roast!!

Get a 3-4 lb chuck or shoulder roast. Cut up one medium onion and place in the bottom of the crock pot. If you are past induction, throw in some baby carrots. Salt and pepper the roast (I use garlic pepper) and place it on top of the veggies. Pour 1 can of beef broth over it. Cover and cook on low 10-12 hrs (High 5-7 hrs) You can use a no carb thickener to make gravy out of the left over juice if you wish. This is also great the next day on some LC bread for lunch!

Mmmmmmmm, pot roast........ :doah:

Robin

Another crock pot question...
 

Hi there,
Sorry to be such a pain about this crock pot thing but...

I just inspected the one I bought. It's very small, 1.5 quarts but that's ok. The problem is it has no temperature ajustment. It's very basic, just stick the coard in the plug and not ajust. There were no directions in the box so I have no idea what temperature the crock pot cooks on. Should I just assume it's high or err on the side of causion and assume its a medium or low heat?

Thanks,
Tam

Were there no directions at all? Perhaps there is somewhere on line you could contact the company that made it and find out. I've had crockpots for the last 25 years, and have always had high/low control.

Thank you! Of course I was banging my head against the wall saying "duh, why didn't I think of that?" I went to the website and found an online version of the user's guide and manual. Turns out the one-size-fits-all temperature is LOW.

Tam

It's good that your only choice is low ... that let's you get tender meats and nicely simmered dishes, rather than tougher textures. Cooking on high can really ruin your food, and I use it only to kick-start something and then turn it to low later.

You can buy a "timer" now, through Rival, that allows you to program your crock pot from 4 to 10 hours and then keep warm until you're ready for it.
Or, believe it or not, a good, old-fashioned lamp timer that you set to come on at a certain time and go off at another works great for crock pots. No fear that it's going to keep cooking if you're late in turning it off for some reason.

Glad you found out the power level and happy slow cooking!