Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Crock pot wonders

by Mama Mabel

It's no secret that I love my crock pot.  Now I've found a whole new use for it - lunches!  Unless I have leftovers from the night before (not that common in these days of toaster oven sized meals), I usually scramble to pack a lunch for work.  A can of chili or tuna, a sandwich or something else boring gets me through the day because I certainly don't have time to make something elaborate before work and most of the time I fall asleep before prepping anything the night before.  But now I'm on to a whole new concept.  It's new to me anyway.  I can make a big batch of something in the crock pot and eat it all week at work.  I've tried this before unintentionally when I made a lot of beans but how many days in a row can you realistically eat beans without getting sick?  (The answer is two if you also had them for dinner on those days.)  So I gave up that idea without fully exploring the possibilities.

This week, the dish du jour is chicken.  I bought a package of thighs last week with plans to integrate them into several dishes.  Maybe one of those dishes will happen now.  My menu rarely stays the same as life and my whims change my plans after shopping day.  Plus Coondog doesn't like chicken very much so we'll just have meatless meals.  Meanwhile, the chicken was going to go bad if I didn't use it.  I threw it all in the crock pot one day last week with tons of salt, pepper, garlic and onion and a little bit of water and let it simmer all day.  When I got home from work, I diced up some red potatoes and let them cook for an hour or two.  Ladybug and I had a great chicken and potato dinner.  Coondog decided to fend for himself that night.  This week, I realized the leftovers were languishing in my fridge.  Determined to not let food go to waste, I threw some in a baggie and in a burst of inspiration added some frozen broccoli florets from the freezer.  Add some bread and butter on the side and it's a delicious hot meal for lunch.  It's like going out to eat but better because it's seasoned the way I like it and much cheaper.  I have maybe one day's worth left so now I need to come up with my next dish.  I can't believe it took me so long to figure this out! 

Any suggestions for other easily portioned crock pot meals?

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