Cooking inside in the summer is such as a nuisance, is it not? You would like to be outdoors in the fresh air instead of sweating at a hot cooker but anyway, you are not even sure that the family or even yourself will want to eat hot food once it has been prepared. This is difficult that lots of household cooks face in the summer, especially if there is a young family involved.
Young Johnny will not touch ‘rabbit food’ – he wants meat and little Jenny does not want sandwiches again, because she had them for lunch. So, what can you do?
The crockpot can come to the rescue quite perfectly. Because it cooks over a long time without a lot of heat, so the kitchen will not warm up much. You can put a casserole or a stew in there in the morning before going to work and let it cook all day and then, when you get back, you can just knock up a salad for those who do not require a full meal.
It covers all the bases without costing any extra time on your behalf. Not just that, but if no one wants what is in the crockpot, nothing is lost and it can be warmed up again the following day.
Utilizing a crockpot to cook in this fashion will also save a great deal on electricity. Why? Not only for the cooking of the food in the crockpot, but also because if you cooked a traditional meal in the summer heat, you would need to switch on the air conditioning and the extractor fan.
This means that utilizing the crockpot to help supply an alternative or even the primary meal during the summer is a win-win situation whichever way you look at it and it is cheaper too.
That takes care of the primary meal, but if there is more agreement in your family and you know from the start that everyone will eat a salad, you could use the crockpot to prepare a sweet. Or you could buy a second crockpot.
Regrettably, crockpot cooking has gained the reputation of only being useful for preparing stews, yet the fact is that this is very far from the truth. You can use it for roasting a joint or baking a cheesecake with loads of alternatives in between.
Two more benefits of cooking with a crockpot are:
Firstly, if you cook in a hurry, there is a predisposition to use rice or pasta as a filler instead of vegetables, whereas if you can prepare the vegetables a while before hand it is simpler to include them
Secondly, there is just one pan to clean after eating instead of two or three or more. This saves more time and energy too.
You probably have never been shown how to use your crockpot for cooking anything more difficult than a stew, so maybe the first thing to do is get yourself a good crockpot recipe book which teaches a wide variety of meals including sweets and breads.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the 2 quart crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots