Good crock pot recipe book (chicken, carrots, sugar, beef)

[Dino1]

Can anyone recommend a good book on crock pot recipies (slow cooker)? I mean one that I good purchase on Amazon. Thanks!

[karen_in_nh_2012]

Honestly, instead of advising you to spend money on a book, why not peruse the zillion web sites online for crock pot recipes? I've found a LOT of good recipes there -- so many that by now, I know my crock pot so well that I can make up my own recipes. The crock pot is generally VERY forgiving.

[rrah]

I agree with Karen. There are so many websites with recipes and one has to really work hard to mess up a meal in a crock pot.

A few tips:

Add any pasta near the end of the cooking time or it will be mushy. Same for broccoli unless you like it that way.
I put harder veggies like carrots on the bottom.
You don't need a lot of liquid.
Don't open the lid or limit it. The crock pot loses heat and takes a bit to heat back up.
Personally, I'm not a fan of rice in a crock pot. It's the one thing I just can't seem to get right.
Recipes: Add a protein, some spices, maybe a sauce, maybe some veggies and go.

One of my favorite uses of my crock pot is homemade marinara. It's super easy--just cans of crushed tomatoes, spices, a can of tomato paste, some red wine, and a pinch of sugar. I always have a few frozen bags of sauce in the freezer. It's so much better than any jarred sauce.

[karen_in_nh_2012]

rrah, your marinara sauce sounds so simple to make but also sounds like it would taste great! Oh, and I HAVE gotten good rice out of the slow cooker (here's a favorite recipe: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes...ken-with-rice/ ). The "trick" is to add the rice in the last 15 minutes. I have made this recipe dozens of times over the past 10-15 years and it has never failed me. The leftovers are great too -- I've even frozen some portions and had them months later and they're still good. )

OP, here are a few of my favorite recipe sites online:

- https://www.recipetineats.com/#search/q=slow%20cooker
- https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes...cooker-recipes -- I know Betty Crocker is very old-fashioned to some, but I grew up with my mom using her recipes so this is an old stand-by for me.
- https://www.delish.com/cooking/recip...ooker-recipes/
- https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthy/...cooker-recipes

Well, hopefully those will get you started. Keep in mind that because of the low, slow cooking time, you DO NOT use expensive cuts of meat -- e.g., the shoulder steak that I often use in the crock pot is typically one of the cheapest cuts of beef (even in these inflationary times, I just bought some for $2.99/lb. on sale).

Once you've made a bunch of recipes, you can start experimenting and making them your own (just try to remember what you do, LOL, so you can replicate it later -- alas, I need to follow my own advice on this!). I just made beef-vegetable-barley soup in the crock pot by starting with a bare-bones recipe I saw in a review on amazon and throwing in what I had (and thought would taste good together). The soup was terrific and made something like 10 big portions with just 1 pound of beef (that shoulder steak I mentioned!). I have a bunch of bowls of it in my freezer now -- I bet it will taste great when I get home from work on a snowy day this winter. Picture below from the "dinner" thread ...



Let us know if you find and try a great recipe online! Good luck!

[Senior7]

Definitely use a crock pot liner with it , no clean up , plus gives that extra seal ..