Cooking meals for your family...please help!

[Anonymous]

Ditto on the crock pot meals, which I usually serve with a big salad. W/ a 7 month old and a two year old, the "witching hour" of dinner time is not often pleasant at our house. It's disheartening to put a ton of work into a meal, then not get to sit and eat it because the baby needs to be nursed and put to bed! So, at least 2-3 nights a week, I get it done in the morning instead. I use my older child's 30 min of Dora the Explorer and the baby in the exesaucer to prep a meal and put it in the crock pot. I also love it when after dinner the only dishes to be done are the dinner plates and the crock pot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ditto on the crock pot meals, which I usually serve with a big salad. W/ a 7 month old and a two year old, the "witching hour" of dinner time is not often pleasant at our house. It's disheartening to put a ton of work into a meal, then not get to sit and eat it because the baby needs to be nursed and put to bed! So, at least 2-3 nights a week, I get it done in the morning instead. I use my older child's 30 min of Dora the Explorer and the baby in the exesaucer to prep a meal and put it in the crock pot. I also love it when after dinner the only dishes to be done are the dinner plates and the crock pot!

Would you kindly post a couple of your crockpot recipes? I have this entire book with crockpot recipes but it's so overwhelming. (Not the OP, but I would love to do this in the morning before work).

[Anonymous]

This week -
Chicken Breasts with BBQ Sauce in crock pot and serve with corn and rolls (to make sandwiches)
Taco's with ground beef
Chicken breasts with cream of mushroom soup, mushrooms and broccoli in crock pot served with linguini
Black Eye Pea casserole with veal cubes served with rice
One night we will go out to dinner and one night my hubby ate out late so I ate leftovers

We also do alot of
Tortilla soup with chicken
Whole Chicken with veggies
Chicken Soup with lots of veggies
Pot Roast in the crock pot
Flank Steak grilled with a side of corn/tomato salad
Chili with lots of veggies and beans
Pasta Bolognese
Salmon

These are the staples

[Anonymous]

This is an awesome thread but I wish it was in cooking as that's where I usually lurk. I too use the crockpot, and I know some of you will cringe: I leave the house at 6 AM, put the crockpot w/ frozen stuff out and set the time to start at 8. That's 2 hours on the counter, not cooking, then 6 hours, so when I get home at 4:30, I can season, continue cooking if okay, salvage if not. I make rice, pasta whatever when I get home. I try really hard to always have a salad but that's the one part I struggle w/. I love A Year of Slow Cooking (mostly b/c she's fearless) and took the 6 o'clock scramble recipes and adapted for the crockpot. I use frozen vegs not fresh, not ideal, but that's what works.
crockpot chicken cacattori w/ pasta and salad (recipe: frozen chicken, tomato sauce, frozen peppers)
crockpot potroast (fingerlings potatoes, baby carrots, onion in four wedges, worschestire, water, large meat cubes)
crockpot chicken 'n' broc (frzn chx, frzn broc, water, mashed potatoes to thicken (no dairy)) w/ rice
crockpot apricot chicken and potatoes
foreman grill chicken w/ rice and frzn veg
my pad thai (chx w/ this sauce I make of peanut butter and soy sauce) over rice noodles (noodles cook in 10 minutes, add them to the large frying pan) use 1 bag frzn stir fry veg