Cooking indoors 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 stove 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 a problem that lots of household cooks face in the summer, particularly if there is a young family involved.
Young Johnny will not eat ‘rabbit food’ – he wants meat and little Jenny does not want sandwiches again, because she had them for lunch. So, what do 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 want a full meal.
It covers all the bases without costing any extra time on your behalf. Not only that, but if no one wants what is in the crockpot, nothing is lost and it can be heated up again the following day.
Utilizing a crockpot to cook in this fashion will also save a lot on electricity. Why? Not merely 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 using the crockpot to help supply an alternative or even the main meal during the summer is a win-win situation whichever way you look at it and it is cheaper as well.
That takes care of the primary meal, but if there is more consensus 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 purchase a second crockpot.
Regrettably, crockpot cooking has acquired the reputation of only being good 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 options in between.
Two more advantages of cooking with a crockpot are:
Firstly, if you cook in a hurry, there is a tendency 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 as well.
You almost certainly have never been shown how to use your crockpot for cooking anything more complicated than a stew, so maybe the first thing to do is buy yourself a decent crockpot recipe book which teaches a wide spectrum of meals including sweets and breads.
About the Author
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, 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
