Considering I shared my success with cake pops, it seems only fair to also share my failures in the kitchen as well. Particularly, ones involving my crock pot. Crock pots seem like a great idea in theory. And I'm sure, once I find a recipe that actually works, they are great. Currently though, my crock pot and I aren't exactly friends. It's failed me twice. OK, lets be real, either I failed me or my recipes have failed me. I prefer to blame it on the recipes. Other bad cooking, I can totally blame on myself-but for a crock pot? come on! Tonight, it was a roast, last time it was chicken. Both seemed like a good idea pre-cooking. And in theory, they were a good idea. However, while both were edible, they certainly weren't that appealing and definitely not the kind of dinner where its worth saving the leftovers. The idea that you can stick stuff together in a crock pot, leave it for hours and then have it ready to go is genius. However, something has gone wrong and I'd like to chat with the people who wrote or came up with both the recipes. One was from an iphone app. The other-none other than Betty crocker herself (or her cookbook actually). I really just want to ask them-Did I really manage to screw up so few ingredients? Or do you just have crazy taste buds that actually thought that was good enough to publish for others?? For the first (aka, lemon chicken failure), I'm pretty sure it was the latter suggestion. After I made it, I went back to the app and actually read the comments posted for the recipe (which I learned, I should do BEFORE I make something) and many other posters had a similar reaction that we did. too lemony. too sour. too SOMETHING
Unfortunately for tonight's dinner, I had only Betty crocker to consult and no trustworthy comments to let you know if it actually works or not...though maybe I should have been suspicious when they recommended that you also make horseradish potatoes on page something or other as a side dish. After all, who Really wants to make horseradish potatoes?
I'm not giving up on my crock pot yet, but maybe next time, I will try to stick with something that seems like a more "typical" crock-pot meal, a soup or stew or something.
Don't get too discouraged!! I love my crock-pot! I got my most basic, yet super tasty, recipe from my mom. You can either use pork tenderloin or chicken breasts. (You could probably even use beef if it's a lean cut.) Brown you meet in a skillet with olive oil, salt, and pepper before putting it in the crock-pot. Then dump cream of mushroom soup on top. It will probably take at least 3 cans(or 1 big can and 1 little can) depending on how much meat you're cooking. Do not add water; the soup will thin out from the juices in the meat. Cook on low all day. The soup becomes a savory gravy which is great over either white rice or mashed potatoes, and the meat just falls apart! It's so easy, but super good! It makes great leftovers too! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI love, love, love my crockpot(s) - yes, I have two! I have a 6qt and a 3 1/2qt. I'll put a main dish in the big one and then a veg in the small one. Find yourself a crock pot meal cookbook (do research in the comments sections of amazon or something to find a good one!). Those recipes tend to be much tastier than using the Betty Crocker cookbook - though I am going to try her Old Fashioned Beef Stew Crock pot recipe tomorrow for the first time.
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