Adventures with a Crock Pot, Part II

Okay, so I know you’re all just dying to know what other feats of gourmet cooking I managed to pull off while I had that crock pot! So I’ll give you the rest of the story…

Day 3

This time I decided to make pork chops. I’ve had pork chops sitting in the freezer for months while I tried to figure out what to do with them. (I HAVE already explained that I’m about the least adventuresome cook in the world, right?) Most of the recipes for pork chops involved cans of Cream of Mushroom soup, which sounded just fine to me, but I was curious about one that used a bottle of Italian dressing. Craig thought that one sounded interesting, too, so I went with that instead. The recipe claimed that you could throw in carrots and potatoes as well, so in an attempt to be slightly healthier I went ahead and did so.

In retrospect, I think that buying the cheapest bottle of Italian dressing that they sell at Super Target was probably a mistake. Because that dressing seemed mostly like a load of oil with a few spices thrown in. (Craig says that that’s really all Italian dressing is, and he didn’t have a problem with it, but I’m convinced that there are better dressings out there somewhere…) Anyway, the pork chops themselves were really good—- tender and flavorful. I guess they picked up all the flavor those few spices had to offer. But the carrots and potatoes mostly just tastes oily and a little too crisp still for my liking. So I’d rate this meal as fifty-fifty.

Day 4

Chicken cooked in butter, Cream of Chicken soup (is that redundant?), and cream cheese! What more could you ask for in a recipe? And then put it all on buttered egg noodles to eat. This is my kind of cooking! Anything that involves cream cheese is sure to win me over, and this recipe was no exception. Easy and yummy. And Craig loved it, too, so that made me happy.

Conclusion

It’s kind of funny with all this crock pot stuff, because for being the “easiest thing in the world,” I sure managed to screw it up a lot! But, even though the meals didn’t always turn out perfectly, I have to admit that I loved the mindset of using a crock pot. There was something very liberating about doing all the work for dinner in the morning, when we’ve just eaten breakfast and no one is hungry or tired yet, and then being able to clean up the kitchen and relax for the rest of the day and still have a good (and fairly nutritious) dinner whenever we were ready for it. I always get so stressed out trying to get dinner ready—everyone’s hungry and/or cranky, and then trying to enjoy my meal but knowing that the kitchen is a big mess that I’ll have to tackles as soon as I’m done eating… (Not that this is always the case; one of the things I like about casseroles is that I can clean the kitchen while they’re baking. I guess the real question here is, Why does a dirty kitchen stress me out so much?) Anyways, I felt like using the crock pot made everything WAY less chaotic.

So, yeah, I’m a fan. And I’m sure that, given enough time, I can even master using it so my meals consistently turn out good, too! So now I just have to talk Craig into buying me one. They’ve got nice ones at Costco. And I did buy all the ingredients for one last dish, only to realize that there was no way it would fit into the crock pot I’d borrowed… So I guess I’m just going to need to buy a bigger one!

Postscript Bought the one at Costco yesterday. AND it came with a little tiny crock pot for dips! Woo hoo!