Crock pot /Do ahead Meals

[Cat]

Ok Susan, I know I said I would see what I could come up with on the crock pot meals....and I will.

I did realize after thinking about my in a pinch meals that I have a lot of cooked ahead. I thought maybe I'd pass a long few of my tricks first.

1.I plan a Saturday to COOK!
2. Make a grocery list (Large)
3. Shop Friday
..............................
Bacon
Sausage
hamburger meat (ground meat)
Strew Meat
roast
Chicken
..............
Friday night:
I buy enough stew meat and or roasts to fill my crock pots fulllll. I first brown my stew meat with onions in a skillet. (may take a few times to fill pots.) After browned place in pots add spices if you didn't before. Pack meat (loosely) usually add 1 -2 cups water or beef broth. Cook on low until Saturday morning. Cool meat. Sometime Saturday dip 1/2 cup meat per person in a freezer bag adding broth......freeze. Lay flat as possible so it will thaw quickly.

I buy pounds of thick bacon... lots...I use my kitchen shears and cut 4 - 5 strips at a time into 3/4 to 1 inch pieces until I have it all cut up and in a large skillet. Bacon seems to cook faster and more even done this way. (some pieces start out stuck together, will come apart during cooking. When bacon is done, dip on to a old cookie sheet with paper towels, blot bacon let cool. I then bag and freeze it.
Cook sausage in a scrambled way.... cool, bag, freeze. The dairy section has some really great hash browns usually over the biscuits and eggs.
Eggs + bacon (sausage) + hash browns + little cheese + few fresh veggies = a lot of different breakfast greats....burrito...egg casseroles ...Pull right amount bacon, sausage from freezer throw in skillet or pan with hash browns or eggs to heat. Quick and easy!

This is just part of my cook ahead....other things to do meals.


cat

[Karen W]

Great planning!

Karen

[Basketlady]

Wow, Cat. You are thinking this through!

Have you ever tried baking bacon? It's so easy and 90% of the mess is eliminated. I line a baking sheet with tinfoil and bake at 375 for 15-20 until crispy. Drain the bacon on a paper towel and just leave the grease in the pan. After it cools, you can just gather up the foil and toss the whole thing. Easy peasy!

Michelle

[Deleted]

Cat and Michelle...

I just read your suggestions to my DH (the "Emeril" cook in the family), and he'll be trying them soon (as soon as I shop to replace the items that we tossed out this weekend with our refrigerator failure. )

[Cat]

Michelle,
We fix our bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven on BLT nights. The other way is for make ahead everything we can. That way we waste less time cooking and washing dishes when we have family togethers.
Like to today I had both daughters, my Mom, and my sister as well as my son and husband for lunch and supper. (and 1 boy-friend for a late supper). I used some of my cooked ahead stew meat, 1 gallon can of Veg-all,a 28 oz can crushed tomatoes, extra beef broth and spices (for vegetable beef soup.) I put "frozen" stew meat in 6qt crock pot then pour all the rest in on top turned the pot on high. Stirred once in a while and spent the rest of the time card making and crafting with ladies. Soup was ready for lunch. Turned crock pot to warm for the rest of the day. Some people had afternoon snacks of soup....then we all had supper. Boy-friend came for game night ate his supper/snack.
Mom and Sister went home happy with cards. Young people are playing games and I'm writing to ya'll.


Cat

P.S. Don't forget to put in your crock pot sock before putting everything in. (this is what a lady at work calls the cooking bag for crock pots) As Michelle says "Easy Peasy" when pot is empty pull out and toss. No hard to scrub baked on yuk. Makes those cheese dishes in crock pot even better. (you don't dread cleanup)

[Cat]

Do Ahead Cooking
After we remove the stew meat from the crock pot we brown arm roasts on both sides with some onions. After roasts are brown we put them into the crock pots. (depending on the sizes; 2 per crock pot) We usually add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup and 2 packages of dry brown mushroom gravy mix in each crock pot. Cook on high for 30 to 45 minutes; then turn to low. Cook until tender. (about 6 to 8 hrs)
When you are finished cooking the bacon and sausage and have the roast started you are ready to start the hamburger meat. We cook hamburger meat scrambled / crumbled with finely chopped onions, salt, pepper, and garlic powders. After the hamburger is cooked then cool we bag it 1/2 cup per person. Usually 2 or 4 cups. (If you don't know how many people to plan on about 4 cups is what I usually do)
While hamburger was cooking someone cooks chicken breast on the grill. I buy big bags of frozen chicken breast. Cover the pre-heated grill with frozen chicken. As the chicken thaws add pepper and a garlic parsley salt. As chicken cooks baste with a garlic dill basting sauce. When chicken is fully cooked; cool....bag... and freeze. I also boil some chicken breast with onions, celery, parsley, and garlic cloves until chicken is done. Cool, bag chicken and broth. Freeze.
When roasts are done...cool...bag in meal size serving and freeze.

Now you have plenty of stuff cooked and ready for some easy meals.

I've wrote about my vegetable beef soup...Stew meat

Can of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce, spaghetti spices in crock pot. Cook about 1 hr...on medium add thawed hamburger.
Add pre-cooked spaghetti noodles. (feeds 4- 5 people)
To make even easier use the pre-made spaghetti sauce. I usually used 1 can of crushed tomatoes and 2 or 3 cans of tomato sauce, spaghetti spices and steamed squash (yellow and green). I let this cook all morning on medium. About 11:30 am I would add my hamburger. I had pre-cooked spaghetti noodles that I fixed the night before, cooled and refrigerated. I started a stock pot of water to boil. When Michael and his friends came in from school for lunch they would dip noodles into the boiling water in a steel basket and drain. Noodles on plates with spaghetti meat sauce. Grab garlic bread or crackers and they had lunch.


cat

[Cat]

cat

[Virginia]

Any healthy (aka no cans) crockpot recipes?

[jenn]

I have a receipe for appple pork roast.... tons of fresh veggies (no cans)... the only canned part is the frozen appple juice... will that help? If so I will post it. I run two crock posts all day Sat and Sun and basically cook for the entire week.


Jenn

[Basketlady]

Jenn, I would love that recipe! It sounds yummy!

I think there are several recipes here that are very healthy. If you prefer not to use caned items, you can substitute fresh ingredients. For example, my chili recipe it easy to adapt. Take out the hot dogs (processed food and a kid food!) and use dried beans instead of canned. If you can your own tomato sauce, even better. Or you can buy tomatoes with no salt added.

Same thing with the red beans and rice recipe. Just use fresh ingredients and take out the meats if that's not your thing. But it is very good with the lower fat options I listed.

And Susan has a recipe for French dip that is very adaptable to be healthy. Use low sodium soy sauce and a lean cut of meat.

I pretty much eat all the normal stuff, but I adapt recipes to lower the salt, fat and carb content. If your palate is used to that, it tastes just fine. And a lot of the time, using fresh ingredients is cheaper.

[Deleted]

Jenn, I'd love to have that recipe, too! (Please?

[crazy4pink]

I would like to see it too Please
Cindy

[lovesqk]

all this food talk is making me hungry and it is not even 7AM. plenty of time to get to the grocery store and load up on crock pot ingredients. it is cold here in FL this morning so that makes me extra hungry.

katherine

[Virginia]

Oh, I would love to have the recipe Jenn. Do you think that I can use Beef instead? I had a surgery and I can't eat pork for a little bit.

BasketLady I WISH that I knew how to substitute, but unfortunately, I am just learning how to cook and I am still very afraid to take risks and substitute.
I like the rice (which I use brown most of the time) and the beans idea, but I wouldn't know how to make tomatoes sauce so I guess that I will go with the no-salt option.

[Virginia]

btt