How often do you use a Crock Pot?

The website Steamy Kitchen, which is a food blog I frequent, showed a rather interesting recipe for a "bone broth" which cooks continuously over the course of several days. Each day when you take some out to eat, you just add more water to the crock pot, and it will continue to make more broth in the coming days. You supposedly get quite a bit of broth out of one round of ingredients (bones, aromatics, herbs). I've been meaning to try it out one of these days with my slow cooker, but I'm a little nervous about leaving it running for several days straight like that. Perhaps I can cool it down and refrigerate it in the night time, then re-start it in the mornings?

Most other recipes I would traditionally do in a crock pot, I now just do in a pressure cooker since it's much faster and produces almost identical results. However a pressure cooker can sometimes pulverize some of your ingredients until they are super mushy, so for some more delicate recipes I might still consider a slow cooker instead. Plus you can visually keep an eye on the progress of your food in a slow cooker which you cannot do in a pressure cooker.
 
I use my crock pot all the time!
My favorite things to make in it are applesauce, roast (pork or beef), ribs, lots of types of chicken and spaghetti sauce.
My favorite thing about it is that I put it on in the morning and then I let it sit all day while I spend time with my kids.
 
classic33 said:
Quick search brings up a slow cooker. Is that what you mean? Last crockpot I used went over an open fire
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:) Thanks for sparing me the search. I really came to say I never used one but now I know it's a slow cooker I've use it maybe once or twice in more than ten years. Where is it??????
 
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winterybella said:
:) Thanks for sparing me the search. I really came to say I never used one but now I know it's a slow cooker I've use it maybe one or twice in more than ten years. Where is it??????
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Have a gander in the cupboard next to where you keep the fresh food!
 
I think we're probably going to re-home our slow cooker (either that, or I'll push it to the back of a corner cupboard and hope hubby doesn't notice its still there *lol*). Its not that I don't use a slow cooker any more, its just that got a new toy a few months ago which has taken over it's job: http://instantpot.com/ its a combination electric pressure cooker, slow cooker & rice cooker and so far its managed everything I've thrown at it. Coz I try not to have too many gadgets which only do one job the slow cooker is now redundant.
 
I would use my crock pot every day of the week if my ingredient supply was endless!! :p: It's my favorite! Growing up my mom mainly used the slow cooker for beef stew and corned beef as "special occasion" dinners (or, the mornings she woke up with more energy and didn't want to worry about dinner!). A few years back my sister turned herself toward a vegan diet while I became vegetarian, and my mom's use of the crock pot dwindled. Now that I'm out on my own and am cooking much more for myself, I've been able to tweak most recipes I find or know into vegetarian meals with a focus on Beyond Meat's products. Having a Vitamix has expanded my use of the crock pot even more, as I've found a couple of soups I like which require being slow-cooked prior to being blended.
 
I am a crock pot addict. What's not to love about a cooking device that you can just set and pretty much forget? I can make anything from BBQ to lasagna to chocolate cake in my crock pot and I don't have to stand over it like a hawk and watch it.
 
Before I had surgery, I used to use my slow cooker once a week but now I find it too heavy to lift the pot out easily to clean it so usage has gone down to about once a month. I find it an absolute godsend for making curries and other spicy stews and use it mainly for vegetarian dishes. I chuck everything in it last thing at night or first thing in the morning (i.e. somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. depending when my sleep disorder allows me to go to bed or wake up!) and then I have a nice hot meal waiting at lunch time. I make about enough for 4 portions; one lot gets eaten straightaway, another goes in the fridge for the next day or the day after, and the rest goes in the freezer. I have lots of recipes for slow cookers so maybe I'll get a bit braver and cook something different in it before long.
 
When I first got my crockpot everyone said I wouldn't use it. They were so wrong!

I love using it for roasting meat and cooking pulses. It also works great with soups.
 
Rosyrain said:
I have been pulling recipes online and using my Crock Pot much more frequently these days. You can start a meal in the morning and it is perfectly cooked by dinner time. Not to mention, I can usually get 2 dinners out of one batch and so I don't have to cook again the next night.
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I use my crock pot once or twice every 2 weeks. I like to cook pot roast, pork chops and pork lion in it. It is so convenient to just place the meat in, add some water and broth and go about my business. Unfortunately, I forget to start early and my meat normally is not ready until late in the evening but it’s always quite tender.
 
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