Need Crock Pot Rec. Full Time Working Parents!

Shredded Chicken Tacos

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1-16oz jar Pace Picante sauce
tortillas, taco toppings of choice

Put chicken in crockpot, cover with picante sauce and cook on low 8hrs. Shred with fork, cook 10 minutes more. Serve on tortillas with any toppings you enjoy! My family LOVES these and they are great for superbowl! I make a much larger batch and enjoy the leftovers when we have them!

LOVE LOVE LOVE their website: http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipes.aspx

The pulled pork is one of my family and friend's favorites. Everyone asks me, how did you make this so juicy! (The think I slow cooked it over the BBQ!) And we use Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and serve it with some cole slaw. YUM!

I have a super easy lasagne crock pot recipe. I also have a word doc of "easy" recipes that I have cut and pasted. If you or anyone else wants it, just message me your email address and I'll be happy to send it. =)

Slow Cooker Lasagna
Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 4 Hours Ready In: 4 Hours 10 Minutes
Servings: 6

"Lasagna noodles are layered with sausage and mozzarella cheese in this easy slow cooker dinner."

INGREDIENTS:
1 (1 pound) package Bob Evans(R) Italian Sausage Roll
1 (9 ounce) package no-boil lasagna noodles, broken into 2 pieces
12 ounces ricotta cheese
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
2 (26 ounce) jars pasta sauce
1 tablespoon dried parsley
DIRECTIONS:
1. Spray interior of slow cooker with non-stick vegetable spray.
2. In medium skillet over medium heat, crumble and cook sausage until brown. Place in slow cooker. Add noodles, ricotta, 2 cups mozzarella, pasta sauce and parsley. Stir gently to combine.
3. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. 5 minutes before serving, top with remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese. Cover to melt cheese.

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

I like pulled beef or pork with sweet BBQ sauce.

Place a 2 lb. chuck roast and a quartered onion in the crockpot.
Don't add any liquid.
Cook on low 7-8 hours.
Drain liquid created from the roast. Discard.
Shred beef with 2 large forks.
Mix half bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's (or other) with 1/2 c. apricot preserves.
Pour sauce into meat.
Mix.
Warm for 15 additional minutes.
Serve on buns.

Take Denise P's two lbs of meat and divvy it up for a few nights before you add her sauce. One night, do her BBQsauce. The other night, put the cooked meat in a pan with salsa and make tacos. Another night, add wax peppers or bell pepper or any other variation and put it on fresh sourdough bread. Two lbs of meat can make a lot of meals!

Sometimes I throw frozen meatballs and spagetti sauce in the crockpot for meatball sandwiches. Also, you can use the meatballs with mushrooms and brown gravy. We serve them over egg noodles.

I have a couple of really good standby recipes for my crockpot that work great every time!

Chicken Tacos:
Place a couple of frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot and put a packet of taco seasoning and a can or two of Rotel on top and cook on low all day. When you get home, shred up the chicken and mix back into the tomatoes. Voila! Chicken tacos! Just add to hard or soft shells with all of your favorite fixin's!

BBQ Chicken:
1 Tbl canola oil
1 Cup ketchup
1 (12 oz) bottle chili sauce (found on the condiment aisle by the ketchup, usually)
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1/3 cup balsalmic vinegar
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp chili powder
2 Tbl worchestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp Tobasco sauce

Combine all of the above ingredients and pour over 4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts. Cook on low all day (or high for 4 hours), then shred the meat and stir back into the sauce. Spoon onto kaiser rolls and enjoy! This one is a favorite of everyone I make it for (had it last night in fact). I made it for my neighbor when she had surgery and her husband brought the crock pot back and asked for a refill. LOL!

There are a few others that I make, but these two are my favorite and are super easy. I use my crock pot at least once per week. To save time and energy on cleanup, they make crock pot liners so that you can just throw the liner away and not have to scrub the pot! They are usually found in the aisle near the ziploc bags. Hope you find some recipes you like! I'll be watching your other posts for some new ideas. :-)

I love to make round steak in my crock pot. get a round steak I like the thicker one not the super thing ones. I cut it into pieces and then flour it. spray the bottom of the crock pot with some pam or even better get some of those crock pot bags. lay the round steak in the crock pot. Sprinkle a package of lipton onion soup mix in. pour in about a half cup of water. cover tightly and let it go. it will be really good after work. sometimes I put a can of mushroom soup mix in that makes amazing gravy. cook on low for about 8 to 10 hours.

I throw in a chuck roast with seasonings and let it go until I get home. Then throw in some carrots and potatoes.

I bought the book make it fast cook it slow. It has some good recipes, but to be truthful I don't use it much. It might be worthwhile though to try a couple weeks of the recipes and see if it's a fit for you. You can try her blog to get an idea before you purchase: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/.

If someone hasn't already mentioned it, go to the 365crockpot blog (on blogspot I think). There are also crockpot magazines at the checkout section of our grocery store, I picked one up for summer dishes and made several new recipes.

My fave from 365crockpot is her rotisserie chicken - its the best every time, makes a great gift and the chicken has soooooo many uses!

Good luck!

I love crockpots. You can get many recipies off the internet. You can get all you ingredients together and put them on low in the crockpot for about 12 hours. You can make pulled pork for pulled pork sandwhiches,spaghetti sauce,chicken noodle soup,chili,the list goes on.

They have several cookbooks with nothing but crock pot recipes. I tend to do roasts. Sometimes stew.

Most of the time I do my cooking on the weekends and eat leftovers creatively during the week. I don't like to do a lot of cooking during the week. :)

You can make stews. Just toss in the ingredients. There are some cookbooks called Fix-It and Forget-It........I use the one for diabetics. There are some awesome recipes in it.

Anything you would normally roast or bake you can cook in a slo-cooker, as long as it fits it will cook.
Toss in cut-up chicken, season to taste and a little water, you can toss in frozen carrots and some fresh potatores cut-up, set on low and it will be done by the time you get home. With my slo-cooker I have to use a saucepan to make gravy. If your family likes homemade baked beans you can do that on a weekend day. It's a bit more labor intensive but they taste sooo good.
Pot roast, roast pork, or sometimes I use a small beef roast and a small pork roast, cooked together, then toss in the carrots and potatoes.
Cut up turkey peices also work if they fit, it depends on the shape of your cooker. Mine is tall and round so even split trukey breast doesn't fit and often turkey legs or wings are simply too long. But you can also use an electric fry pan as a slow-cooker, so I use that for trukey pieces. You just turn it way down to about 180-200 degrees and let it cook. You may have to add water, it seems as though the lid doesn't fit as tightly on a fry pan as on a slo-cooker.
I've made beef stew in my slo-cooker too. Just cut up a beef roast into bite sized chunks, peel and cut potatoes, add a handful or two of baby carrots and maybe a package of frozen peas. I like to add some cut up celery and onion also. Then just season and let it cook.
You can get everything ready the night before and put in the slo-cooker and refrigerate overnight, then in the morning put slo-cooker together and strart it up.

If any of these sound like something you want to try, pm me for recipes. :)

Ministrone
Chili
Beef strogonoff
Shredded chicken enchiladas
BBQ beef/pork (homade sauce with dr pepper)
BBQ chicken legs/thighs (start frozen or they'll be mush by the time you get home)
And of course, the previously mentioned roasts (you could slather a pork roast with a nice mustard based sauce for a change up)

I get great recipes off of allrecipes.com, tasteofhome.com, myrecipes.com and justapinch.com. You can "lighten up" many of them by using lower sodium and fat free or 98% ff soups and ingredients. We LIVE by our crock pot! Here's one of my faves and my 5 and 2 year old love it too:

FROZEN (no need to thaw) chicken breasts -place in crock pot
add a can of chicken broth and a can of Rotel tomatoes and chilis -if you're going to be gone longer than 9 hours, add more chicken broth.
Turn on low for at least 9 hours. During the last hour put a block of cream cheese (I use light or fat free) on top of the chicken for an hour.

It's AWESOME and great over noodles, rice or toast. I don't eat many carbs, so I love it with green beans or by itself. You can serve as a breast or shred for a soup/stew type meal.