Comments on: The Frugal Magic of the “Five Ingredient Crock Pot Meal”

By: Juliana

Juliana — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:53:51 +0000

Nobody really needs to buy a crockpot new. There are “new” ones at the thrift store waiting to be had for almost nothin’. I think people must get them as a wedding gift and send them there without knowing the treasure they gave up.

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 22:41:32 +0000

Sheesh, commenters are so judgemental about what others eat. Eat what you want, let others do the same. Not everyone will or wants to spend all day simmering quinoa with kale flakes. In fact, for most Americans, making something in a crock pot with canned soup would be a step UP from their normal dinner.

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:18:39 +0000

Workday wonder:
cubed ham
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can great northern beans
dried rice or frozen hash browns
1 can sweetened milk
salt and pepper, garlic and onion powder

Put all ingredients into the crock pot. Simmer on low at least 8 hours.
Add shredded cheese the last 30 min of cooking.

By: Jo

Jo — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:34:50 +0000

I’ve never had a problem with food drying out in a crock pot – just the opposite, I have to resist the urge to add liquid, because in a covered crock pot, the liquid does not boil away, so the water and fat in the meat and water in veggies raises the level of the liquid so that if you don’t resist adding more liquid, everything you cook ends up being soup.

I make delicious chicken & dumplings in my crock pot. Put whichever chicken parts you like in the crock pot, enough per person, season to taste,cover with liquid and cook on low until you get home from work. If you’ve used boneless chicken you could add 3 or 4 chicken bouillon cubes.

When you get home, take the chicken out of the pot, turn the pot to high to get broth to boil. Remove meat from bone, tear it into bite size pieces, then put it back into the broth. Add liquid if necessary so it looks like a big pot of soup. Then mix 1 cup baking mix with milk until it’s a doughy consistency just like biscuits and then drop by tablespoonful into the boiling broth. Cover and let cook 5 minutes, take a spoon and flip each dumpling once, turn heat to low, cover & cook a few minutes more. The more stirring you do the thicker the broth becomes, so don’t worry about breaking a few, make sure you’ve got plenty in there.

This is such a simple recipe, yall are lucky I’ve shared this secret, I won’t tell my family because they think it’s so good, they fight over the left overs! They think I make homemade dumplings! And I let them think it! lol

Bye now!

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:33:40 +0000

Great recipes! That breakfast cobbler looks amazing!

By: Kristen@TheFrugalGirl

Kristen@TheFrugalGirl — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:23:34 +0000

I’m bummed to hear that the apple dish was a bust for so many people. Trent, do you have any tips? I’m assuming this recipe works well for you!

By: Harry

Harry — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:27:57 +0000

Hey guys,

Love crockpots. Problem I have is that I am away from the house all day (7am till 6pm – 11 hours). I am afraid that any dish I put on will be overcooked or dried our. Most of the recipes call for 4-8hrs of cooking time. Any ideas? Thought about putting the crockpot on a “light” timer and starting it to go on at noon or 2pm but don’t know if there would be any health issues to the food sitting in the crockpot on the counter for 5-7 hrs….

Cheers

By: RobD

RobD — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:45:59 +0000

Re #98: I have Fresh from the Vegetarian Crockpot, and use the chili recipes quite a bit. It’s main problem is that there are a lot of dishes that call for additional prep (e.g., sauteing onions and peppers prior to adding them to the chili), which tastes good but does slow things down and add to the dishes to be done.

I’ve also got the Big Cookbook compilation of the Fix It and Forget It series. Yes, a lot of convenience food input, but there are a LOT of recipes, so even what’s left if you don’t want to use those is a lot.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:26:39 +0000

These sound great. You can enhance the taste if you saute the onions first to carmelize them, and brown the beef before starting. In the case of chopped meat, I’d brown it first to get rid of the extra fat, and also to enhance the taste.

By: ed

ed — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:53:22 +0000

#57 Mike: YOU ROCK! I was beginning to think the sacrifice of mammal, fowl, or finned creature was a prereq for using a crockpot. I’m new to crockpots, not vegetarian eating, and, since I was raised by a TV dinner kind of family (part of why I went veg) have very limited training cooking, let alone converting recipes from one form of preparation to another. The very thought of trying puts me in a cold sweat. Anyway, this site has all kinds of recipes for tasty-looking vegetarian crockpot recipes, most of them not requiring a special trip to places that sale products unfamiliar to the western palate. Thank you for posting this site!

By: Jenna

Jenna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:47:10 +0000

If you’re having an issue cooking the Breakfast Apple Cobbler, try using rolled oats instead of quick oats. Rolled oats (also called old-fashioned oats) have a chewier texture than Quick oats, so they’ll probably hold up better for a longer period of time.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:56:28 +0000

Let me add to the list of people for whom the breakfast apple cobbler was a disaster.

It was charred beyond recognition on the edges, merely burned in the middle, and the few edible bits just tasted like bland apple oatmeal.

Oh wells, that’s the first of many Simple Dollar recipes I’ve tried that dudded out, so it’s still a good batting average! :)

By: Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:12:50 +0000

We love our crockpot too, but I am on a low-sodium diet so I try to avoid prepared sauces, salad dressings, beef stock, etc. My family loves pot roast done our way: I put sliced carrots and potatoes in the bottom of the crockpot, then a roast, some dried minced onion and garlic powder, and I top it all off with a 6 oz can of low-sodium V-8. Tastes great!

By: Kay

Kay — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:03:24 +0000

If you don’t want to use canned soup, make your own white sauce- what the soup does is basically bind everything together. Look in any basic cookbook for instructions- I usually just throw mine together without benefit of measurements. It’s basically just flour cooked in butter or another fat until fragrant, with milk or broth added, and then cooked until it’s thickened. You can steep fresh herbs in the milk or broth for more flavor, and when it’s done, add some onions/garlic/herbs/etc.

By: Kathie Allen

Kathie Allen — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:18:09 +0000

In researching healthy meals for my 8 year old son with arthritis, I learned that foods typically cooked at high temperatures, like meats, may contribute to the risk and exacerbation of chronic diseases linked with inflammation, such as arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. Research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York shows that frying or grilling certain foods at high temperatures produces compounds that can increase inflammation in the body. It is recommended that you limit your exposure to meats cooked at high temperatures and cook with lower temperatures, hence another reason benefit to using a slow cooker. This information was taken from:

http://www.arthritistoday.org/nutrition-and-weight-loss/healthy-eating/food-and-inflammation/cooking-temperature-inflammation.php

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:53:58 +0000

I made the Breakfast Apple Cobbler recipe and it turned out fantastic! Maybe part of the trouble is the type of granola being used. I did not pare the apples and it was rather dark but it tasted great. The second time we made it I used plain old rolled oats (not the quick type) and added extra cinnamon and a just a splash of water because the apples were sorta dry. This came out fine and it wasn’t near as dark. This method of cooking oatmeal has certainly taken the place of shredding the apple into a pot of water in our house.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:29:32 +0000

I hate touching raw meat, so the night before I will put a frozen roast in the crock pot. I take about a cup or cup and a half of water and but in some beef boullion (probably a teaspoon or two, but I don’t really measure), liquid browning, maybe a spash of worchestershire sauce (cause I like how it smells), maybe a dash of BBQ sauce or something like that, if I remember some pot roast seasoning that I bought once, dump it on then set on low and leave it until supper the next day. If the meat is thawed out, I do the same thing but in the morning. For Chile, I brown the ground beef first. Actually, if I have a big pack, I will brown up whatever there is then freeze it in smaller bags, so I would just plop in a chunk of browned then frozen ground beef. Or skip the meat if my husband isn’t around. I also add a can of corn and usually a can of mushrooms.

By: Melinda

Melinda — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:05:50 +0000

One of our favourites is Salsa Roast.

Put a beef roast, as big as you like, into the slow cooker. Pour over a jar of salsa. Cook on low for about 8 hours. I generally pull some of the sauce out and thicken it with cornstarch, however you don’t need to.

Leftover roast gets sliced thin and dunked in batter and fried for meat fritters. Or chopped and then put through the food processor with carrots, onions, eggs, mint, mashed potato and made into rissoles. Yummo!

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:20:56 +0000

All this talk of crock pots reminds me of a joke of my parents. The very first Christmas they were married, my mom bought some really nice things for my Dad like well made sweaters and cologne.
Did my dad get mom some pretty jewelry or perfume?

No.

A mustard yellow crock pot.

In spite of all the teasing, Mom ended up using it way more than Dad ever used his sweater or cologne.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:15:50 +0000

I made the Apple Cobbler for breakfast this morning and it was pretty awful. I wouldn’t recommend this recipe. I’ll probably end up seeing if anyone else likes it to use as ice cream topping (it was completely crumbly) or else it’s going in the garbage.