How to use the crockpot.

I crawled out of bed at one in the afternoon and put some frozen porkchops and a can of cream of mushroom soup in the crockpot before I even drank my first Diet Pepsi of the day. When I told Diana about it later, she seemed surprised that it was that easy! Yes! It's easy! That's why I do it!

So just for Diana, I'm going to tell you how to use your crockpot to be lazy.

You can take any frozen meat, and put it in the crockpot with almost anything even slightly liquid-y, and let it cook all day (or all afternoon) and it will be ready to eat at dinnertime. I usually make (brown)rice in the rice cooker to serve with it, and sometimes I roast or microwave a vegetable to go with it. Not always, because I don't care about vegetables, but I make a minimal effort to be healthy.

Some of the things you can put together in the crockpot are:

Porkchops with cream of pretty much anything. Cream of chicken, cream of celery, cream of mushroom - don't add water to the condensed soups. Use the Low setting if you remember to do this in the morning, and let it cook all day, or use the high setting to cook it for 4 to 5 hours if you don't think of it until noon-ish. I started today's porkchops about 1 in the afternoon and we will probably eat them around 6.

You can put in frozen chicken breasts with any cream soup, but another idea is to pour in a jar of salsa or picante sauce. When it is done cooking (again, you set it on Low for all day or on High for all afternoon), you can tear the chicken apart with a fork and stir in a cup of sour cream. You can serve it rolled in a tortilla (with cheese or whatever toppings you want) or serve it over rice. (I never get tired of rice.)

A frozen roast is good with salt and pepper and about a half cup of water. Just like any other frozen meat, cook on Low all day or High all afternoon. A friend from work told me to sprinkle a packet (or two) of Italian salad dressing mix over the meat before you start to cook it. I tried that, and it is really good!

I like to make a pork roast once in a while. I cook it with a 1/2 cup of water, just like a beef roast, and when it's done, I tear it apart with a fork, and pour half a bottle of barbeque sauce over it. Stir it up, adding more if it's too dry, and then you can serve it on a hamburger bun. When I made this last week, I topped the bbq pork with a big spoonful of coleslaw I bought at KFC - it was amazing!

If you want to make a little tiny bit more of an effort, you can put some of those fingerling potatoes (or cut up some big ones), and a handful of baby carrots, a chopped onion and maybe some celery in the bottom of the crockpot and put a turkey breast on top of that. Let that cook all day on Low, and you've got dinner, with vegetables!

You can also just cook the turkey breast by itself with the magic 1/2 cup of water. Mmm, turkey sandwiches sound really good right now.

See how easy it is to make dinner with your crockpot and minimal effort? Look in your freezer! Diana said she has a pound of frozen hamburger, and asked what she could do with that. Put it in the crockpot with a can of cream of mushroom soup, add a chopped onion (or not) let it cook on High all afternoon, and make a pot of noodles to go with it, and you have beef stroganoff. Sounds like dinner to me!

Another idea for the hamburger is to add a chopped onion, some chili powder, a can or two of Rotel's tomatoes, and a couple of cans of beans, and you'll have chili by dinnertime! Use a can of tomato sauce in place of one of the cans of Rotel's if you like it less spicy.

There you go, I just gave you a week's worth of menus. Two weeks, really, because you'll have leftovers. Wasn't that painless?