Cooking with a crock pot, or slow cooker, is said to save time and money. Is there really any truth to this assumption?
Save Time With a Crock Pot - This may seem like an oxymoron to some people. After all, how can having a meal in the crock pot for eight hours save time? It all depends on your lifestyle and your routine for dinnertime, but most have to agree that getting dinner in the crock pot, then walking away from any further time spent in the kitchen, definitely frees up time.
Gone are the days of someone being home all day to prepare the family meals. In this day and age of the busy, scattered family, we need to rely on more than one person to get dinner on the table. Because using a crock pot doesn't expose youngsters to hot burners and open flames, getting the little ones in the family, and the less experienced cooks, involved becomes much easier. Simply having someone there to help throw ingredients into the crock pot can be a big help. Now, it's a joint venture and meal preparation is shared, freeing up some much needed time for you to focus on other chores.
Even standing over a stove and stirring a pot, watching it boil so to speak, is time that you could have for something else. Once the ingredients are in the crock pot, you can walk away and get on with your day and your errands. When you walk back into your kitchen, you have a delicious meal without that time-consuming pot watching. That's certainly a time saver.
There is no such thing as a quick stop at the grocery store. But, when you're running late and there is no dinner planned, you think you can do just that - make a quick stop. After a half hour or more wandering around the aisles of the grocery store, you find yourself grabbing a few prepackaged meals and heading home. Now, you've not only put off dinner until later, but you've spent money on food you didn't really want to eat, or feed your family. With a crock pot meal planned and shopped for ahead of time, you can add that 30 minutes on to the end of your busy day and spend it with your family, instead of running around the grocery store.
Save Money With a Crock Pot - You've got to cook dinner anyway, so how can cooking in a crock pot save money? Food is food - it all costs the same, right? But, there are a couple ways that you can save money both in the grocery store and on your energy bill when you use a crock pot.
March right past those expensive cuts of meat in your grocery store's meat department and head over to the budget cuts. Yes, those less expensive cuts of meat such as rump roasts, pork shoulders, and briskets make the perfect choice for a crock pot meal. Why? Because more expensive cuts tend to cook apart in a crock pot, losing their texture very quickly. Budget cuts with more sinew and other connective tissue hold up better, while those fibers break down in the crock pots environment, ending up with a perfectly tender and succulent meat. The slow, low cooking method is perfect for less expensive cuts of meat, while the moisture trapped inside the crock pot keeps the meat juicy. You can provide a wonderful meal for your family without spending the extra money on expensive ingredients!
If you consider your crock pot a "miniature oven", you're on your way to understanding why your crock pot will save money on your energy bill. Given that an oven commits about 2500 watts to a meal, while a crock pot only commits about 200 watts, you can see where you would save energy. Even if you consider that you'll be cooking a pot roast in a crock pot for twice as long as in the oven, you're still saving total energy used. Your oven would use 10 kWh to cook a 3 hour pot roast, while your crock pot would use 1.2 kWh to cook the same pot roast for 6 hours. Even roughly estimated, there's no denying the fact that your oven uses a whole lot more energy than your crock pot.
When the evening rush is upon you, it's not the time to start panicking about dinner. If you've ever had to call the spouse to stop and pick up dinner somewhere, you know how much money that just cost you. Your family food budget cannot survive many of those last minute meal decisions. Instead, as you're driving the family around after work and school, stopping for piano lessons, shopping for some school event, or running any of those last minute errands, your crock pot can be working for you, cooking a great, hearty meal for the whole family to enjoy when you finally come in through the door. No call for take out, no more money wasted on instant meals!
Save Both Time and Money With a Crock Pot - Cooking two or three meals at a time in a big crock pot is definitely a time and money saver. Preparing once and eating twice saves time in the kitchen, and having leftovers for other meals or for lunches saves money. Also, having your crock pot cooking for 8 hours and preparing two meals during that time saves on your energy usage. Time spent running around at lunch hour buying a lunch can now be spent on something more productive, not to mention the money saved by not buying your lunch out. How would you like to cook on Monday and not have to think about what to make the rest of the week?
These arguments for cooking with a crock pot to save both time and money should be sufficient to convince most folks. If that's not enough, consider your sanity. You have a busy family and when everyone is hollering about what's for dinner, you can finally relax and say "look in the crock pot! - 33383
Save Time With a Crock Pot - This may seem like an oxymoron to some people. After all, how can having a meal in the crock pot for eight hours save time? It all depends on your lifestyle and your routine for dinnertime, but most have to agree that getting dinner in the crock pot, then walking away from any further time spent in the kitchen, definitely frees up time.
Gone are the days of someone being home all day to prepare the family meals. In this day and age of the busy, scattered family, we need to rely on more than one person to get dinner on the table. Because using a crock pot doesn't expose youngsters to hot burners and open flames, getting the little ones in the family, and the less experienced cooks, involved becomes much easier. Simply having someone there to help throw ingredients into the crock pot can be a big help. Now, it's a joint venture and meal preparation is shared, freeing up some much needed time for you to focus on other chores.
Even standing over a stove and stirring a pot, watching it boil so to speak, is time that you could have for something else. Once the ingredients are in the crock pot, you can walk away and get on with your day and your errands. When you walk back into your kitchen, you have a delicious meal without that time-consuming pot watching. That's certainly a time saver.
There is no such thing as a quick stop at the grocery store. But, when you're running late and there is no dinner planned, you think you can do just that - make a quick stop. After a half hour or more wandering around the aisles of the grocery store, you find yourself grabbing a few prepackaged meals and heading home. Now, you've not only put off dinner until later, but you've spent money on food you didn't really want to eat, or feed your family. With a crock pot meal planned and shopped for ahead of time, you can add that 30 minutes on to the end of your busy day and spend it with your family, instead of running around the grocery store.
Save Money With a Crock Pot - You've got to cook dinner anyway, so how can cooking in a crock pot save money? Food is food - it all costs the same, right? But, there are a couple ways that you can save money both in the grocery store and on your energy bill when you use a crock pot.
March right past those expensive cuts of meat in your grocery store's meat department and head over to the budget cuts. Yes, those less expensive cuts of meat such as rump roasts, pork shoulders, and briskets make the perfect choice for a crock pot meal. Why? Because more expensive cuts tend to cook apart in a crock pot, losing their texture very quickly. Budget cuts with more sinew and other connective tissue hold up better, while those fibers break down in the crock pots environment, ending up with a perfectly tender and succulent meat. The slow, low cooking method is perfect for less expensive cuts of meat, while the moisture trapped inside the crock pot keeps the meat juicy. You can provide a wonderful meal for your family without spending the extra money on expensive ingredients!
If you consider your crock pot a "miniature oven", you're on your way to understanding why your crock pot will save money on your energy bill. Given that an oven commits about 2500 watts to a meal, while a crock pot only commits about 200 watts, you can see where you would save energy. Even if you consider that you'll be cooking a pot roast in a crock pot for twice as long as in the oven, you're still saving total energy used. Your oven would use 10 kWh to cook a 3 hour pot roast, while your crock pot would use 1.2 kWh to cook the same pot roast for 6 hours. Even roughly estimated, there's no denying the fact that your oven uses a whole lot more energy than your crock pot.
When the evening rush is upon you, it's not the time to start panicking about dinner. If you've ever had to call the spouse to stop and pick up dinner somewhere, you know how much money that just cost you. Your family food budget cannot survive many of those last minute meal decisions. Instead, as you're driving the family around after work and school, stopping for piano lessons, shopping for some school event, or running any of those last minute errands, your crock pot can be working for you, cooking a great, hearty meal for the whole family to enjoy when you finally come in through the door. No call for take out, no more money wasted on instant meals!
Save Both Time and Money With a Crock Pot - Cooking two or three meals at a time in a big crock pot is definitely a time and money saver. Preparing once and eating twice saves time in the kitchen, and having leftovers for other meals or for lunches saves money. Also, having your crock pot cooking for 8 hours and preparing two meals during that time saves on your energy usage. Time spent running around at lunch hour buying a lunch can now be spent on something more productive, not to mention the money saved by not buying your lunch out. How would you like to cook on Monday and not have to think about what to make the rest of the week?
These arguments for cooking with a crock pot to save both time and money should be sufficient to convince most folks. If that's not enough, consider your sanity. You have a busy family and when everyone is hollering about what's for dinner, you can finally relax and say "look in the crock pot! - 33383
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Start saving time and money today when you start crockpot cooking. Grab a pile of Crock Pot Recipes and let's begin!
