Friday, November 14, 2008

Slowcooker Recipes that Save Time and Money

By Sophia Darby

Preparing delicious, home cooked meals can be difficult to work into today's busy schedules. One of the easiest ways to combat the dinner time rush is by relying on slowcooker recipes. Using your slowcooker creates tasty, nutritious meals that are a breeze to make and budget friendly as well.

It can be nearly impossible to create mouth-watering meals when you only have a short period of time to cook them in. Today's busy families are often crunched for time between work, activities and household chores. Wouldn't it be nice to have a meal pre-cooked and waiting for you at dinner time? That's exactly what you get when using your slowcooker.

The beauty of preparing slowcooker recipes is they can be prepped in minutes ahead of time and left to roast slowly all day while you get on with your buys day. Your meal can be quickly prepped either in the morning or the night before and stored in the refrigerator, ready to be plugged in and slow cooked in an instant before you leave the house. Then, when it's time for the family to sit down for dinner, your meal is ready to be served.

Using a slowcooker to prepare your meals not only save time but money as well. Due to the slow cooking process you are able to buy cheaper cuts of meat that would otherwise need hours of marinating in order to turn out tender. Stewing meats generally cost a fraction of the choice cuts yet turn out just as tender and delicious when prepared in the slowcooker. Have trouble with meats such as pork or chicken turning out tough? Slowcooking eliminates that and returns juicy meat every time.

Every time you throw away leftover foods you're throwing money in the garbage. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to quickly and easily reuse those leftovers in a future meal and save money on your grocery bill? With slowcooker recipes it's simple to use leftover roasts, steaks, rice or even vegetables. Make a stew with your leftover pot roast, throw pre-ccoked vegetables in a few minutes before serving to reheat them and the cost of that night's dinner became pennies a serving. For leftover rice use it to make stuffed green peppers that is both healthy and inexpensive thanks to the reuse of leftovers.

Slowcooker recipes are an excellent way to take the stress out of dinner time and reduce your grocery bill. With a little preparation ahead of time your family can enjoy healthy and hearty meals with minimal work for you. Now's that's a cooking method worth trying.

Slowcooker Beef Stew: 2 pounds stewing beef (or any leftover beef) cut into 1-inch cubes cup flour tsp. salt tsp. pepper 1 cups beef broth 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tsp. paprika 4 carrots, sliced 3 potatoes, diced 1 medium onion, chopped 1 celery stalk, sliced 2 tbsp. HP sauce Place meat in slowcooker. Mix together flour, salt and pepper. Pour over and stir to thoroughly coat the meat cubes. Add the remaining ingredients and stir together well. Place the cover on your slowcooker and cook on low heat for 10 to 12 hours or high heat for 4 to 6 hours. Stir your stew well before serving.

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