I don't cook. But I do Crock.

Crock Pot (or Slow Cooking) is the easiest thing in the world, especially for bachelors.

Here's my go-to Chicken Cacciatore recipe:

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 7 hours

Ingredients:

• Pasta or rice of your choosing
• 1 Tbs. salt, plus more, to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more, to taste
• 1 chicken, 3 1/2 to 4 lb., cut into 8 serving pieces
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 red or yellow bell peppers, sliced
• 1 yellow onion, halved and sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3/4 cup dry red wine
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 can (28 oz.) crushed plum tomatoes
• 1 Tbs. dried oregano
• 6 oz. button or cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 1 Tbs. crushed red pepper, if you like it spicy!

Directions:

Brown the chicken
In a large fry pan over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Add the chicken pieces, in batches if necessary, skin side down, and cook until golden brown on the bottom, about 7 minutes. Turn the chicken and cook on the second side until lightly browned, 3 to 4 minutes more. Transfer the chicken pieces to the slow cooker.

Cook the chicken and vegetables
Return the fry pan to medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, onion and garlic and sauté until they start to soften, about 3 minutes. Pour in the wine and broth, and deglaze the pan, stirring to scrape up the browned bits on the pan bottom. Stir in the tomatoes and oregano and bring to a simmer. Pour the mixture over the chicken. Cover and cook on the high-heat setting for 4 hours or the low-heat setting for 8 hours.

Enjoy the glorious aroma for the day - I prefer doing this on Football Sundays, as the dish is ready about half-way through the Sunday Night game. Perfect!

Cook the pasta/rice of your choice about 10 minutes before your dish is ready
The starch soaks up the flavor of the everything you have cooked; otherwise, the dish can be not as tasty as it smells.

Add the mushrooms
About 10 minutes before the dish is ready, stir in the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and serve over pasta or rice of your choosing. Serves 6.



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Post your favorite crock pot recipes here!

That sounds amazing.

Looks good for sure!

I'm imagining crockpot cooking for one and wondering how many meals it takes you to eat the whole chicken.

Usually takes about 5 of 6 days. It's great, because most crock pots slide easily out of the cooker so you can place the pot in the fridge.

Looks awesome, I'm learning to love my slow cooker, so easy to cook great food.

My favourite recipe is for pulled pork, as follows...

• One decent sized (5lb+) lump of pork shoulder, leg, whatever. Best thing is it can be straight out of the freezer i.e. frozen.
• Stick in pot, pour in an inch or so of cider
• Turn on, high or medium, 8 - 12 hours respectively. Doesn't matter too much, you can't really overcook it
• Drain all the juice out & save it
• Remove fat and bones, should be real easy as will just fall apart
• Shred the meat up with two forks.
• It'll be a bit dry, so now add some flavours, you can use what you like but mine is along the lines of:
  - generous splash of cider vinegar
  - good dollop of american mustard
  - very generous amount of barbecue sauce
  - salt, pepper, chili, jalapenos, chipotle pepper etc
  - now make it a little wetter using the juice you drained off (remove the fat)
• Cook for another hour or so
• Enjoy! And you will, stick in a sandwich, stick in a burrito, eat from the pot - tastes amazing!
  

My favorite to make in a crock pot is my buffalo pulled chicken. Take a packet of dry Ranch dressing mix and rub a 3-5 pound chicken with it. Smoother it with half a bottle of buffalo wing sauce. Once done, shred the chicken and add rest of the bottle of sauce and some sour cream. Cook until warmed thru and serve on a bun. Simple and great

Made this tonight... fantastic.

Although, the recipe does look tasty; I still don't get the point in using a crockpot. Is the food cooked in it, tastier?

Like, I mean....If you're going to fry the chicken anyways, then why not continue it on low to med stove-top setting and covered, or in oven?

Because there is nothing quite like coming home after a long day at work to a house that smells of delicious crock pot cooking followed by immediate satisfaction of eating.

Well, going to HAVE to try this out in order to find out what all the rage is about! Will update, when done.

Edit:

Questions for OP

1. Which dry red wine did you use?
2. Was it boneless chicken? (I would think so)

I'm not OP, but I used a merlot and it turned out very nice. I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs.

Hey Dom. When you use rice, do you cook it separately or add to the cooker 10 min before done?

i'm looking to buy a crockpot and do some cooking. anyone have a recipe for something that utilizes heartier ingredients? beef is my go-to meat, i like bbq sauce sometimes and i like spicy stuff too.

did you see the pulled pork recipe above? i haven't tried it, but looks more than reasonable. obv you can turn up the heat with your choice of bbq sauce and/or hot sauce/tabasco near the end.

yeah, caught it when i was looking at that cacciatore again, ty

my go to crockpot chili recipe is something along the lines of

1.5 lb chuck cut into cubes
1.5 lb ground turkey (you can replace ground beef obv but the texture is great and turkey is healthy)
2 cans (10.75 oz) tomato puree or diced tomatoes or crushed or whatever
1 can (15 oz) kidney beans drained
1 can (15 oz) black beans drained
1 large onion diced
1-1.5 bell pepper diced
3-4 large jalapenos diced seeds in
several cloves of garlic diced
small can of chipotle in adobo diced
lots of chili powder
lots of cumin
maybe 3/4 teaspoon dried parsley
maybe 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
black pepper/salt
some paprika
some hot pepper like cayenne or red pepper or something for heat
couple bay leaves
some cocoa powder

i just pour in the spices until it looks good

brown the meats in a pan, drain the fat, combine all into the crockpot, low for 8 hours. your house will smell amazing, and it's both hearty and healthy. serve with grated cheddar, some sour cream, perhaps some white onion.

makes ~8 bowls i guess.

it's great because you can make it as hearty and hot as you'd like.

So I purchased a crockpot, black & decker.

Have a beef short rib recipe that came with booklet, but if anyone has a better recipe, post it within the hour. I'm going to improvise since I don't have all the ingredients handy.

Here's the recipe:

3 lbs bone in beef short ribs
2tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp coarsley ground black pepper
2tbsp olive oil
2cups carrots
2 cups thickly sliced celery
1 cup coarsley chopped onion
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 can 14 1/2 oz diced tomatoes
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. tomato paste
1 1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 tsp herbs de Provence
1 bay leaf

Season short ribs with salt and pepper. In a skillet, brown ribs over med heat til golden on all sides, about 3 mins each side. Transfer to the slow cooker stoneware liner. Top with veggies. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over meat and veggies.

Cover and cook on high for 5 to 6 hours or on low setting for 6 to 8 hours, until beef is tender. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.


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My substitutions:

Garlic salt > garlick

Tomatoe purée > diced tomatoes

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Not sure I'm going to use this recipe though. I would prefer a finger licking good kinda recipe instead....http://www.epicurious.com/ here I come!!

Rem, if anyone has a better, more Barby barn or Bobby Rubino's style recipe, let me know! Thx.

So yum! Definitely going to try this! Thx.

The rice would surely soak up all the delicious juices in the pot, I would suggest cooking it separately....but if you don't want to dirty another pot then 10 mins (possibly a bit longer in sc) only if its uncle bens minute rice, if its regular rice it needs to cook for at least an hour, if added to the slow cooker...imo.

Add more liquid obv, but its never going to be as tasty a recipe if any pasta or rice is added to a sauce or soup while still in cooking state. Same reasoning why you shouldn't cook your pastina in the same pot as your chicken soup. All the good flavours are in the broth or sauce. In this cacciatore recipe, all that's needed is a slice of Ciambatta to dip into it...so yum!

What do you guys think of getting something like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Pot-IP...ressure+cooker

I like to make stocks, I have a rice cooker that in getting a little out of shape too, have never used a slow cooker but am not averse to the idea.

Just got a crock pot for Christmas (per my request). Does anyone have any favorite blogs specifically focused on slow cooker/crock pot recipes? I swear someone mentioned a good one in another thread in the last couple of weeks but I can't find it to save my life. Might have been another forum.

http://southernfood.about.com/library/crock/blcpidx.htm

http://slowcookerrecipes.org.uk/cook...lowcookers.htm

I really think it silly to brown and or cook everything and then add to crockpot so ... i hope these links help and answer a ? or 2! Cheers
http://thefrugalgirls.com/2011/09/cr...ning-meat.html
Also Happy NewYear!
http://myblessedlife.net/2011/01/bro...-easy-way.html

Put lean ground beef, a bag of frozen hash brown potatoes, a can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken and a packet of brown gravy seasoning. You can add onions, green peppers also for a little added kick.
Or add quick cook white or brown rice instead of the potatoes and about half a soup can of water to the above recipe. Bless trader joes as they have all of this and you can substitute at will such as brown gravy instead of the packet etc etc