Don't put potatoes in the crock pot

...And other words of advice.
Well I started using my crock pot a whole lot more when I moved to Texas. I'm a fan of lazy cooking.
I did learn one thing... potatoes don't work in the crock pot. Every time I used a recipe with potatoes, even after 8 hours of cooking, they were hard and not appetizing. It sort of ruined the meals I made. However I will share with you a few recipes that made the cut. Since I've lived in Texas, we have experimented a ton with food. We ate vegetarian for a week, we went meat heavy for a week, I did freezer cooking to the crock pot for a week, and I think there was a week in there when we just made strange meals from whatever was in the pantry...aka pay day week. We of course ate out a bunch...you gathered that from my weight gain I wrote about in my last post.

So far, I'd like to share with you the recipes that made the cut! They are not all crock pot recipes...sorry! I promise you they pleased an 8 year old, a 3 year old, and a husband...so they are tried and true! I threw in a dessert here and there too.

Sigrid's Carrot Cake
I'll start with this amazing carrot cake I got from the Pioneer Woman. I made it on Easter and it was amazing. René doesn't even like cake and raved about it. So all credit goes to The Pioneer Woman. The homemade cream cheese frosting really makes it!

Vegan Zucchini Bread

Vegan Cupcakes
Even if you aren't vegan or think its weird, whatever...just try this. In my opinion these were the best cupcakes I ever made.

Oatmeal Lemon Creme Bars

Vegetarian Meals
I only did Week 1 so far. Every recipe was delicious, apart from maybe the General's Tofu. I wasn't a huge fan.
*Salsa Fry-Up needed some tortillas to wrap up that deliciousness, add that to your grocery list if you make this. This was the kids favorite
*Rice Greens and Egg-I used Kale and it was yummy
*The Pad Thai was a family favorite. We used Hoisin sauce, not the traditional peanut sauce. You can find it at Walmart
*Lentil Herder's Pie was delicious. Mashed potatoes are good always, duh.


Slow Cooker Kielbasa with Apples, Onions, and Sauerkraut
This was really good, it was enough for 3 kids and 4 adults and super easy to put together.

Chuck Roast in the crock pot-my concoction
I bought a chili coffee meat rub from the store. They have rubs in bulk at Central Market. If you don't have that, you can just use salt and pepper or you can buy a couple packets at the store. One won't do it. So I rubbed the spices all over the 3 lb chuck roast, then I browned it on all sides in a pan. Boil some beef broth, about 2 cups. I used organic, low sodium, low fat-all that jazz. Cut up some big onions, stick them in the bottom of the crock pot. Cut them into big chunks. After the meat is all browned up stick it on top of the onions. Pour some water into the pan your meat came out of, get all the flavor up and put it into the beef broth you're boiling. Let it cook for a minute then pour it into the crock pot. Then just put the lid on and let it go for 8 hours on Low. It was super easy, took me 10 minutes. Later on in the day I threw some salt and pepper and more meat rub in there, just to amp it up. For some reason I find the slow cooker makes things bland after cooking it all day. I served the meat over brown rice with gravy and a side of green beans.  Mashed potatoes would work too.

Several weeks ago I also made this: Roasted Grape, Goat Cheese, and Honey Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Mine never made it back into the potato skins, I am not that fancy. It was very good though. This one definitely depends on your tastes. If you don't like goat cheese, you obviously won't like this!


So far, that's all I got. I made vegetarian chili in the crock pot once too, I don't know what I did with the recipe but it was good. Just google it and I promise you'll get a million and 1 recipes to suit you for veg chili.

I have lots planned for next week-pulled pork AND homemade bbq sauce in the crock pot, carnitas, santa fe chicken, etc. It's a Tex Mex sort of week coming up, we'll be all porked out.