McCloud - Crockpot Recipes: The Top 100 Best Slow Cooker Recipes Of All Time

I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading the book, Crock Pot Recipes; The Top 100 Best Slow Cooker Recipes of All Time.

This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to make delicious meals while you are out that your family will love.

Slow Cookers or Crock Pots are a real help to families where parents work a full time job. Mom or Dad may not get home until 5 or 6 o'clock and a good meal may take an hour or more to prepare. When dinner has been cooking all day in the crock pot, the family can make a salad or side and be sitting down to dinner in just a matter of minutes. Meals are not just regular meals when they are cooked in a slow cooker. The food cooks very slowly for about 8 hours, so everything melds together nicely and melts in the mouth. Once you start cooking in a crock pot, it is hard to go back to cooking in an oven or on top of the stove because food is so delicious and it is so easy to do. Using a crock pot helps save money and eat healthy. No more running out for expensive take out and you are less likely to stop on the way home for pizza, burgers or other fast food that add calories and fat to your diet.

Slow cookers and crock pots are the same thing. What they are called depends on the manufacturer. The pot part is made from a heavy stoneware that resembles an old fashion crock used way back in the pioneer days. People would salt meat in crocks, they would pickle meats and vegetables and store butter. The reason a crock was so good for this was because it helped the contents stay cool. When heat is applied to a crock, it makes the contents hot. The stoneware retains heat and distributes it to make whatever is being cooked inside cook evenly.

The stoneware pot fits into a metal out vessel and inside, on the base and sometimes up the sides, is a heating element that runs with electricity. A crock pot has a knob on the outside where you set the heat to high, low or warm and sometimes they even have some vent holes. The lid of a crock pot is usually made of heavy glass that fits lightly over the crock into a grove to keep it tight. A slow cooker will not work properly without the lid. The lid keeps heat in the crock so the food cooks and liquids stay in the crock instead of evaporating into the air. That is why everything is so delicious and juicy when cooked in a slow cooker.

The food is put in the crock pot, sometimes just dumped all in together and sometimes layered. It is then turned on in the morning and set to low for 8 or more hours or high for 4 or less hours. Some slow cookers even have a timer and you can set it to cook for the proper amount of time and then go to warm all by itself. The heat starts in the base of the vessel and flows up the sides cooking the food somewhat like using a Dutch Oven on a stove under low heat. The big difference between a slow cooker and Dutch Oven is that the crock pot doesn't need to be watched or stirred. Turn it on and leave for work without worrying because it doesn't get hot enough to burn the food. That is not something you can do with a pot on the stove.

The following is a great video entitled Tips for Cooking in a Slow Cooker from Dummies.com. This tells you how much liquid to include and how to make food look and taste very good.

Slow cookers come in many shapes and sizes. Large oblong ones are good for large families and can cook whole chickens or roasts. The regular sized round crock pot hold enough for a family, but the contents may have to be chopped up to fit. There are even small crock pots big enough for one or two people.

The nice thing about crock pots is that you can cook anything in them. Main dishes, soups, sides and even dessert cooks up in a slow cooker. Most common recipes can be converted to crock pot recipes. Remember that liquid does not evaporate in a crock pot like it does on the stove, so you must adjust by only adding half the liquid called for in the regular recipe. If it says to use 4 cups of chicken stock, use only two unless you are cooking beans, rice or pasta that soaks up the liquid.

The following are 100 delicious, mouth-watering recipes for a crock pot that should make great dinners for working families. They include main dishes, soups and stews, pastas, breakfast and lunch ideas, appetizers and even desserts. Let's start our journey on a new way of cooking that makes delectable recipes that are nutritious and easy to make.

Thanks for downloading this book and I hope that you enjoy it