Ah, the humble crock pot.  Call it what you will – crock pot, slow cooker, or crockpot – it has been plagued by unfair rumors and a chunky, unfashionable build.   It is often relegated to the darkest regions of the furthest cupboard, only to be dragged out once a year to act as a warming dish for someone’s semi-famous casserole recipe.  That’s doubly unfortunate, since in our cash-strapped, health-conscious, time-squeezed modern life, we could use just such an ally as the crockpot.

No one in their right mind would suggest using a slow cooker as a dining-room center piece (unless, of course, you were staging a chili cook off, in which case the slow cooker could be tastefully surrounded by jalapenos and onions).  Still, it deserves a spot a bit nearer to daylight.   Many an easy and quick slow cooker recipe can be found online and in cookbooks.  Whether it’s preparing a roast chicken recipe or a hot fudge cake, a crock pot saves both time and money – just toss the ingredients in the cooking chamber, plug it in (very important), and let it do the work for you.

There is one more step to cooking with the crockpot:  coming back.   Untold dozens of crock pot dinners have dissolved into a very thick mush, leaving behind a frustrated cook who will have to defend his or her reputation for several years afterward.  Even the simplest and most promising crock pot recipe can be ruined by being forgotten.  Fortunately, the solution is as easy as setting a timer or the alarm on a cell phone.  Other than that, it is surprisingly hard to mess up a crockpot recipe.

Soup recipes, and their close relatives, chili recipes, are naturals for crock pot cooking.  Chili is one of the few things that can be cooked all day without damaging the flavor or texture. ( If you can square it with your conscience to add pasta to your chili, cook it separately and add it about half an hour before serving, or else see the paragraphs dealing with mush above.)  Another one-dish meal, the famous/infamous casserole, can easily be prepared in a slow cooker and left to bubble away until dinnertime.

Finally, we come to chicken recipes.  The hardest part in slow-cooking a chicken is to ensure that the relatively lean white meat in the breast doesn’t dry out.  One solution, if you are making a traditional-style roast chicken, is to cook the bird upside down, with the breast facing the bottom of the cooker and the fatty chicken back pointing towards the lid.  Less healthy but possibly tastier options are to cover the breast with several strips of bacon or place small pieces of butter under the skin.  Chicken prepared in a slow cooker rarely boasts the crispy brown outsides of a bird cooked in an oven or over a rotisserie, but the meat stays moist and flavorful with a minimum of fuss.

Are you hungry yet?  Think of how easy it would be to liberate the crock pot from the back of your pantry and set it to work making soup, chili, casserole, pot roast, or even dessert.  To get more ideas and recipes for slow cooking, stay tuned here at  www.fatjons.com !