New Crock Pot Love

Guess what I got for Christmas from my brother and sister-in-law? Yep, a new Crock Pot! And I love it!

To the casual Pam observer there may be questions about why I'd need yet another slow cooker. After all, I've already got four slow cookers and use them all regularly. So one would think I'd be disappointed in this gift choice, right? Nope. Not at all! In fact, I've been wanting this particular model for a while now and I'm really glad someone bought it for me.

My daily schedule is pretty crazy. I leave my house around 7:00 a.m. and don't get home until about 12 hours later. So setting a normal slow cooker to cook for 12 hours could be a very bad thing and I'd end up with some overcooked, mushy food. Which means the only time I ever use my Crock Pots are when I'm actually home on the weekends.

This particular model is programmable. I can set the heat to begin hours after I add the ingredients (this would work well if I start with frozen food). Or I can set it to cook straight through and then when the time is expired, it will automatically switch to "warm." So now I can cook during the week and not worry about burning the place down while I'm gone. So excited!

Here's what I got:



So you know what this means, right? It means that YOU will be blessed with some delicious slow cooker recipes very soon. The first one I'm going to try is Beef Barley Mushroom Stew. I bought all the ingredients yesterday and will be putting it together for tomorrow's dinner. Let's see how that turns out and I'll share the recipe soon.

~Pam