When Zach and I were dating his mom bought me a crock pot as a Christmas gift. Kinda random and I wasn’t exactly sure how to best use it. Growing up I don’t have any memories of my mom using a crock pot for cooking and in our early marriage (and even early parenting years) my crock pot (or slow cooker as some call it) went pretty much unused.
Then I had my second baby. And HELLO. Crock pot for the MOMMY WIN. I can’t BELIEVE it took me so long to realize what a golden egg I had in my pantry. I ended up actually getting a new, fancier crock pot again from my mother-in-law as a Christmas present and now it’s one of my most prized kitchen posessions.
Here are 5 Reasons why I LOVE my crock pot…and why you should too!
1. It’s Easy: Toss in the ingredients and you are DONE with dinner. Majority of the recipes I use for the crock pot include chicken which we have already in serving size bags frozen in our freezer. I don’t even have to thaw the chicken first, just toss it in frozen and let it cook for extra time in the crock pot and I’m golden (we get all of our chicken from Zaycon…you can get more info here).
2. It Makes Dinner Prep Less Stressful: Babies from a few weeks old tend to have “witching hour” that falls nightly around the same time that dinner needs to be made. Even my 2 1/2 year old is still so clingy and fussy and whiny around 5:00. With dinner in the crock pot I’m freed up from dinner prep duty and better able to manage that tough parenting time of day.
3. It’s Easy Clean Up: Just like it took me too long to learn to love my crock pot, it then took me too long to discover crock pot liners. Y’all. They are a game changer for the already game changer! You put the liner in the crock pot and it keeps the crock pot completely clean. Finish the meal…toss the liner…and bam! No after dinner clean-up required. Feed your family on paper plates and then you are dish washing free for the night 😉
4. It Saves Money: Whenever I buy ingredients for one crock pot meal, I just double the amount and make two. Usually you don’t have to actually buy double of most of the ingredients and as I dump the ingredients into the crock pot for one meal, I dump the ingredients of the second meal into a gallon size freezer bag. Stick it in the freezer and I’m good to go for another meal for our family in the future. This is SUPER beneficial when expecting a new baby! It makes it EASY for hubby (or another helper) to prepare dinner so Mommy can focus on the new baby.
5. It Makes for YUMMY Meals: Y’all. We LOVE our crock pot dinners around here. All of my kid’s favorite dishes are ones that are made in the crock pot. Here are a few of our favorites (you can also check out my Crock Pot Pinterest Board for more!):
Cheesy Chicken Tater Tot Casserole
Crock Pot Cheesy Chicken and Rice
When the day gets crazy, dinner time suffers. By preparing dinner in the morning (what mom isn’t more on the ball in the AM rather than afternoon?!?!) you’re guaranteed to have a delicious meal for your entire family at dinner time! The crock pot allows for you to ENJOY dinner with much less stress, less prep and less mess! If you have your crock pot sitting in the back of a cabinet somewhere then GET IT OUT and put it to USE! You will not regret it!!!
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