Okay, I have come to be victim to the take out blues myself. It is so easy on a weekday night or a lazy weekend to simply go through a drive through and dinner is served. On median for a house of four it will for real cost 12 dollars to go through your popular drive through. If you do this only once a week, in a month you have spent upwards of 40 dollars. Who are we kidding; even the best of moms do this more then once a week when life gets busy.
I am a busy mom, working a full time job, three children at home, and each of them having soccer or gymnastic institution I never seem to be home. Run home from work, pick up the kids, turn and off to practice. It is after 7 before we walk in the door, and there is still showers and homework to be done, so who has time to cook dinner. So to the drive through it is. One month I decided to truly inspect the number of money I was spending down to the last dollar, and I was astonished to find out that I had spent over just on take out food. That truly sickened me, not only was I wasting my hard earned money but I was teaching my children not to put salutary food into their bodies. Truly, their lives are as busy as mine, they have school, institution and homework, and how were they going to keep up their stamina with out feeding their body allowable nutrition.
Food And Dessert
Of course, then we go back to the customary dilemma of no time. The talk to this examine was right under my nose, or in my cupboard to be exact. My slow cooker.
The slow cooker has been around since around 1970, and to this day, in my opinion, it is still one of the most inventions.
With a slow cooker you can spend 10 minutes the night before preparing your meal, turn on the slow cooker in the morning, and when you come home dinner is served. Seems to simple to be true, but it is that easy.
Also by utilizing a slow cooker you save tons of money. For one, you can resist your urge to go through the drive through because you know there is a hot, home cooked meal waiting for you when you get home. With a slow cooker you also save money, because you can use the cheaper cuts of meat.
Cuts of meat that you would need to use for grilling can often be very high-priced and we save them for a for real nice meal. If you try to grill up a cheap cut of meat, it is often is tough and lacks flavor. Because of the slow cookers even the cheapest cuts of meat come to be tender, juicy and full of flavor. You might be a skeptic but you will not be as soon as you try it.
You can make roughly any classic meal you would prepare in your oven or on your stove top with a slow cooker. Whether it is chicken recipes, beef recipes, ground beef, pork, ham, lasagna, meatloaf pretty much anyone can be made. If you have a party at your house the slow cooker is an easy way to prepare appetizers and keep them warm. I for real have three slow cookers in my house for such occasions. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, my husband likes to have turkey and ham, with only one oven I turned to my slow cooker to cook up the ham, and it was delicious.
My house loves Mexican food; so I serve up this fajita method on a busy night.
Slow cooker Fajitas
1 ½ of boneless sirloin (or any cut will do)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 glove garlic
1 ½ tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp chili powder
1 lg green bell pepper (or use 1 med green and 1 med red bell pepper for color)
1 lg onion
Brown meat in 2 tbsp of oil. Place meat into Crockpot. In a bowl mix together the lemon juice, minced garlic, cumin, salt and chili powder and pour over meat. Cook on high for 3 hours, or leave it on low and it is ready when you get home. An hour before you eat add the thinly sliced green peppers and onion. If you are in a hurry sauté the onions and peppers on the stove top for a few minutes. Slice and serve up the beef with flour tortillas, shredded cheese, sour cream and your popular salsa, and dinner is served.
Note: If you are in a hurry you do not have to brown meat, just add 30 minutes too the cooking time.
There are so many great slow cooker recipes out there. From main dishes, to appetizers, desserts and warm beverages roughly anyone can be made in a slow cooker. So take a bite out of take out, and treat your house to a home cooked meal that only seems like you slaved in the kitchen all day.
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