Crocking

I refer to the act of using the crock pot as crocking. People will ask me what I'm doing and if I have something in the crockpot, I'll reply that I'm crocking.

For my birthday I bought myself a new crockpot: 

Never before had I had one with a dial! I now don't have to set my alarm for 3am to turn something off. I've used it three times now and everything has come out lovely.

I wanted the one that stired- 

and the one one with the meat thermometer.


But decided on the Hamilton Beach programmable because it was half the price. Who knows, maybe some day I'll have three crockpots for various crocking needs.

When I got my last crock about three years ago, I  tried to make various recipes from Pinterist such as this potato soup. The problem is it calls for 5lbs of potatoes and 64 oz of chicken broth. That is a lot. And I followed their insturctions to a T. Never again...

After that I only made beans and pot roasts in the crock. I don't have the weither to make anything that requires a lot of chopping.

In buying the crock I bought two packages of lentles. My mom always made lentle soup and I used to by the dry Kosher mixes and un kosher them with pork products. ( I was kosher for a while then said eh. I don't really eat pork because I think it upsets my stomach. That is until now.) I went to Sprouts and bought a small pork roast because I heard somewhere on pinterst it's good to put a roast in with your lentles or pintos. Then I cooked it on low for six hours. Then I fell alseep so it stayed in the crock all night. But the results were wonderful. I think I only put season salt ( My one true love) and maybe garlic salt. I bought Cumin, because I thought I needed it, but ended up not using it.

Last weekend I went a little wild and crocked both days.

The first day I mad this all purpose chicken. You pretty much just line the bottom of the crock with chicken breasts, dump in half a cup of chicken stock ( I don't measure) and add whatever seasoning you like. ( I'm pretty much a staple of season salt and table Mrs Dash.) and then you let it cook on low for six hours. The key is not to open it. And then you have shred with a fork chicken that you can use for anything.

The next day I made a roast and I decided to try the pinterst belief that Soda tenderizes beef. So I bought one of those one litter bottles of Coke for .99 and ended up marinating the beef in it over night then throwing the whole thing in the crock for a 10 hr slow and low. It was tinder, but there is also a weird sweet to it. The last roast I made I used what I had/ had bought. New potatoes and carrots on bottom, the roast. The last bit of the soda I had in the fridge and a little bit of the beef stock I had. Whatever herbs I had on hand and no salt. I find that lately my food ends up too salty when I'm crocking. I later added some of this Irish butter I had bought at sprouts that was garlic herb. I had expected to use it on bread, but then I said why not. That Mississpi roast that people pin has a whole stick of butter, a packet of ranch dressing mix and a packet of a jus. So I closed the lid and 10 hours on low. When it got into the last two hours I checked on it. tinder and no weird taste associated with the over use of soda. So good.