Where Would We Be Without The Humble Crockpot?

God bless the man - are we sure it was a man? A crockpot seems like such a womanly appliance - who invented these wonderful machines.

It’s nearly 11:00 am and I have some Corned Beef (Americans = brisket?) simmering away with a hastily chopped onion, a couple teaspoons of minced garlic (the recipe I found on allrecipes.com used a whole bulb of garlic, but we only ever have the minced stuff on hand) and a couple of bay leaves. Sometime several hours from now (yay) I’ll toss some potatoes and carrots into the pot and steam some broccoli in the microwave. It smells like Ireland in here.

Or does Ireland smell like Guiness and ‘green, green grass’? I’ve never been to Ireland so I’m guesstimating, LOL.

I haven’t had the greatest track record with slow cooker recipes. After a few disasterous attempts at cooking pieces of chicken when I first bought it a few years back, I kind of gave up on the ’solid food’ concept of crock-pottery and stuck with the soups. Then on a whim one day I threw in an old piece of corned beef (well not OLD, as in decomposed and flyblown - old as in ‘two more days and the freezer burn will ruin it’) and it turned out surprisingly well. I mean, it looked like a hunk of grey, lifeless flesh when it was done (which technically it was), but once carved and taste-tested, melted into deliciousness.

We don’t have corned beef all that often around here. Talented Hubby’s mother served this up to him often as a child but to hear TH talk about it now, she served it up with Arsenic-Laden Poison Sauce, otherwise known as ‘gravy’. I must admit, I shook my head at the thought of corned beef with gravy too. It’s just wrong when the sauce is brown instead of the traditional white. These days, as long as I don’t go The Way of the Stirfry (a very common meal in our house - so common TH eventually shouted ‘UNCLE!’ and begged me not to make it more than once a month, and even then, he grumbles), he’s fine with corned beef.

But if I so much as glance at the gravy powder (yes, I use powder. I’ll hand in my Wife Badge and Icing Gun as soon as the corned beef is about done, ‘kay?) he shoots his Eyes of Death at me and I realise he means business on the corned-beef-and-gravy issue. It’s fun to play with him though :P

Since I’m so horribly inept at crockpotting, I thought I’d open up the comments for recipes, suggestions etc. Fire away folks! What do you cook in the crock that tastes amazing and is foolproof? Special bonus points to anyone whose recipe sounds so appealing it makes it on to my menu for next week :)