Top Crock Pot Ingredients for Your Pantry
The marvelous thing about slow cooking is the way that you can throw a tasty meal together with just a a couple of ingredients from the store cupboard.
Your slow cooker will pay for itself very quickly. The hours you save when you are cooking your meal makes it priceless. But, if you plan to make slow cooking part of your usual meal times, then it pays to have a few basics to keep in your cupboards to make meal planning easy.
Beans – Beans are a very economical source of protein that cook very well in slow cookers . Each bean has its own flavor which can be enhanced by the spices or herbs you use to cook them. Beans can make a meal base when you cook them with meat or be the main ingredient if you are a vegetarian looking to create a quick and simple dish. Whether haricot, lentil, borlotti, or black-eyed, beans can create some fantastic slow cooker meals.
Fibrous Vegetables – For starters, these means good old spuds and the average kitchen has at least a few potatoes lurking around in the vegetable rack.They are a very versatile food. Mash them, stew them, fry them, or chuck them in the slow cooker.
Potatoes add thickening to stews, soups, and meat-free meals. Potatoes and other fibrous vegetables like carrots, swede and turnips, take a while to cook, so they can be thrown in the slow cooker with meat and can cook all day.
Fresh Herbs – Using herbs can dramatically change the flavour of almost any meal you make. Herbs can also be bought dried, but they release a much better flavor if they are added to the crockpot fresh.
You can also grow your own fresh herbs in the house in pots on your kitchen window sill. All you need is some compost, a nice sunny spot, and to remember they need regular watering. Herbs you’ve grown yourself can even be dried to extend their life, making them easy to keep around without worrying about wasting them.
Remember to add your herbs are added near the end of the slow cooker cooking cycle so their flavour infiltrates the cooked meal and isn’t lost during the cooking time.
Want to choose the best slow cooker, then visit Jayne Fairclough’s site on how to choose from amongst the slow cooker reviews for the crock pot best suited to your needs.
