Crockpot :: Meal Planning

Now that it's nice and chilly out, I've been cranking up the crockpot a lot recently. Love just putting all of the ingredients in and having a yummy hot meal at dinner time. Really helps on busy days full of school, appointments, errands, etc. when I don't have as much time to be in the kitchen.

I found this fabulous blog a little while ago - A Year of Slowcooking - where she used her crockpot every.single.day. for an entire year. I ended up ordering her first cookbook and it came yesterday. Yay! Most of the recipes can be found on her blog, but I love having a hard copy to thumb through and have a bunch of recipes in one place. And for not much $, I was all about it. The book is full of tons of different recipes, ranging from soups and stews, to fondues, to casseroles, to party mixes, to desserts, to how to do your own baby food (!!!). The recipes are easy to make, with inexpensive but yummy ingredients.

I am making Traditional Beef Stew for dinner tonight. We LOVE us some beef stew in our house, so we are excited to see how this particular recipe turns out. Pairing it with this bread that I made yesterday (recipe makes 2 loaves, perfect to have one one evening and use the second loaf the next day).

Jimmy was helping me plan this morning and wanted his mini-dinosaur to be in the picture :)