With the warmer weather and high humidity (I’m in the midwest), using my stove top or oven is something I like to avoid at all costs. During this time of year we tend to grill a lot more, and also use the crock pot more often. A slow cooker needs less energy to run than an oven and won’t turn your kitchen hot while it cooks.

Not to mention the perk of enjoying a nice hot meal that didn’t take much to prepare.

The slow cooker also referred to as a Crock Pot is an awesome appliance to own. It can make preparing dinner, lunch or breakfast effortless. In fact, meat that is slowly cooked is far more tender than anything else you could do to it.

Depending on the size you get, storage can be an issue. We have seven family members and we own THREE slow cookers. Crazy, I know. Two are the largest we could find, and one is a smaller one (for side dishes or desserts). We have been known to have all three in use at once. I also use them when I freezer cook a lot because I can fit so much food inside and make it double time.

You can find a slow cooker that will more than likely meet your families needs at any retail store that sells kitchen items. Walmart and Target have the best deals, and the slow cookers work just as great as anywhere else. You don’t have to spend a lot to get one, and you can enjoy the ease of a crock pot all year long.

Here are three terrific slow cooker recipes for summer.

Crock Pot Shredded Beef on a Bun

1 3- to 4-pound beef brisket or roast (you can also do pork or chicken)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 medium onions, sliced
1 16-ounce jar barbecue sauce
Soft rolls or hamburger buns

Season the beef with salt and pepper to taste. You can use any seasoning you would like. Place the onions on the bottom of the crockpot and then layer the meat on top. Pour 1/2 cup of barbecue sauce over the top of the meat and stir gently to coat. Cover and cook for 9 to 10 hours on low. (you can do this overnight if you like or do it first thing in the morning). When it’s done, remove the cooked meat from the slow cooker and pour out the liquid, keeping the onions if you desire. Shred the meat with a fork. Put the meat back into the crock pot and mix the rest of the barbecue sauce in. Let it stay in the crock pot cooking for another half hour or so. Serve immediately.

Freezer Cooking: This can be frozen in portions once it has cooled and can be served at a later date. When ready to serve again, drop in a pot on the stove and allow to simmer on low until heated through. Stir often. You can also drop into a microwave safe container and heat that way.

Slow Cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken

4 lbs. chicken breasts boneless and skinless
3 t. oregano leaves, crushed
1 t. seasoned salt
1/2 t. pepper
4 T. butter
1/2 cup water
8 T. fresh lemon juice
8 cloves garlic minced
4 t. chicken bouillon
4 t. fresh parsley, chopped

Wash chicken thoroughly. Set out to dry on paper towels. In a bowl, combine the oregano, salt and pepper. Sprinkle on dry chicken, patting it in. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the chicken breasts until they are browned. Remove chicken and place in crock pot.

Add the water, lemon juice, chicken bouillon, garlic and parsley to the skillet. Bring entire mixture to a boil, stirring often and scraping any browned bits of chicken off the bottom of the skillet. Pour over the chicken in the slow cooker. Cover the crock pot and cook on low for 5-6 hours. If you wish to cook on high, you can do so for about 3 hours. When the chicken is finished, baste the chicken with the juices in the crock pot and sprinkle parsley over the chicken. Cook for at least 15-30 minutes. Serve.

Slow Cooker Ranch Potatoes

2 1/2 lbs small red potato, quartered
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
1 (1/16 ounce) package buttermilk ranch salad dressing mix
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup

Place the potatoes in the crock pot. In a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and then spoon over the potatoes. Stir the entire thing to blend well. Cover and cook on the low setting for 7 hours. Stir gently before serving. If you double or triple this recipe, it can be more than just a side dish, but a nice delicious main course. Goes great with a platter of fruit or fresh veggies.

Oh, the pure agony. Most of us have been there if we practice freezer cooking. You are standing in the kitchen, you have sweat pouring down your face, you forget which towel you have used to wipe the sweat away, your stove top and oven are working overdrive, you have food, ingredients and a huge mess all over the counters and you aren’t even half through with your freezer cooking session. How do you possibly beat the heat of freezer cooking in Summer months?

It’s too late for me to tell you what I usually do, but for planning for next summer, I have some advice. Plan ahead.

And while I plan to give you some advice on planning ahead, I have some relief for those of you who didn’t realize how bad it would be, and what you can do for the rest of the summer to help aleviate the heat and the long sessions in the kitchen.

Planning Ahead – If you can, plan ahead. During the late Winter months, and all through the Spring – I am usually found making a bit more than I need each time. Rather than doubling or tripling a recipe, sometimes I go further than that. If you have a large spare freezer, this will work for you and don’t hesitate to fill it up. Of course I also recognize that not all of you have a spare freezer, so I have some tips for you and those of you who didn’t plan ahead.

No Storage Room – No Planning Ahead – All hope is not lost for you. There are several options. When you are preparing a nightly meal for your family, double the ingredients or if you are daring – triple them. Then store the second and third meal in the freezer for the following week. Use zip top baggies to store, because they allow for more room and can be stacked easily.

You might also consider meals made up of cold ingredients – cold pasta salads, cold sandwiches, raw veggies and my favorite tip in the summertime – make your meals in the crockpot. That little kitchen appliance doesn’t produce much heat which allows for the use of even multiple crockpots at the same time with no change of temperature.

We use three different crockpots during any one freezer cooking session. It allows me to prepare more meals at one time, and keeps the heat down. Check out garage sales, freecycle and other resources for used crockpots. Clean well and add to your collection. You can use as many crockpots as you have spare outlets in your kitchen. Just be careful not to blow a fuse. Also remember that if you own a toaster oven, it doesn’t produce as much heat as the conventional oven does. Depending on size, you might be able to use it to prepare a meal or two during a freezer cooking session without using up a lot of heat.

If you do decide to use your kitchen oven, try to find a couple of dishes that need to cook at the same temperature, for the same length of time. Put them all in together and add about 15-30 minutes of cook time, checking frequently after its standard cooking time to be sure you don’t overcook. If you precook these meals, they can be reheated in the microwave, even from a frozen state.

One last tip that helps me everytime – if you have extra fans in your house, no matter how small or how large, consider placing them in the kitchen while you are cooking. They will help tremendously and if placed correctly, might help push some of the hot air out of the kitchen.

If you have any tips to share on ways to beat the heat in the kitchen when you are doing a freezer cooking session in the summer, be sure to share.

It is that time of year where Farmer’s Markets, produce stands and other popular methods of selling local fruits and vegetables to the public are cropping up all over the place. Purchasing your fruits and vegetables from stands and markets is an opportunity to do two wonderful things. The first of course is to support your local farmers.

The other reason is that often, shopping for these healthy fresh fruits and fresh vegetables at these locations is more cost effective, leaving you with some extra cash that you might not obtain by shopping at your local grocery stores’ produce department.

First of all, usually these fruits and vegetables are a bit more fresh than those found at the corner grocer. In addition, there is often a dramatic price reduction on the fruits and vegetables. The stores raise the cost so they can gain back what they paid, plus make money on top. The produce stands offer bulk buys that significantly reduce these prices.

A farmer’s market or produce stand is a great place to get healthy fresh fruit, and still save money. The rising cost of everything, including food definitely warrants a trip to your local vendor. You can look in your yellow pages, but more often than not, if you keep your eyes peeled while you are out and about, you will probably discover one.

The only place I can think of that would be cheaper than buying this way, is if you have a local orchard that allows you to pick the fruit and vegetables yourself.

Leftovers are usually just that, the leftover food that nobody could take another bite of. Often they get placed into the refrigerator and then get lost in that black abyss only to return one day as some un-recognizable concoction of green goo. Yuck.
Leftovers can be an awesome way to save some money too. Don’t waste the leftovers, create new recipes using up what you had.

If you made Spaghetti, add a little milk to it, heat it up and serve it as a side dish with another meal. One of my favorite ways to create a new meal is to make a stew recipe with all my leftovers. Usually I use a stock pot on my stove, but a crock pot will also work. Just dump a bunch of leftovers in and follow a regular stew recipe for cooking and water and/or milk addage.

We do this with leftover chicken, potatoes, vegetables, gravies, etc – season them up and you have a whole new meal. Sometimes your finished results are a bit thicker than you might have desired, in that case add the leftovers stew recipe you have concocted to a bed of rice or pasta. It stretches your food dollars to look at new ways to serve things.

If you are left with half a ham or half a turkey and you are looking for leftovers recipes for them, search for recipes that call for cubed or diced chicken or ham. Some recipe programs allow you to plug in the ingredients you have on hand and search that way, though I must admit, often I cannot find anything that matches what I have. That’s when I say improvise. Think about what tastes good together and turn those leftovers into a whole new recipe.

Do you have any creative ideas for leftovers? I’d love to hear them!

I’m an egg lover which might or might not be apparent by many of my previous recipes, but I am. There really seems to be an art to actually hard boiling an egg to make it easier for peeling. In addition, there is a slight difference in the way you go about boiling an egg for regular eating, and boiling an egg for deviled eggs. If you need to keep the egg looking “pretty”, this method should help immensely.

Step 1: To get an egg more evenly centered, especially for deviled eggs, the egg can be rested on its’ side overnight. This makes working with the egg white in solid form much easier. Place the eggs in the egg carton on their sides and leave in the refrigerator overnight. In addition, using eggs that are closer to their expiration date (but not expired) are easier to work with.

Step 2: When the eggs are finally ready to be boiled, it is a much better practice to allow the eggs to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. This allows the eggs less shock when placed in hot water, reducing the risk of cracking eggs.

Step 3: Choose a large pot that allows the eggs to sit by themselves and not on top of each other. This will reduce the bumping that occurs during the boiling process, again reducing the amount of cracking. Fill the pot with cold water about a half inch above the largest egg. There is no need to fill the pot completely with water, as it takes longer to boil and is a waste of water.

Step 4:Cover the pot with a lid. A clear lid is helpful because of the ability to see inside without opening the lid, allowing the water to stay hot and boil. Turn the burner to high and allow the eggs to boil approximately 6 to 8 minutes. Keep a careful eye on the pot as it is boiling. The water needs to rapidly boil for the entire length of cooking time.

Step 5: After 6-8 minutes, remove the pot from the hot burner (turn burner off) and set on a cold burner. Sprinkle salt over the eggs. Do not stir. This will help make the eggs easier to peel. Replace the lid and allow the pot to sit for 30 minutes. This allows for additional cooking time and will keep the eggs stronger in the long run.

Step 6: When the 30 minute period is over, place a large bowl filled with ice water on the counter and very carefully remove eggs with a pair of tongs and place into the bowl of ice water. This allows the eggs to cool quickly, which reduces the appearance of the green color that is sometimes found around an egg yolk. This happens because of a chemical reaction between the sulfur found in the egg white and the iron found in the egg yolk. This same cooling process can also be achieved by draining the water in the large pot and running cool water over the eggs and adding some ice. Be very careful when draining the water, as the eggs are still susceptible to cracking. Leave the eggs in the ice water for about 30 minutes.

Step 7: It is now time to start cracking the eggs. Remove one egg at a time and gently crack the shell by tapping them against a hard surface. A bowl or the counter are both appropriate items to tap against. Don’t tap too hard or you will smash them open and this will cause breakage to an egg that needs to be in good shape for deviled eggs. Once the surface of the egg is cracked, return the egg to the ice water for about 10 minutes. This gives the water a chance to seep inside and makes peeling a much easier task.

Step 8: After ten minutes, the eggs are ready to be peeled. Gently lift the egg and begin peeling from a spot on the egg where the shell seems the most loose. If there is any difficulty in peeling, hold the egg under cold water and continue to peel. Once all eggs are peeled, they are ready to be used for many dishes from deviled eggs to egg salad. If the desired result is egg salad, all eggs should be perfect for this. If deviled eggs is what the recipe is for, discard any broken or split eggs (eating them is a good idea).

Watch for a recipe for delicious deviled eggs tomorrow.