I love my crock pot. Seriously, I love it. The day I went out and upgraded from the crappy metal-lined slow cooker that burned stuff on the bottom and didn't have a good thermostat was one of the happiest days within the past two years. My current crockpot has that nice removeable crock, making it dishwasher friendly and has risen the ability of my slowcooking skills. And of course I'm always on the lookout for something new and nasty thatI can do with it. A good place to find home-style crock pot recipes is linked. The beer beef dumpling stew is what I'm probably going to throw together for dinner tonight, as it's sounding so perfectly yummy and tempting. Little Baby Boy is bumping and jumping this morning, making my tummy not fond of food and still hungry. How to solve the dilemma? I'm going to feed myself only what I'm hungry for over the next couple of days. Crock pot cooking is great for that; I can dump everything together first thing in the morning with no worries, and start smelling that wonderful aroma around lunchtime. Especially handy with a toddler -eep, and soon to be an infant!- when those morning minutes can be hard won.

I've been meaning to streamline some of that prep even further, by combining all the prepped meat and veg and liquids in a gigantic freezer bag. Defrost overnight in the sink and just dump that into the crockpot first thing in the morning. Cheaper and healthier than a lot of the pre-assembled crockpot meals in the freezer case. I always end up adding stuff to those as well. Not quite sure of the freezing ability of beer... but I know that for today's purposes my Boy will be only too happy to help me out!