Crockpots

Everyone wants a little extra Shut Eye on the weekends. But when you have to cook weekends meals, how can you ever sleep in? The answer is simple, just grab your crock pot, throw in the ingredients and walk back to your bed for a nap. If this were an article about treating your body well, I would tell you to start getting more Shut Eye during the week, go to bed earlier, wake up at the same time every day, set your alarm for the actual time you need to get up and not so you can hit the snooze button because that actually does more damage than good, but it is not, so I would not. Because truthfully, we all need a little extra Shut Eye on the weekends, if not to catch up, then just to get that satisfaction of knowing we can sleep past ten in the morning and nobody can care.

The hardest part about cooking and finding time to sleep in on the weekends is that those two things do not often go hand in hand. And no matter how many times you tell yourself you are going to prepare ahead of time, put the meat in the marinade on Thursday night and let it thaw itself out that way, you never seem to get around to it and then of course, you are stuck doing all of the prep work for your Friday night or Saturday night meal in the wee hours of the morning. And nobody wants to do that. That is why we eat more pizza per capita on Friday and Saturday than any other time of the week.

There is a simple solution, however. And yes, it does still involve cooking, but on the upside, there is very little prep work to be done and very little hovering to be done as well. What is this, you say? A magic way to cook on the weekends? Actually, it is only as difficult as digging out your old crock pot and making sure that it still works properly.

Since crock pots are known for slow cooking food, you do not have to prepare the meal ahead of time. Think about it, if you want to grill those steaks you have to thaw them out first. But with a crock pot, you can make that delicious crock pot beef recipe you have been thinking about and all you have to do is throw the steaks in the crock pot with the marinade, set it to high and walk away. No getting up early to start thawing out the steaks. No need to rub them with meat salts to soften them up. And certainly no need to pound out the meat with a meat mallet to make it palatable and chewable. The crock pot will do all that for you.

And it is the same with every recipe. When you finally decide to get up in the morning or noon, if that is the way you like it, pull out your crock pot, throw in the ingredients and walk away. You can wow the sweet tooth with an easy crock pot dessert recipe just as easily and with just as little work.

When cooking is not part of your weekend relaxation routine, it is definitely time to pull out the crock pot and walk away from your meals.