Fast, easy and cheap (foods)

Rub? You are making this too complicated already The point is pure simplicity.

You dump the shoulder roast in the crockpot, maybe add a little bit of water, turn it on high and walk away for 7 hours.

 

Most things done in a crock pot are done way before the book says they are done.

I am guessing your stuff was cooked, Rick, after five hours and it spent two hours drying out and burning.

 

Just the opposite: The recipe called for 5 hours and every time I did it that way it was underdone and tough. I upped it to 6 and then 7 hours, and it got more tender each time.

 

Rice is about the easiest food to cook, and is darn cheap, too. You can pretty much toss anything in with it, too. Spices, fish, veggies, meat -- whatever.

Crock pots rock. Secret ingredient for roast: a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I don't even like mushrooms but am an advocate.

Also a big fan of Lipton Onion Soup mix to toss in there. It's also good with rice.

Seriously, eating cheap is easy. The people who dine on value meals are wasting money and ingesting way too many evil things.

 

I agree that crock pots are awesome. One of my favorites to make in a crock pot is brisket.

Take a package of onion soup mix and combine it with mustard. Spread this on top of the brisket and put the brisket (cut in two, usually) in the crock pot and let it cook on low over night. Do not add any liquid at all. It will make its own juices as it cooks and it will be as tender as can be, no matter the cheapness of the cut of brisket.

You can make sandwiches out of it, put it on a baked potatoes, lots of stuff. And, it freezes well, also.

 

Onion soup mix also is great on pork tenderloin, which you can cook in the oven for 45 minutes and have food for days. It also works well with potatoes. Take 3-4, cut 'em up and throw 'em in a freezer bag with a packet of onion soup mix and some olive oil. Shake, empty onto an oven tray and cook for 20 minutes.

 

Potatoes made that way are delicious! One of my favorites.

 

In the 30 plus years of cooking in a crockpot, I have NEVER burned anything. I'm not even sure how you can pull that off.

 

Ya, the beauty of a crockpot is that it's almost impossible to burn anything. I suppose you could if you left it on high for 8 hours, but if that's the case, you should not be allowed to cook anything with a higher degree of difficulty than toast. Which I assume you'd burn.

 

This isn't BBQ.

The one thing I mostly always do with any meat before putting it in a slow cooker is brown it well first in a frying pan. Get a nice crust. Put the meat in pot, deglaze the pan with any liquid (water, wine, beer, stock) and pour over the meat

It's no different than if you were making a beef stew in a regular casserole. You always brown the meat first. It makes a huge difference.

 

This came up before. I've also burned something in a crockpot - mushroom polenta. It's possible. Mine doesn't have a timer and the polenta cooked a lot faster than the recipe said.

 

I fancy myself a reasonably decent cook. Homemade pizza from scratch is a favorite of mine.

But the "breakfast crapple cobbler" incident left so much burned crap that I had to replace the crockpot.