response 1 of 44:

Mar 12 14:34 UTC 2002

Well, here's about the simplest there is:
Pot roast.
Start the night before you want to eat it.
Into crock pot, put:
- beef roast
- broth left over from last pot roast (if any)
- water to make up for not enough broth (seriously cover meat, & then some)

Leave crock pot on high until everything is hot.  (Depending on your crock
pot, it may be helpful to cheat & preheat broth or water or both.)  Turn it
down to low.  Go to bed, go about next day's business.

The next evening, prepare whatever you're going to eat with the crock pot.
Serve meat as needed, using broth to taste.  In general, we don't ever salt
this in preparation, but a bit of salt may be desirable at the table.

This generally provides lots of useful leftovers - both meat & broth are used
as ingredients in other dishes.

In general, the more leftover broth you have to put in it, the better the
results.  If you use only water, both meat & broth will taste somewhat thin.

If time is available, adding some vegetables (carrots, potatoes, etc.)
and spices (and yes, bay leaf is a likely one) can turn this into a more
complete stew or soup.  You'll need them to be in long enough to cook
thoroughly, but you don't want them to be cooked to death, and that depends
on your crock pot.  Probably starting them with the meat the night before is
way too long, but tossing them in in the morning may not be.  Depends.

response 3 of 44:

Mar 12 19:08 UTC 2002

This is the only thing we use our crock pot for, these days.

Allergies preclude our using store-bought bouillon or most soup mixes,
but you could do that at will -- the important thing is to have the
meat completely covered with flavored liquid.

This is a descendant of the way my mother did it, in a steamer skillet;
she browned the meat on both sides first, then covered it with liquid
and simmered for 3-4 hours.  I never found a steamer skillet for myself,
but discovered that the crock-pot method gives a more tender result, with 
flavor as good or better.

response 5 of 44:

Mar 12 21:38 UTC 2002

Yes, you want the meat completely covered.  You can use a good deal more
liquid, depending on a couple of things: how much broth you want, and whether
you're starting with broth or just water, and how thick you want the broth.
If it's just water, the results will be better if you don't use too much. 
(The stuff that cooks out of the meat & makes it broth will be less diluted.)
If you're starting with some broth, and want to provide broth for other
recipes, add water to make up the volume.

For spices, I'd say to look at cookbook recipes for something like beef stew
or beef-vegetable soup, & use what seems to make sense out of what they
suggest.  We mostly keep this simple; as Grace said, she started doing it
because this was a staple in her home, & her mother mostly didn't spice things
very much at all.  She does most of the cooking these days (these years). 
I suspect that if I were making this I'd play with spicing it, & also put in
onions, carrots, potatoes, maybe some celery, & such.

response 7 of 44:

Mar 12 22:07 UTC 2002

Actually, here's another one.  I make this, but not with a crock pot, but
there's no reason it couldn't be done in one.

Split pea soup.

Start with boiling water.  (With the container I'm making it in, I think I've
got 2 or 3 quarts.)  It probably doesn't actually need to be boiling, but you
want it hot when you add the peas.

Add some split peas.  Again, with what I'm using, I think I'm putting in 3
cups or a bit more.  How thick you like the soup is a factor, too.  I use
mostly green peas, then add some yellow ones (or, these days, some lentils
we have on hand).

Also add a ham bone with some meat on it.  Or do what we prefer: find a smoked
turkey drumstick & use that.  If your pot is smallish, this may present a bit
of a problem, as the bone may be too long & prevent the cover from going down,
which with a crock pot is not good.

When the peas are mushy & the meat is cooked enough to be falling off the
bone (or starting to, anyway), take the meat out & put it aside to cool.  This
probably will take longer in a crock pot, & it'll be better anyway if it has
plenty of time.  Say, 3 hours or more, at a guess?  That's on low, I'd think.
Might burn the soup if you really cook it on high.  Then chop up an onion or
two, some celery, some green pepper, some carrots, whatever you like in this.
(It will already be obvious to some that I'm not a traditionalist on this.)
Add a bay leaf, some garlic, maybe some paprika, a bit of black pepper, too.
(Again, I'm not a purist - I use garlic powder rather than fresh.)  When the
meat is cool enough to not burn your fingers, which it may be by this time,
remove it from the bone, cutting it into small pieces in the process.
(I remove the skin from the smoked turkey & dispose of it.)  Put the meat in.

Oh, yes.  Depending on your taste, you may want to do something to break up
the peas, after you take the meat out but before putting other stuff in.
Some people force a bunch of the mushy peas through a sieve.  If I bother,
I usually do something like using an eggbeater.

Since this is a crock pot, you need to allow some time for it to come back
up to full heat.  When it's hot, let it cook a while longer, at least an
hour or so.  Taste and correct the seasoning - it's only at this point that
I even think about adding salt, and it may not need any if the meat was
salted enough in curing.

Again, you want the vegetables cooked but not to death.  But you can easily
leave them cooking for a couple of hours or more, depending on your taste.

If you're concerned about fat content (or prefer this with less fat), you
could chill the soup, skim off the fat, & reheat before serving.

At low setting in a crock pot, I'd imagine you could cook peas & meat pretty
much indefinitely.  I personally make it on the stove top - partly habit,
partly I think the pan holds more than our crock pot; I usually start it mid-
to late-morning, & have it ready by suppertime.  Besides the supper (for the
whole family, but I'm the one who really *loves* pea soup), I get at least
a week's worth of microwavable lunches out of it.

response 9 of 44:

Mar 12 22:41 UTC 2002

Yeah, dont make something with dried beans if the receipe you are using 
calls for canned beans. I did that once. ick. 

response 11 of 44:

Mar 12 22:59 UTC 2002

The roast can go from 1 1/2 pounds to 3 pounds and work fine.
You just might add a little less BBQ sauce if all you've really
got is one small pork tenderloin.

response 13 of 44:

Mar 13 03:49 UTC 2002

I've heard that the only crock pot cooking rule is not to load it up
with coolish food...it may take a *long* time for the crock pot to get
all the food heated above the "bacterial paradise" temperature range,
and "hot enough to kill the bacteria" does NOT mean "hot enough to
destroy the toxins that the bacteria produced".

This depends a lot on your crock pot model & how you use it.

response 15 of 44:

Mar 13 15:38 UTC 2002

My crock pot is a 3.5 quart rectangle-shaped metal bowl that sits on a 
heating pad.  It doesn't seem to take very long to heat up; I'm usually 
surprised by how hot it gets in 10 or 15 minutes.  So far I've only 
used it for chili and soup; if it's simmering, that should be a pretty 
good indication it's getting as hot as it needs to be, shouldn't it?  

response 17 of 44:

Mar 15 16:41 UTC 2002

Now, I don't have a crockpot, but I expect you'd get better broth if you brown
the meat first anyway.  That would bring it up to room temperature and kill
off any surface nasties too, yes?

response 19 of 44:

Mar 15 20:15 UTC 2002

(Usually most of the nasties are on the surface.  That's why rare hamburgers
are riskier than rare steak -- when you grind meat, the surface gets mixed
up with the inside, and the nasties get spread all the way through.)

response 21 of 44:

Mar 25 05:36 UTC 2002

On boullion and allergies:  Have you tried Herb-Ox?  For a long time, they
were the only brand that did NOT use MSG.  Now, some of the others are getting
the message and making MSG-free variants.  I still prefer Herb-Ox.

response 23 of 44:

Mar 26 05:52 UTC 2002

(As in "Partially hyrdogenated corn oil" and "Hydrolised Corn Protein"?  I
hadn't looked for those before.  Ugh.)