Brrrr it's a chilly 20 degrees here in Oklahoma City! All this cold weather just makes me want to break out the good old crock pot and make some yummy meals. I just love my crockpot! I can throw stuff in and either go to work or curl up with a good book and play with my 3 yr old son. So the other night I made a delicious, yet simple, chicken tortilla soup I found on Pinterest. What is your favorite slow cooker recipe? Do you love cooking in the crock as much as I do?

Doesn't get quite as cold here in AZ but still love crockpot soup - this one is great if you love cabbage:

Cabbage and Kielbasa Soup

( I use the slow cooker liners for easy cleanup)

4 cups of roughly cut cabbage

3 cubed potatoes

3 medium carrots sliced 1/4" thick

Pound of fully cooked kielbasa sliced

Pinch of  dried basil, dried thyme, salt, black pepper

2 14 ounce cans of chicken broth

Just put in the crockpot in this order and cook on low for 7-8 hours.  Delicious!

Hi,

My personal crock-pot favorites are chili (mildly spicy, but not burn-your-mouth hot, and with cheese and sour cream on top), and baked beans. There should be recipes for both of these if you type it in your search engine... both are great for the chilly winter days.

Here in Los Angeles Albertson's store sells skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts every 2 to 3 months for 99c per pound. I usually buy a few family packs for 8 to 10 big pieces. The skin is easy to pull off. If you're a little careful, it's easy to take a sharp knife, start at the top of the breast bone and cut along the inside of the ribs to cut the skinless boneless breast off the bone. They're usually bigger to sometimes almost twice as big as the 2.99/lb precut ones the store sells.

Now, the fun part. Take all the skin, bones, and small pieces of scraps and stuff them in as tight as you can into your crock pot. Add enough water to just reach the top of the top layer of chicken pieces. Cook it on high for about 5-6 hours or on low overnight. Pour out the juice into a container through a strainer to put in the fridge. Put the scraps and pieces in another pan and put it in the fridge. Several hours later, when they are cold you'll be able to go through the pieces and pick out the nice chunks of cooked chicken that were too hard to cut off the bones. These are great in stews, chicken pies, as a chicken sandwich spread, chicken tacos, etc. The stock will form a layer of solid chicken fat on top. I scrape this off and put it into a separate sealable container and use it like bacon grease for cooking. The broth is jellied, but when heated it's some of the best you'll taste. I add just a little salt plus some diced vegetable for an outstanding stew.

The key here is that instead of throwing away those scraps, you'll find there's enough for several meals more than you originally planned for.

our absolute favorite is Crockpot Honey Sesame Chicken.  Yummy when served over rice. 

Some modifications that we've made:
- We don't salt & pepper the chicken beforehand.  We found that there was plenty of flavor using the low-sodium soy sauce
- We use 3/4 C honey instead of 1 C, and find that is plenty sweet for us
- I'm not crazy about hot & spicy, so we use half the amount of red pepper flakes
- We add a package of frozen sugar snap peas
- We always double the recipe to give us a few nights-worth

A pork roast with chopped onion, minced garlic, diced jalapeno, a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) and salsa. A little cayenne, basil, cumin, black pepper and ancho chili powder.

Use as filling for tacos or burritos. 

I love Crockpot cooking!  =)  Thanks for all of the great recipes! 

Does anyone have this cookbook -  The Crockin' Girls Slow Cookin' Companion ?

It looks interesting!  ( its wishlisted )