My kitchen is organized by purpose and size and I can always find what I’m looking for, so I don’t think it’s cluttered or compromised by my collection (and no, I’m not just in denial!). As I look around this haven, I thought it would be fun to write out my favorites for you and give you the chance to add them to your own collection. Think about the foods that you make, the entertaining you do and the ways that you can add a little flare to your flavors.

In no particular order, these are the Top 10, but they are ALL favorites in my kitchen:

1. Silicone Baker’s Pin: When you roll out dough with this pin, you can feel the thickness better than using a traditional rolling pin. It also is easy to clean and isn’t porous like wood.  The downside is that it’s unusual in size and hard to store, but the pretty red exterior makes it fun to leave out too. It also doubles as a lethal weapon against anyone that wants to bad talk your cooking.

2. Cheese Slicer: I fell in love with this cutting board while having a 3 am snack with a close friend, during her eighth month of pregnancy. Halfway through our second brick of sharp cheddar, I realized that the design and convenience were both top notch. It makes great sense to have a slicer attached to a cutting board and it comes with replacement wires so your cheesiness can last forever.

3. OXO Kitchen Scissors: I use these more than once a day, no joke. At breakfast, it’s the easiest way to cut up waffles, pancakes or toast into small pieces for the kids. At lunch, I use it to shear a head of leaf lettuce for a salad. For dinner, I skin and de-fat my meat before throwing it in the crock pot. I have my purposes, but the most common use— it’s a sanitary way to cut off the top off those plastic-wrapped popsicles. It’s easy to hand wash or you can throw it in the dishwasher, especially after using it on meat.

4. Rubbermaid Mixing Pitcher: This is way smarter than always pulling out a wooden spoon or spatula to stir up orange juice pulp, mix an instant lemonade or swirl ice around a mojito. Measure the height of your refrigerator’s top shelf before buying it though, to make sure it will fit.

5. Primo Water Cooler: I love having hot and cold water readily available, especially if it tastes good and not like a metal tap. The hot water valve is childproof but still easy enough to use with one hand. It’s easy to change the 5-gallon jug because there is a plunger built in= no spilled water since you don’t have to flip anything over. This is a much more sleek design that the top-loading coolers, it is a nicer presentation to have the water jug stored easily underneath the unit.

6. Lock and Lock Containers: These are so much easier to operate than the typical sealed container. I keep my brown sugar, corn starch and cinnamon sugar in these for easy accessibility, but also to keep the bugs and humidity out.

7. Silicone Ice Cube Trays: While the name may give you the primary use, I have come up with so many others. You can use these cubes to make jell-o jigglers, divide any meat/fruit/veggie/pasta into proportionate sizes before freezing or to prepare homemade baby food. FOR BABY FOOD–After cooking and pureeing single-ingredient items, pour the substance into the trays and freeze. When frozen, pop each cube out and store in a freezer-safe gallon bag for up to a month. To thaw, throw a few cubes in a microwave safe container and heat for 30 seconds, stir and heat again if necessary.

8. OXO Flexible Turner: This is different than your usual spatula or turner. It is incredibly thin and scoots under foods very easily. I use this for removing meringue cookies from parchment paper and flipping tofu when searing it in oil. I prefer the metal turner, but they also make this item in plastic and silicone.

9. Salad Bear Claws: Looking for a fun way to entertain and serve dinner? These are “handy” gadgets to help grab salad or pasta and move it to an individual plate. I get comments every time I use these to serve food, I love it. P.S. They would probably be great to scratch the cook’s back after dinner, too!

10. IKEA Gadget Charging Cup: Isn’t your kitchen counter also the charging station for your ipod, cell phone, blue tooth and pager?! This organizer hangs on the wall and stores all the little power cords so it doesn’t look like an octopus is crawling out of the outlet next to your crock pot. That would just be uncool to crowd your crock pot.

Here’s a great little nugget for you: my mom always cut off the last inch of the brisket before cooking it. I figured it was because of how she trimmed off the fat, skimming the top of the cut of meat and then cutting off the chunk at the end. I asked her about it and she said that it was how her grandmother did it. So I asked my grandmother why her mom cooked the meat in that particular way and she said, “because her pan was too small, the meat never seemed to fit right so she cut off the end so the brisket would lay flat.”  It’s funny how traditions begin.

If you are looking for a pulled beef sandwich to serve at a spring BBQ, fork apart the meat when it is done, then top it with your favorite BBQ sauce and serve it on a braided roll. Oh– was it mean to say BRAIDED ROLL to those of you celebrating Passover? My bad.

EASY difficulty brisket

1 3 lb. beef brisket

1 bottle italian dressing

Pour half the dressing over the brisket and let it marinate overnight. In the morning, move the meat into the slow cooker and top with the remaining dressing. Cook on low for 8 hours.  Now, wasn’t that easy?!

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MEDIUM difficulty brisket

1 3 lb. brisket

1 medium-sized onion, sliced thin

1 12 oz. can of Coke (not diet)

1/2 c. ketchup

1 t. black pepper

1/2 t. cayenne pepper

pinch of salt

Place brisket into crock pot, use trivet if you have one. Surround meat with sliced onion. Mix together Coke and ketchup and pour on top of meat and onions. Sprinkle seasonings on everything. Cook for 8 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.

If you want to vary the flavor, try using 12 oz. apple juice or 12 oz. of beer INSTEAD of the Coke.

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HARD difficulty brisket

1 3 lb. brisket

1 t. of each seasonings: cracked black pepper, rosemary, paprika, parsley, celery seed

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 t. olive oil

water

Rinse meat and pat dry. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, lightly coat meat with olive oil. Then mix together all seasonings and coat meat in dry rub. Let marinate overnight in the refrigerator. In the morning, take meat out and sprinkle with garlic. Heat up a pan and brown meat on all sides, then put meat in crock pot. Add enough water to the crock pot to cover the bottom of the pot. Also, if you have a trivet that fits in your crock pot, use that under the meat. Cook on low for 6 hours.

And while it’s somewhat entertaining, I think my lists are actually pretty useful, so I’m going to share one with you today. I downloaded this a couple years ago and then adapted it to my specific wants/needs. My apologies to whatever web site posted this originally, I honestly don’t remember where it came from.  But when I need to restock the kitchen, this helps me stay focused and ultimately get only what I need, so that I save myself from the frivolous whims of grocery store end caps.

Start list list from the bottom– fill in what you’d like to have for dinner most nights. It’s ok if you just write “Monday- chicken, veggie” or “Tuesday- CP lentil soup” (CP= crock pot).  Give yourself a target of what you’d like to eat and then work up the list, adding the ingredients you need to purchase.  It’s also helpful to keep this crock pot grocery list on your refrigerator so that when you– or someone else in your house– finishes something, they can just check it off so that you know to buy it next time you shop.

This list does not need to stay pretty! Start by checking things off, then circle, add in, redefine, put questions marks… whatever helps you. Also, go through the weekly ads for the store (at home or when you get to the store) and then add in sale items that are a good buy for the week. You may even want to look at the ads before you make your meal suggestions.

Depending on how your grocery store is set up, you may want to move the catagories around to make the flow easier. Feel free to make this your own. It needs to be functional to how YOU shop if it’s going to make YOUR life easier.  I also like that I can divide up this list and give certain sections to my husband, this cuts a lot of time off the trip and even removes some of those tempting tasty distractions that I might have been inclined to buy.

I hope you find this helpful as you continue to venture into the adventure of crock pot cooking. Take it one step at a time and soon enough you’ll be eating home cooked, easy meals on more nights of the week. Enjoy!

So let’s start simple. Here are some easy things to try that don’t require a lot of work, clean up or preparation.

1. Rice: your crock pot can also be a rice cooker. 1 cup rice to 2 cups water on high. You need to check it to see when it’s fluffy and done because the time can vary depending on the rice, but the ratio should be the same for all varieties.

2. Sweet potatoes: wash them (don’t pat dry), leave the skin on and put them in the crockpot for 4-6 hours on low. They will create enough liquid to cook all the way through. If you want to make it fancy, peel and cube the potatoes, then add a couple T. of butter and brown sugar to the pot for a sweet treat. I wouldn’t be offended if you added mini-marshmellows at the end either!

3. Sauces: Many times you will read that I’ve created a sauce or a glaze or thickened up a gravy. But honestly, you can use most bottled sauces on meats and veggies just fine. BBQ, sweet and sour, teriyaki, italian dressing and broth all make for excellent flavors in the crock pot.  The only down side is that these sauces are typically higher in sugar, which means it might make for tougher clean up, and also higher in sodium, which might make the cooked foods a little saltier. But by all means, you can totally keep in simple and use prepped sauces.

4. Owner’s Manual: If you own a crock pot, you have some great resources to help you figure it out. This may sound silly, but check your owner’s manual! There may be a conversion guide of oven cooking time to crock pot cooking time. It means you can crock pot so many more things now that you know how long to cook them! It might even have some great recipes to try. It also has the warranty information— if you find that your crock pot doesn’t cook evenly, that it burns, that the lid doesn’t keep a good seal, that it has a weird electrical smell, or any other bizarre cooking experience, then you should definitely call the company and follow up. Crock pot cooking should be simple and easy, if it isn’t, then let’s work together and figure out why!

5. Crock pot liners: One of the best accessories a girl can have. Except you can’t wear this. But your crock pot can! You open it, put it in the crock pot and then dump everything into it. Cooking directions are exactly the same, but now there isn’t any clean up. When it cools, you just pull it out and throw it away. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Take my advice and put this item on your next grocery list.

I hope these nuggets are helpful to you and maybe this ounce of encouragement will motivate you to give crock pot cooking a try. Have fun with it! Food isn’t just about sustenance, it should entertain all of your senses!

That’s how I feel about my recipes too.  I have to remake some of these dishes so I can write down how it’s done, what to measure and how to cook it. I’ve been cooking for most of my life and while I might search a cookbook for inspiration, I am hardly an engineer about my cooking.  So writing this blog is a fun way for me to examine my favorites so I can share them with you.

I’ve been asked to post more “how to” suggestions about crock potting.  Here are some tried and true methods to make your meals even easier.

1. The crockpot is meant to cook everything without burning it. But, it needs enough liquid to create steam and enough contents to prevent dehydration. No one wants to eat crocked beef jerky. You can always thicken too much liquid to make gravy.

2. Frozen vegetables and meats are fine to use without thawing, but you might need to add a little cooking time to compensate.

3. It’s a great idea to freeze a crockpot meal– let it cool first and then put it in a plastic container with a tight-fitted lid. I prefer ones that are more sturdy, some are even specified as freezer-friendly.  Label the meal and date it. You can also put a meal in a freezer bag, lay it flat to freeze and then stand it up in the freezer to store it—- you can make a library of good meals!  Most crockpot meals are fine for at least 3 months, but remember that the freezer only makes food spoil slower, it doesn’t preserve foods forever.

4. Thawing a meal should take as long as it did to cook it. Take a frozen meal out at least a day ahead and put it in the refrigerator to thaw. If you want it to speed up this process, put the plastic container/freezer bag in warm water in the sink the help it thaw. You can microwave the thawed meal or put it in a pan to simmer back to life.

5.Don’t refreeze meats that have already been frozen though, so cook them fresh and then freeze the entire meal.

6. Crockpot meals are great for guests and for gifts. It’s ok if you don’t know exactly what time your guests are arriving– crock pot beef can be done perfectly without an exact time– beef wellington in the oven cannot! Crockpot meals are also great to take to new neighbors, ill friends or new parents. You can deliver the meal fresh or frozen easily.

7. Meat to liquid ratios might vary depending if your crockpot is more vertical or more horizontal. If you want a glaze to form, make sure your meat isn’t entirely covered by liquid. If you want to make pulled or stewed meat, then you need more coverage.

8. Don’t just think about dinner ideas, you can crockpot any meal, side dishes, dips, drinks, sauces, jellies and desserts The possibilities are easy and endless! Please continue to visit this page often for inspiration and ideas.

Now that the crock pot seems a little more approachable,  what are YOU making for dinner??