When I got pregnant last year, several people told me to buy a slow cooker.
"It will make meal planning so easy!"
"You can just set it and forget it!"
"Its so convenient to have when you have a baby."
Sold!
After all the hype, I was seriously disappointed when I used the slow cooker for the first time and the dinner was burned 4 hours later. I'm talking fully scorched. Apparently, we bought a slow cooker that is anything but.
In the past year, I've only used it a handful of times. Every time I pull it out from the cupboard, I say to myself "this time will be different." If the recipe said 8 hours on low, I checked on it after 4 hours. 4 out of 5 times, I was too late. So this "time saving" "genius of an invention" has been a huge disappointment.
But, I'm not one to give up so easily. So, I decided to give it another chance this weekend. It was the 4th of July, and what better way to celebrate that make some red beans and rice?! The grocery store finally had the good sausage, so I smartened up and bought several packs. Of course they didn't have dry red beans, so we had to substitute with dry kidney beans, but I don't know the difference :)
All the recipes I perused through generally said to slow cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 6-8. So I decided to cook it on high for 4-5 hours given that it was already 3pm when I had this bright idea. Ram dutifully did all of the chopping, so that made my job even easier.
At the 4 hour mark, I was completely prepared to find burntred kidney beans but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was still cooking! In fact, it took another hour before the kidney beans were completely soft. And boy was it worth the wait :)
And voila! Add some Frank's Red Hot and you're good to go:
"It will make meal planning so easy!"
"You can just set it and forget it!"
"Its so convenient to have when you have a baby."
Sold!
After all the hype, I was seriously disappointed when I used the slow cooker for the first time and the dinner was burned 4 hours later. I'm talking fully scorched. Apparently, we bought a slow cooker that is anything but.
In the past year, I've only used it a handful of times. Every time I pull it out from the cupboard, I say to myself "this time will be different." If the recipe said 8 hours on low, I checked on it after 4 hours. 4 out of 5 times, I was too late. So this "time saving" "genius of an invention" has been a huge disappointment.
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| I have a love-hate relationship with this machine |
All the recipes I perused through generally said to slow cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 6-8. So I decided to cook it on high for 4-5 hours given that it was already 3pm when I had this bright idea. Ram dutifully did all of the chopping, so that made my job even easier.
At the 4 hour mark, I was completely prepared to find burnt
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| Soaking the kidney beans before cooking time |
And voila! Add some Frank's Red Hot and you're good to go:
Yummy! The good thing about red beans is that they more they cook, the better they are so they are perfect for a slow cooker. Ironically, we actually bought our new crock pot because our fancy one wouldn't cook high enough and our red beans would still be hard after cooking on high for 8 hours! We bought a rinky dink one at target and it works like a charm. You need to find one that works better so you can use it more! Such a life saver for me!! Oh and I think kidney beans and red beans are essentially the same which I'm sure you figured out by eating them:)
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