Crock Pot Help!?

I've got a recipe that's great for shredded beef for tacos, a nice alternative to ground meat. 1 1/2 to 2 lbs chuck or rump roast in the crockpot with 2 packets reduced-sodium taco seasoning and 1 cup water (1/2 cup if meat is frozen). Let cook all day long and the meat is tender enough just to pull apart with a fork to get "shredded beef". It's so juicy and is great in corn tortillas!

Check out:
www.tastycrockpotrecipes.net
www.cdkitchen.com
www.allrecipes.com

All of these have TONS of recipes with many different variations and ingredients, depending on your taste.

Check out Flylady.net. Then click on the link called "Food for thought" on that page there is a link to information and recipes for slow cookers. Good luck!

Clean and dry a whole fryer chicken. Place in crockpot, breast side up. Cut one lemon (orange will work too) and stick inside chicken. Season outside of chicken with your favorite spices, I like to use paprika, garlic and greek seasoning.

Turn on low for about six hours. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice and a salad.

Check out allrecipes.com, there are zillions of recipes!

here are two of our favorites, could easily be done with turkey cutlets or breast too! --

chicken: quick brown 4-6 chicken breasts (boneless) in a little olive oil-with salt and pepper to taste- toss in crockpot for 3 hrs with 4oz sour cream, 1/3 c white wine, few dashes of spicy mrs dash and a can of cream of ...I use mushroom or celery- serve over rice-- you can also add in frz broc towards the end for veggies! You can also do this with just raw chx breasts, can of cream of..., s&P and turn on high for 7-8 hrs in crockpot.

Roast: toss in whole roast(arm), can of cream of..., s&p, cut up carrots(or baby), quartered potatoes, mushrooms if you like and onion....makes a good gravy- crock pot on high for 7-8 hrs--- this can also be done with a pkg of lipton soup mix and a couple cups of water to replace cream soup!

There are books that you could even check out from the library. I love the series, "Fix it and Forget it." I just ordered some from the library as well too so I'm anxiously waiting for those to come in. Plus it is free and if you only see a few recipes that you like then you just copy them down and move on. I love cookbooks but hate to waste money on them.

Here's an awesome blog to help! http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

Hi A.,

Our favorite is a beef stew. I just put a rump roast in the crock pot, and fill it with water about 3/4 of the way up. Then I put in 4 beef boulion cubes, a can of stew tomatoes, a can of V8 juice and frozen stew vegetables I bought from the store.

You will probably need two packets of vegetables, or you can add your own carrots, celery, onions and potatoes. I find if I do add potatoes myself, then I need to cut them up into cubes otherwise they are still a little hard even after 6 to 10 hours of cooking. I know there is McCormacks stew mix, but I found it too salty for my taste.

I also make chili in the crock pot, but cook the hamberger first and drain all the fat. I use cubed beef for the chili. Just pour a can of V8 juice into the crockpot, beans, chili powder, tomatoes and meat then leave it for 8 - 10 hours. It's ready when I got home from work! What a nice smell to come home too! Serve with garlic toast.

Anyway, these are two of our favorites. Chicken does seam to dry out, so fix it on the George Forman grill instead! Another great cooking invention!

Chicken enchilada soup is wonderful! I use 2-3 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts, fill the cockpot with 3-4 inches of water and a couple of chicken boullion cubes. Cookc on low for 3-4 hours (I've never had any problems with dry chicken). Remove chicken from crockpot and shred. Save 2 cups of broth and discard remaining. Cut up 10-12 corn tortilla shells in 1x2 inch strips and place in crockpot with broth until soft. Add a can of red enchilada sauce, green enchilada sauce, evaporated milk, shredded chicken, and some cumin then let it heat up. I serve it with sour cream, shredded cheese and Bite-Size tostitos.

First thing I would suggest is the plastic liners. I think they are made by Reynolds. They make clean up a dream !! I will look up some recipes.

I just got my first crockpot for Christmas, too! I've tried a few things so far. The first thing I did was put some chicken breasts in with some broth and then a lot of different vegetables. It kind of turned out like chicken soup, which wasn't what I'd intended but it was still yummy. I do think I put TOO many different things in. I think simpler may be better - especially with my boys.

So I tried barbecue chicken in it - you just put the sauce and the chicken in and put it on low for the day. Again, I used boneless skinless breasts, but it turned out dry. I think because I messed up and had it on high at first and didn't catch it for a couple hours, so the chicken was over-cooked a little.

The best so far has been the simplest. I put a boneless skinless turkey breast - I think it was 2-3 lbs? - in on low all day. I put one can of chicken broth in first, because the turkey was frozen and my manual said to put warm liquid in before adding frozen meat. It turned out really wonderful - hubby and the kids said better than the Thanksgiving turkey. And I did literally NOTHING after I put it in the pot.

So those are my crock-pot adventures so far. I'm looking forward to the other replies!

I don't have any specific recipe advise, but I have an awesome website, it's CDKitchen.com, and you can find anything and everything on that site. You can search by type of recipe, title of recipe, ingredient name, just about anything. I know they have a crockpot section on there. Check it out and fall in love!