Stay Out of the Kitchen!

In the middle of the dog days of summer, I can’t think of a worse way to spend the day than slaving over a hot oven in the kitchen! Spending time in the kitchen has never been one of my favorite things to do, but during the summer my 15-minute rule goes into effect: if dinner takes longer than 15 minutes to make, I’m not making it!

And yet, my family still expects to eat three meals a day, regardless of the steamy temperatures outside. So, I’ve had to come up with a few coping strategies so that we all can enjoy dinner together without a stressed-out, over-heated mother to deal with.

My favorite way of avoiding cooking is to sweetly ask my husband to grill burgers and hot dogs, which he happily does about once a week. This does not eliminate the slaving over the hot “stove” issue, but it allows someone else to share in the joy of it. J

 Seriously, though: my slow cooker probably gets more use during the summer than during any other season of the year, and I use mine year-round! One of my favorite recipes—if you can call it that—is to dump a pork roast in the crock pot, along with a bottle of barbecue sauce (which you can get for fifty cents—watch for sales at the grocery store), and let it cook on low all day. In the late afternoon the roast literally falls apart, and you can shred it right there in the slow cooker, dump some more BBQ sauce in, and you have barbeque sandwiches with almost zero effort. In place of the BBQ sauce, I have also been known to use a bottle of marinade—again, the kind that goes on sale for $1 that you can use a doubled coupon and get for free. Just let the roast cook all day in the marinade sauce, and voila: you have a nicely-flavored main dish with almost no effort! Lately I’ve been able to find boxes of mashed potatoes for $1 (which coupon down to free!), and microwaved mashed potatoes are a great side to make this a more formal meal.

I also use my slow cooker to brown hamburger meat, and frankly, I think this is one of the neatest things I’ve discovered since sliced bread was invented! I always burn myself when I’m frying hamburger meat on the stove-top, and that little problem is now a thing of the past at my house! Because I have a large family, I put 5-7 pounds of hamburger or sausage (or both) in my big crock pot, break up the meat with a spatula, and cook on high. Every couple of hours or so, I walk by the kitchen, break up the meat again, and use my turkey baster to drain off the grease. After a morning in the crock pot, the meat is cooked, and I separate it into storage containers and pop the cooked meat into the freezer, where it is ready to contribute to spaghetti and other casserole dinners as needed. This is so easy, and it sets you up for being prepared for more than one night’s worth of cooking! You gotta love that!

 Think about all of the ways you can get more mileage out of your slow cooker this summer. Five minutes of preparation in the morning means that you can walk away while dinner cooks all day! (MariLee has written a great slow cooker recipe book if you need some new ideas! J) Besides, less time in the kitchen means more time for you to spend with your kids and on your entrepreneurial ventures, and that’s everyday economy!

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