The Crock-Pot - The Working Mom's Best Friend

After a long day at work for my husband and I, a day at preschool for my oldest son, and a day at grandma's for my youngest son, we walked into the house last night to the wonderful smell of fully cooked Beef Stew!  How does a working mom of 2 young boys pull this off?  Yes, my beloved Crock-Pot!  I use my Crock-Pot at least once a week for a hot meal right when you get home.  It takes some prep work the night before but it is so worth it after working eight hours and not having to cook!  Let along grab take-out on the way home!

A Crock-Pot is great for Beef Stew, Pot Roast, Chili, Soups, and Chicken dinners.  All is takes is a little prep work the night before to get all of the ingredients into the liner of the Crock-Pot.  During the hustle and bustle of the morning, I take the stonewear liner out of the refrigerator, put it into the Crock-Pot and let it cook! 

Now I have had a few mishaps on my perfectly planned dinners.  Like the one when I had the corned beef all ready to go and in the Crock Pot while I left for work.  To my surprise when I arrived home nine hours later, I did not smell the amazing scent of cooked corned beef.  I found a Crock-Pot that I had forgotten to plug in and hence a large piece of meat that ended up in the garbage can. 

Who invented this amazing appliance?  Well it appears that Rival introduced their first Crock-Pot on 1971.  It became an instant hit with housewives across America and Rival re-designed their Crock-Pot in 1974 to include the removable stonewear liner.  After only 10 years, sales of the Crock-Pot rose to $30 million dollars.

The Crock-Pot is not as popular as it once was, however as more and more families are watching their budgets very tightly these days, I believe the Crock-Pot is once again gaining popularity!  It is a very economical way to give your family a wonderful, healthy, hot meal!

Want an easy pot roast recipe?  Place your roast in your Crock-Pot and pour one can of cream of mushroom soup over the roast.  Then sprinkle one packet of onion soup mix on top.  Let cook on low for 8 hours.  Even better?  Place carrots under the roast while it cooks, you will have delicious tender carrots and meat in a great gravy!

Check out Life As Mom for some more frugal ideas!