Meltdowns & Slow Cookers.

As you know, I went back to work {the office} part-time. The first week was going really well. I was cooking dinner every night {slow cooker style}, cleaning the house, working at the office in the morning, spending time with Caleb, making time for Mr. Big, and by Friday I thought that the transition going back to work was going really well. That didn't last long. By the end of Friday an employee quit {without notice}, and threw a big fat curve-ball in my plans. So, for the past 2 weeks I've been trying to keep up with all the extra work that I've had to cram into a half-day without quitting losing my sanity. It has been stressful, and the idea of quitting has come to mind every now and then {or every 30mins at work}.

The good news is that cooking dinner every night has been a breeze, and I'm so glad this chore hasn't been stressful during this time of chaos! I had received a slow cooker as a wedding gift, but in the past 3 years I've only used it 4-5 times. I didn't know what to cook in it, and I thought that you could only cook soup-type stuff in it...boy was I wrong! 

 {ignore my reflection}

As a new slow-cooker-user, I made some rules as I searched for recipes: 1. preparation needed to be less than 15min {who wants to spend a lot of time dumping the ingredients into the cooker when the point is to save time?}, 2. it had to use ingredients that I used frequently so food wouldn't spoil in the fridge {don't you hate buying food for one recipe and then they spoil in your fridge? so annoying}, 3. they had to sound yummy. Well, thankfully I found some good ideas from Pinterest and I'll share them with you, along with some notes:

1. Baked Potato from Stephanie {who knew you could cook a baked potato in a slow cooker!}

2. Sausage and Veggie Medley from Stephanie

3. Chicken Parmesan from Stephanie {I used half the amount of cheese to try to make it less fattening}

4. Mediterranean Chicken from Stephanie{do NOT add olives! the first time I cooked this Mr. Big said it smells like when he guts a hog--his hunting buddy came over the next day and I let him smell it and he agreed...it was good, but I had to take the olives out the next time!}

5. Salsa Chicken from Stephanie{to make a healthy version, substitute the chunky salsa with salsa verde}

6. BBQ Shrimp from Stephanie{southern goodness!}

7. Apricot Chicken from Stephanie{Mr. Big's favorite! So good!}

Stephanie's blog is great...she used her crockpot every day for a year and shared her recipes {365 crockpot recipes!}, you should check her out!

Now, that I've mastered a few slow cooker recipes I want to look for healthy recipes to cook in the slow cooker! Do you know any? 

Oh! I almost forgot! Did you know you can use SlowCooker liners?? Ha! I have seriously been missing out! You can put these awesome little liners in the SlowCooker and then throw them away after cooking! I don't think I'll be using my oven Monday-Friday any more!!!