The Slow Cooker – Making Life Easier

Author: Tara Tiedemann

Life has changed quite drastically for pretty much everyone in the past few months.  If you’re like me, you might be looking for ways to save money by not eating out as much. Yet all that cooking at home is adding quite a bit of extra work in food preparation and cleaning up.

I found myself spending hours every day in the kitchen, making multiple trips to the grocery store each week, and getting exhausted from all the extra work on top of routine work while trying to squeeze in some ocean time and have a bit of social life on top of it.

Enter the idea of food prep and a slow cooker. This contraption is a game-changer in my life. Instead of just throwing together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana and calling it lunch, I am eating heartier, more satisfying meals now. I am spending so much less time at the stove and cleaning up after. I make large portions at a time and freeze whatever I don’t eat.
The internet has tons of great recipe options, and you can enter the internet search for whatever your particular food preference may be. For example, non-dairy Indian butter chicken – check – in the slow cooker.

A great plan that has worked for me is the following:
1. Browse the internet once a week for 2-3 big slow cooker meals to make.
2. Write down everything you need to buy on a list and take it to the grocery store and make one big shopping trip per week.
3. Choose your slow cooker days – for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday – and do the food prep in the morning and get that slow cooker cooking with enough quantity that you surely have leftovers.
4. Enjoy a hearty lunch and dinner, and put whatever you don’t eat in the freezer.

I have also learned that you can use slow cookers to make yogurts and jams. It will be fun to experiment, and I love having good food at home that doesn’t involve hours of preparation and clean up each day.
Happy prepping!

CONTACT:  – tara@vivaadventures.com