My Crockpot - My Personal Chef

I love my crockpot! If you do not have a crock pot - you must get one. I use mine at least once a week on most weeks. It is my personal chef. It slaves away all day for about 8 to 10 hours cooking for my family and friends. All I have to do is "tell" it what I want for dinner. I can throw practically anything into it and get a yummy dinner.

Today, while it cooked our dinner; I cleaned up the house a bit, did a load of laundry, schooled the kids, checked emails, played with the kids, took the kids to the park for PE, and then hung out with friends that came over for dinner. I know I did more today but now I cannot remember. When our friends came over for dinner, all we did was put on the potatoes for mashed potatoes and steamed the veggies. And all day, we had the wonderful smell of dinner. I use my crockpot often when we have friends over, it helps me out tremendously so while they are here I can focus on them and hang out instead of trying to finish up the meal and get stressed.

So would you like to know what was for dinner? Well here it is a very simple dinner.

• 3 - 4 lbs cheap thin cut steak like top round or what ever is on sale. It can be a tougher cut because you will be cooking it all day.
• 1 cup of water
• 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
• 2 envelope packets of Lipton Onion Soup Mix

• First, get your morning coffee. Get your munchkins their breakfast so they aren't upset with you that you are making dinner in the morning when it is breakfast time.

• Second, put a crockpot liner in your crockpot so you don't have that much to clean. (Have you seen these? Very cool plastic liners that are made by Reynolds. I love them, yes they cost a little bit of money but, if you have ever had to scrub the crockpot a few days later because you put it in the garage to get it out of the way and then forgot that is what you did with it, you will understand. - Okay, okay cut me some slack, sometimes I can be very ditsy.)

• Third cut the meat into smaller portion sizes. I cut each one into six smaller pieces but you can go as big or small as you want. Throw them carelessly into the pot. Don't worry you can't hurt their feelings.
  
• You can do this the night before if you remember. Just cut it up and put it in a ziplock baggie in the fridge.
  

• Mix all the other ingredients together and pour it all over the little cuts of meat. Think of it as a long luxurious mud bath for your meat. - Just kidding.
  

• Cover the pot.

• And then, VERY IMPORTANT: PLUG IN THE CROCKPOT AND TURN IT ON TO LOW for 8 hours
  
• If you don't plug it in or forget to turn it on, you will hate yourself in the middle of the day when you realize - it's not cooking. Dinner is not being made and you have to come up with plan B. I hate plan B. It is never as good a plan A.

The meat will be tender and seasoned and yummy. The gravy will be done. No flour or cornstarch to mix in. No constant stirring to make sure the lumps are out. Nope, you have perfect gravy and perfect meat. Then serve that with the mashed potatoes and well need I say more? Oh yeah, and don't forget to eat your veggies.