Sorry we took an unexpected blog vacation there, but I guess I severely underestimated my recovery time from my fifth surgery.  I thought since it was on my foot, that I’d just be hobbling around on crutches, but it seems that even with the walker, my loose ligaments chronic issue caused me a lot of pain in my hands/wrists such that hobbling travel between my couch and my desk was both slow and painful.  I’m currently wearing wrist braces so I hope I have that under control and that I won’t need surgery on my wrists as I did my foot.

Getting back to my in depth series on getting out of survival mode, I had already shared a couple of practical ideas: #6. Have your kids help and #7. Plan. Coming in at #8. The crock pot is your friend!

Here’s what I wrote in my short article:

“The crock pot is my dearest friend.  I love being able to throw things in there in the morning and have dinner ready by the time the family needs to eat. Cuts down on that frantic time from 3-4pm when I used to run around the house trying to find the one ingredient I needed and then looking online for a suitable substitute I happened to have in my pantry.”

Now that I’m dealing with not being able to get into my kitchen much less carry things while on a walker, I’m invoking #6 and #7 as well as my crock pot.  Having your kids help can be difficult even if they are old enough because they have other things to do and the crock pot makes that even easier.

My poor son is in the middle of studying for his SAT and SAT subject tests as I’m recuperating from my latest surgery so he’s pretty busy.  Aside from all the studying, he’s having to make me breakfast and lunch, help with the laundry, cleaning the house, and…making dinner.  To make things easier for all of us, we’ve employed my crock pot full time.

No matter your diet restrictions, there are crock pot recipes out there! We were vegan for about two months so I know there are crock pot vegan recipes.  Just Google what you want and you’ll find some!

Crock pots are easy to use because you just throw all the ingredients into the pot in the morning, turn it on, and viola!  Dinner is ready for whenever you set it. It stays warm for a few hours afterward so it’s hot whenever the family strolls in.

What I do to make it even easier:

1. I search for a few recipes a week.
2. Make enough of each so that we have left overs at least once or twice during the week.
3. I make one new dish on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
4. We have left overs from the Monday/Tuesday meals on Wednesday, Friday, and from Thursday on Saturday and Sunday.
5. Some of the recipes we do are soups, some are stews, and some are other dinners.

The other great thing about crock pot recipes is that you can:

1. Cook beans along with the meal.
2. Use left overs as ingredients you’d otherwise throw out.
3. Easily adapt other recipes to the crock pot without much fuss.

The crock pot is my best friend especially during this last surgery bout because it’s kept us fed at a minimum of time and effort expenditure.

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