The Adventures of Cracky the Slow Cooker

Meet Cracky. He is my slow cooker. I can't call him a crock pot, because he was made by GE. He is one of my best kitchen friends. In the short amount of time that we've known each other, Cracky and I have had several adventures together. I can fill up his crocks with tasties and leave the house for a whole day's adventuring and not worry if my minions are having to suffer without food because Alpha Man says he has never cooked anything. How that man managed to survive without me is a mystery. How he manages to survive WITH me is an even greater mystery. I'm not easy to live with.

The first time I broke out this cooker was the day after I bought it. I had wanted one ever since Christmas, when my friend was telling me about hers. After looking at the ones I could find, this was the only one that had crocks that were big enough for meal sized portions. Most of them have crocks that are 1.5 quarts, this one has 2.5 quart crocks.

One day, I left for the day and left everyone here plus a kid who likes to come over and hang out. Because I expected my adventures to take me over 100 miles away, before I walked out the door, I put in a batch of taco meat, a recipe of beans and smoked sausages, and another crock of chicken legs in General Tso sauce. Prior to that, I had made meatballs, spaghetti sauce, and BBQ pork. It's so easy to use this thing to make enough food for a few days' leftovers for lunches and snacks!
Thus, I named my slow cooker Cracky, and invited him into our home as a welcome family member.

Today, I wasn't feeling well and had a few errands to run, so before I left I set up a turkey breast, a pot of spaghetti sauce, and threw in some cauliflower with a mix of stuff from the fridge. I had a little bit of leftover cheese sauce, a little bit of beef broth, some fresh butter, and some cream so I mixed that up and sauced it with that. I figured it would become soup-like in nature.

6 hours later, everything was finished. Thing 1 and Thing 2 had pasta for dinner with meatballs while Alpha Man and I had turkey and cauliflower. He put spaghetti sauce and parmesan all over his turkey and just slopped the cauli onto his plate. It looked kind of like gruel... I ate a little turkey and 2 bowls of soup. It turned out so pretty, I was inspired to write this up. I dipped mine into a bowl and cut a few green onions on top of a sprinkle of cheese and a grind of pepper and he goes "I hate it when your food is prettier than mine," and I was like "You mean always?" Now, I will tweak the cauliflower recipe and maybe post it one day. It needed salt, but doesn't it look nice?

Bacon bits? How about making your own!

We really love bacon in our house and if you eat low carb, you know that bacon isn't nearly as unhealthy as people seem to think and bacon fat makes a nice fat to cook your other tasties in.

A week or two ago, I was at a small, local grocery store and they were doing a remodel. They were throwing things into the discount bins left and right! I picked up 5 3 pound packages of bacon ends and pieces for $2 each! That means that a pound of bacon in those packages equaled 66.6 cents (I told y'all that Alpha Man was a devil...)

If you've ever bought bacon bits in a store, you know the ones that are made from real bacon are extremely expensive. You get a tiny 3 ounce jar for almost 3 bucks! Whaaaaat? So I brought home 15 pounds of bacon for 10 dollars. I cooked a package and we ate some on salads and such, then I cooked another but I kept putting off freezing the other packages, even with the food saver. Last night, I finally gave in and chopped them all into bits and cooked 9 pounds of bacon into bacon bits for freezing. I used my large dutch oven for this and just stirred them while they cooked. Then, I would drain and put in another batch.

It's pretty easy to make your own convenience foods like bacon for salads. Once I was done, I spread them all out onto a cookie sheet and froze them. Then, I put them into quart jars and stuck them in the freezer. Now whenever we have salads, we already have our bacon made, so my life is that much easier. And the best part? I got this much out of it.

That is 4 quarts of ready to eat bacon bits for what it would have cost to buy only 4 tiny bottles of the ones from the store. So watch those meat sales! And if you find one of your stores is remodeling, go in often! You never know what they may be closing out on and marking down.

Making butter from cream from the grocery store AKA the Loveliest Butter in the World

Yes, I know, it has been a while, but I only have so much attention span to spread throughout my myriad projects and schemes that are constantly whirling about.

Today, we are going to talk about butter. Real butter. Delicious, delectable, decadent butter. This week, I found 7 half pints of cream on sale at the store for a mere .50 per carton. Being low on self control but high on innovation, I bought first, thought second. Yesterday, we made butter. Not only was this a great homeschool project, but it was also a great way to involve my minions in one of my food passions. Here is how we did it. We have, by the way, done this before, and I'll cover a few aspects of troubleshooting while I show you.

First of all, you need a plastic jar with lid (see how we use a recycled Miracle Whip jar? Alpha Man's bad habits sometimes pay off!!), 2 marbles, and a carton of cream. Contrary to what you may read on the web, do NOT use a glass Mason jar. See, we made butter with a Mason jar back before Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful. It was so wonderful, in fact, that we set ourselves up to make it again at Christmas, when the grandparents came for their visit. We were going to show off our butter making skills and then make grilled cheeses with our ultimate butter to go with the soup we were having for dinner. However, the glass jar we were using exploded all over Thing 1 while he was taking his turn at churning. Poor Thing 1! It was a waste of good cream, too. There was cream everywhere! It was all over him, my computer chair, and the carpet. He was so mad at me for coming up with this scheme. Whatever! My only regret is that I didn't get a pic.

Anyway, I digress. You only need the above supplies to make yourself a nice surprise. Pour the cream in the jar and add the marbles. Like this! Then put the lid on. Do not forget this important step!

Next, find a willing victim ... err ... I mean Participant! and they get to start shaking the jar. Everyone in the house should take a turn at this so that no one throws out their shoulder. Seriously, everyone, even the neighbor kid if he is over for a visit. And if you're old enough to find this online, you're old enough to realize that The Hard Part will be all your responsibility so let them shake the jar until you don't hear the marbles anymore (3-5 minutes), then take a look inside and you will have a jar full of whipped cream. Like this!

Now, you take over and reeeeeaaaalllllyyyy put your arm into shaking. Do whatever you need to do to create movement in that jar, while it is just whipped cream it will probably just slop from side to side or up and down with large, splatty plops that sound like you're slopping a wet towel onto the bottom of your bathtub. After a minute or two or what seems like a lifetime, it will suddenly become easier. Open it up and take a look. It will look like this, where it's all coming together in the center and you will see a little bit of whey starting to form.

Put the lid back on and keep shaking. It won't be long till there is a firm ball in the center. That is your butter.

Fish it out and put it in a bowl.
Take out the marbles and clean them off and salt your butter if you like. I like. The salt makes a big difference in bringing out the flavor and it doesn't take much.
While you mash the salt in, a little more whey will come out. Just put it back in the jar.

In the end, from a half pint of cream, you will have about half a cup of whey and half a cup of the most amazing butter you've had. So hide it. Or share it with your loveypies, your call.

Put the whey in a jar and save it for something. There are many different things it can be used for, perhaps as a soup liquid or if you have enough, you can make ricotta. We made 2 batches yesterday and I'm not sure how much ricotta I can make with a cup of whey but I'm going to try it out. It will probably only make a bite, but it will be a great bite.