Slowcooker Recipes: Easy on Your Schedule and Budget

With today's busy lifestyles we're always on the lookout for quicker and easier ways to prepare meals. Slowcooker recipes don't get a lot of fanfare but they're one of the easiest meals and are often quite easy on the budget as well.

It can be nearly impossible to create mouth-watering meals when you only have a short period of time to cook them in. Today's busy families are often crunched for time between work, activities and household chores. Wouldn't it be nice to have a meal pre-cooked and waiting for you at dinner time? That's exactly what you get when using your slowcooker.

Prepping slowcooker recipes takes, on average, very little time. Simply cut up your ingredients, place them in the slowcooker's pot and leave it to simmer and cook all day while you get on with your daily activities. Don't have time in the morning? Prep your meal the night before, refrigerate overnight and turn it on in the morning as you're heading out the door. When you arrive back home your delicious meal is ready when you are.

Another advantage to cooking with a slowcooker is the process' ability to turn cheaper cuts of meat into tender, delicious meals. When grilling or frying you often have to choose more expensive, marbled cuts of meat to avoid a brick-like outcome. A slowcooker, so named because it cooks meats over a longer period of time at lower temperatures, breaks down tougher connective tissues and delivers premium meals at rock bottom prices.

Every time you throw away leftover foods you're throwing money in the garbage. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to quickly and easily reuse those leftovers in a future meal and save money on your grocery bill? With slowcooker recipes it's simple to use leftover roasts, steaks, rice or even vegetables. Make a stew with your leftover pot roast, throw pre-ccoked vegetables in a few minutes before serving to reheat them and the cost of that night's dinner became pennies a serving. For leftover rice use it to make stuffed green peppers that is both healthy and inexpensive thanks to the reuse of leftovers.

If you find yourself crunched for time or exceeding your grocery budget with expensive meats give slowcooker recipes a try. You'll love not having to rush to prepare dinner everyday and you'll enjoy the savings as well.

Slowcooker Beef Stew: 2 pounds stewing beef (or any leftover beef) cut into 1-inch cubes cup flour tsp. salt tsp. pepper 1 cups beef broth 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tsp. paprika 4 carrots, sliced 3 potatoes, diced 1 medium onion, chopped 1 celery stalk, sliced 2 tbsp. HP sauce Place meat in slowcooker. Mix together flour, salt and pepper. Pour over and stir to thoroughly coat the meat cubes. Add the remaining ingredients and stir together well. Place the cover on your slowcooker and cook on low heat for 10 to 12 hours or high heat for 4 to 6 hours. Stir your stew well before serving.