#slow-cooker

Beef—especially the marbled “tough” cut type—is a perfect food for the slow cooker. Simmered low and slow all day long, the meat becomes meltingly tender and flavors every single ingredient in the pot. You can’t overcook most cuts of beef in the slow cooker, so long days at work and school are no problem. Even ground beef slow-cooks very well! Here are some of our favorite slow-cooker beef…

Slow cookers are almost fool-proof. If you don’t have the energy or the time to spend hours cooking dinner, this kitchen appliance can save the day. Whether you’re making a dump dinner, a stew, or a roast, slow cookers can nearly do it all.  Slow cookers tend to be very durable, too. My family bought one decades ago and we’ve never replaced it. While all appliances experience some wear and tear…

The little cookbook

Although this slow-cooker is fairly new, the cookbook is damn near a half-century old.

I know this because it came with one of the four "crock pots" we received as shower/wedding gifts in June of 1975.

It's a stretch, really, to call it a "book." It started out as a book, but now it's a sheaf of food-stained, dog-eared pages. The staples that once kept its spine intact are long gone. Its pages are crumbling at the corners.

For 50 years, through all those meals for six, we've called it "the little cookbook." As in, "I have a taste for chili; where's 'the little cookbook?'"