By Muscle Media
When the weather outside warms up, the kitchen can be a terrible place to be. There are many things you can do however. Cooking a nice home made meal that doesn’t require traditional stove top or oven cooking. Learn to utilize some of the lesser heat producing equipment in your kitchen. Such as the crockpot, in order to truly beat the summer heat. Crockpot cooking could keep your cool while preparing a nice hot meal for friends and family.
Less Heat
So, how does crockpot cooking really help beat the heat? Simply put, the crockpot in and of itself puts off far less heat when cooking than an oven or stove top. This is the first and possibly the best reason to utilize the crockpot in your summer meal planning. You should also consider the fact that by not heating the house by using your stove top or oven you are also preventing your air conditioning (or other cooling methods) from working overtime in order to compensate for the additional heat that other cooking methods introduce.
This makes crockpot cooking a win-win situation. As the costs involved in operating a crockpot are far less than the costs involved in operating a stove or oven in general. Whether electric or gas, your stove and oven are often serious energy hogs. Add to that the fact that you are not raising the temperature in your home by traditional means of cooking. And you are using even less electricity.
Cook Almost Anything
Unfortunately for most, the general consensus has been that crockpots were meant for comfort foods and hearty winter meals. The truth is that the crockpot should be one of your best loved and most often utilized cooking methods if you can manage it. When it comes to cooking with a crockpot, the options are almost limitless. Almost anything that can be baked can be made in the crockpot. And many, many more wonderful and enticing meals and treats as well.
Benefits of Crockpot Cooking
In addition to the cost benefits mentioned above when it comes to crockpot cooking there are many other benefits that are well worth mentioning. First of all, the bulk of the work involved in crockpot cooking takes place early in the day. When you are refreshed rather than at the end of a hectic work or play day. This means that you are less likely to forget an ingredient. Or make other mistakes that often occur as we hurriedly prepare a dinner when we are exhausted from the activities of our day.
Second, many great crockpot recipes include the vegetables that insure we are getting the nutrients we need. So often, when preparing a meal at the last minute, vegetables and other side dishes are left out in favor of expedience. Crockpot cooking in many instances is a meal in one dish.
Ease of Cleaning
Another great reason to use a crockpot for your summertime cooking is the ease of clean up. Unlike pots and pans, most crockpot meals are made in one dish. This means that there will not be mountains of dishes to be either hand washed or loaded into the dishwasher (or if you are like me-both) afterwards. You can spend less time cleaning just as you spent less time slaving over a hot stove. Oh wait! Make that no time slaving over a hot stove. Once clean up is complete you can get back to enjoying the sun set, chasing the lightening bugs with your little ones, or waiting for the first star.
Get Cooking
While there will never be a one size fits all best cooking method, crockpot cooking comes very close. If you have a crockpot collecting dust somewhere in the back of your pantry it is time to get it out. Dust it off, and dig up some great summertime crockpot cooking recipes.
