I think that definitely the most time consuming part of eating healthy and working out is the cooking part. Stopping by a fast food restaurant or any restaurant for that matter usually seems like a more appealing choice. Or just popping something in the microwave for the sake of time is always a means for a quick meal. I won’t go to extreme and say all of that is bad for you as long as it’s in moderation. But the majority of your meals should be healthy and home-cooked. If you don’t prefer to cook as often, the crock pot can certainly save the day.
I personally take pleasure in cooking. There’s something about creating a meal and enjoying it. It’s even better if someone else thinks it tastes good. The problem, as with most of us, is time. I’ve had friends that advised me to cook a lot on one day in order to have several meals prepared ahead of time. Most of them recommended grilling chicken breasts, which is obviously healthy and low fat. The problem I faced was that my meals always seemed dry after the first or second meal. So one day, almost out of the blue, I decided to get a slow cooker and try it out. This revolutionized the way I cooked my meals, not to mention saved me tons of time. In short, the average prep time for most every meal I’ve cooked took 10-15 minutes and then I just walked away for several hours and that was it.
The basics of slow cooking are mixing together the type of seasonings you want then adding your main ingredients, which for the most part are usually a meat and some vegetables. Most slow cookers have a high and low setting. I’ve found that cooking a little longer on low, such as 7-8 hours is better for tenderness and taste than cooking on hi for 4-5 hours. I’ve listed below a basic chicken and rice meal that you can try and that will also make several meals.
Slow Cooker Simple Chicken and Rice
Ingredients:
3 lbs of skinless boneless chicken breast
3 carrots
3 stalks of celery
4 chicken flavored bouillon cubes
2 16 ounce cans of chicken broth
2 1/4 cups of uncooked rice
Instructions for Chicken: Place chicken in the bottom of the slow cooker/crock pot then sliced carrots and celery. Pour in chicken broth then add the bouillon cubes. Cook on low for 8 hours.
Instructions for Rice: You can opt to throw in the uncooked rice in the slow cooker or if you choose you can cook the rice separately in a rice cooker or stove top.