Thursday, March 27, 2008

2 Crockpots are better than 1

Given my rash of new ideas and expansion into the dessert and side dish arena, it seems logical that I buy an additional crockpot. For one, crockpots are really cheap (mine was about $40) and are extremely durable. Additionally, one draw back to crockpots is that you can any only make one thing at a time and each thing can take upwards of 10 hours to cook. It would have been handy a few weeks ago to have been able to cook the brisket in one pot and the sweet potatoes in the other. Everything could have been ready at the exact same time.

I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems like crockpots develop a inherent flavor after awhile. I always scrub out the bowl carefully, but I still feel like the meats sometimes leave a little flavor behind. This is not necessarily a bad thing unless you would like to make a dessert. Pork and brisket flavored chocolate peanut clusters don't sound like they would be that great. Most of the folks I have talked to use a two crock pot system, one for meats/savory and another for desserts/sweet. I don't really know where I'm going to fit another crockpot in my kitchen, but I'll just worry about that later I guess.

4 comments:

ddreilinger said...

Right on. Though I'm a bit behind, I'm out to purchase my first slow cooker this afternoon. One should be enough for me; I only plan to make bbq and chili in it...

Jared said...

Dave,

Makes perfect sense to keep it to one if you are going to stick with the meats and chili's. Baked beans are coming this weekend so stay tuned.

Nicole said...

I do think that it is sometimes a good idea to have one device for savory and one for sweet. It is surprising that a crockpot hold that much flavor in but I know my cast iron skillet really do.

Great to have a site for slow cooking recipes. I don't have many myself. Do you ever do anything w/out BBQ sauce? Or korean BBQ?

Jared said...

Nicole,

Thanks for reading. I do not think a crockpot holds flavors like an iron skillet would. I think the greater advantage to having the 2 crockpots would be that you could make two different things at the same time. The flavor thing may just be a pet peeve of mine.

I'm definitely finding that there are many non BBQ things that I am interested in making. I will be posting a dessert recipe today and will be making more sides and other dishes along with the meats. Have not tried to do Korean BBQ but would definitely be interested in trying it out.