Crock Pot: The Stove-less Wonder

Nearly a week later and our stove is still not back to functionality.  Grr!  On the bright side, our landlady does have "tips" for us to "get it back on its feet."  Right...

So the roommates are back and we are left to fend for our selves without the benefit of stove or oven.  Out comes the Crock Pot!  I found a great recipe for lentil barley soup online, and it was amazingly delicious and super easy!  I've never really had lentils or barley much before, but let me tell you...  And, to top it off, this meal was very inexpensive!  Dried lentils and barley cost I think about $1 a pound each, throw in some onions and carrots from my FFTY box, some spices and whatnot, supplement with some celery from the store, and greens from the garden, and voila!  A delicious and ridiculously nutritious meal!  And it only took about 2 hours, which in slow-cooker time is basically instant.

The whole thing got me thinking about how I'm going to manage preparing meals for myself once school starts so that I'm not chowing down at the Bloomingdale's food court twice a week.  The food is good and really should not be considered fast food at all as it is of pretty darn decent quality, but you pay for it through the nose and I just don't need that.  Despite the fact that it was brought down from the top of the cabinets due to a lack of alternative methods of cooking, the slow cooker could really help me out here as well.  I've tended to shy away from using it much because it just makes so damn MUCH food--but maybe this is exactly what I need right now!  I can prepare a big batch of something and since I'd be eating it for lunch and dinner the next day or two, it will go by much faster than my eating habits in the past would likely allow.  Perfect.

I've also been thinking about nutrition, and a co-worker friend sent me a vegetarian bean recipe that sounds absolutely amazing.  I'd planned to make it this weekend but there was the issue with the stove, yet it led me to realize that I don't eat beans very often, and wonder why.  Part of this, I'm sure, is due to the fact that I'm not hog wild about beans, but I certainly don't dislike them.  I guess they are one of those foods that I didn't really grow up with much, and therefore I'm just not all that familiar with.  But dried beans come in so many varieties, are cheap as hell, and are nutritional powerhouses.  What's not to love?  Oh right, they work great in the slow cooker, too.  =)

I'm thinking this could be the start of something great...