Ah, another year is once again upon us. I hope that all of your holiday festivities were festive and that overindulging was kept to a minimum. My husband and I had a very quiet, very restful Christmas — with the exception of one very energetic 2-year-old cat boy. He’s easy to please, though, so a piece of scrap paper and a laser pointer were all he needed to celebrate the season. I suspect, however, that many of you experienced a much busier holiday time than I did, so I thought it was time to suggest a slowdown … in the kitchen.
Preparing all those holiday treats and meals can be exhausting even for the most diehard of cooks. In fact, you might be tempted to stay out of the kitchen for the whole month of January. The thing is, you still need to eat, and ordering take-out, well, that’s fine once in a while, but relying on it for your dinner plans has an impact on the wallet as well as the waistline. This is where slow cooking comes in. In the morning prep the ingredients, put them in a slow cooker and set the timer — then spend the rest of the day doing anything you want (except cooking)!
January is the perfect month to let your slow cooker do all of the work. Stew, soup, chili, pot roast — these are the flavors I crave this time of year, and slow cooking is the way to go when you’re tuckered out from holiday activities, sugared-up from holiday goodies and just plain done with everything that happened in 2018. On the other hand, if you’re down in the dumps because the halls are no longer decked with boughs of holly, check out “Christmas Slow Cooker Feasts: 650 Easy Holiday Recipes,” by Phyllis Pellman Good. January will taste like December, ho, ho, ho!
Happy New Year — keep warm and eat well!
• “The Asian Slow Cooker: Exotic Favorites for Your Crockpot,” by Kelly Kwok.
• “Better Homes and Gardens Fast or Slow: Delicious Meals for Slow Cookers, Pressure Cookers, or Multicookers,” by Better Homes and Gardens.
