Crock Pot Crazy

I was checking out a friend of mine's blog (thanks Andrea!) and noticed that she linked to a site called A Year Of SlowCooking. It immediately caught my attention and I had a light-bulb moment. That was going to be the key to solving all of my current "issues"...

Here were my "Issues" - at least the ones that I'm willing to deal with...
1. I eat way too late at night because I end up working and then dealing with Andrew to put him to bed and then I look up and it's 8:30 or 9pm and I'm famished.
2. Because I'm famished - all thoughts of healthy eating go right out the window. I don't have time to cook, don't have the desire to cook and will eat just about anything you put in front of my face.
3. Once I eat, I'm ready to go to bed - so I actually go to sleep with a full stomach and almost everyone knows not to do that if you ever want to lose weight.
4. By the end of the month, I've lost no weight and spent WAY too much money on stupid drive through and fast food.

So, this brings me back to my light-bulb moment. I decided that this woman was on to something. Now, I'm not interested in cooking anything, anywhere for 365 days in a row, but I figured I could dedicate myself to use my slow cooker for 5 dinners a week for a month. This would give us 5 nights of healthy eating that would be cheap and complete by 6:30pm. I started to peruse her site for healthy options in the slow cooker. My plan was to start with 5 recipes and shop for those so I would be completely ready as I "prepared" dinner each morning at 7:30am. I ended up on her site (crockpot365.blogspot.com), the FoodNetwork.com and AllRecipes.com in the slow cooker area (http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Main-Dish/Slow-Cooker/Top.aspx). I found my 5 to begin this project. Once that week was over, I found 5 more and I've listed below the ones we have tried:

Meal 1 : Slow Cooker Shrimp Creole - Compliments of Ms. Paula Deen - IT WAS GOOD!!
Meal 2: Chicken With Potatoes - Very good too - but would not use a full chicken the next time because it fell apart and we had to pick the bones out.
Meal 3: Taco Soup - Super! Was very good and had so much extra that I did not need to cook anything the next day.
Meal 4: Pork Roast - Another big winner - Going in to the normal rotation.
Meal 5: Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches - Bit too much "buffalo wing" taste for me - but Jeff loved it.
Meal 6: Sour Cream Pork Chops - WHOA - Very good.
Meal 7: Chicken Pot Pie Stew - Cooking right now - so we shall see...

Now, some of these may not sound healthy, but they actually were pretty darn good and healthy. Calories per serving was under 300. The sour cream, ground beef, etc... were all the lighter, leaner versions. I can post recipes for everything. I'll likely make all of it again and this time will take pictures to go along with my recipe.

Hopefully this sticks because I've saved money, lost 3 pounds the first week and it is super easy. Yay!!