Weddingbee Boards

With ground beef, you can make meatballs and cook them in the slow cooker. Use whatever meatball recipe you like (be sure to brown the meatballs first) and put them in the slow cooker with the spaghetti sauce. You can keep it on until you get home and either boil some spaghetti noodles or make meatball sandwiches. Or both! Spaghetti one night, meatball sandwiches with the leftovers the next night. My mom likes to make mostachoili in the slow cooker. I'll have to get her recipe for you.

You can also do sloppy joes in the slow cooker. Definitely not one of my favorites, but it can be done with ground beef lol just cook the ground beef first on the stove and drain it (this actually goes for just about any ground beef going into the slow cooker. don't throw it in raw).

Just about any chili recipe can be thrown into a crock pot instead of on the stove.

I make stuffed pepper soup, which I imagine can be done in a slow cooker.

Pepper Soup

about 2lbs ground beef

2 bell peppers

3-4tbs Worcestershire sauce (i didnt measure...)

1-2tbs soy sauceminced onion (or can use fresh onion but just dont use too much)

3 cans tomato soup+ 3 cans water

1 regular size can tomato sauce

2 beef boullion cubes

about 2 cups of cooked rice

Cook the ground beef first (throw a bit of onion in while it cookes), then add everything into the slow cooker except for the rice. When you get home, make the rice and before serving, put some rice into your bowl. Don't add it directly to the soup because the rice will absorb all the broth and youll end up more with mush. It's still good, but doesn't look so tasty. This makes quite a bit. I'm not sure how big your slowcooker is, so you might want to cut it in half, especially if you don't want left overs lol

Hubby's favorite is beef stew. You can buy the cheap cuts of beef, throw in some carrots, potatoes, celery, beef broth (or bullion), pepper to taste, salt to taste,couple tablespoons of worchestershire sauce, minced onion, and lipton onion soup mix (and, if you want a bit of a kick, a little bit of crushed red pepper). Make sure its all covered with water, and it can cook until you get home (8 hours or so. longer is fine and it wont burn). you will need to thicken it up at the end using corn starch or flour. If you need help how to do that, let me know.

Chicken noodle soup can be made in it. Put in some chicken (I usually buy the cheap cuts of chicken thighs. make sure it still has the fat and skin on it), carrots, celery, parsely, and a salt (takes quite a bit, but it will of course depend on how much salt you like. remember you can add more later, but once it's in, can't take it out!). Keep that on low all day. When you get home, strain the chicken out and let it cool a bit. Start boiling the noodles on the stove. I like to use egg noodles, but you can really use anything you want. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat off the bones and put it back into the slow cooker. Discard the bones and skin. once the noodles are finished cooker (per package instructions), drain them and add it to the soup.

Pepper steak is another good one for the slow cooker. I don't have an exact recipe for mine (I add the ingredients according to smell... lol) but I use two round steaks (cheap!) cut into slices, two greenbell peppers (green and yellow is nice to mix  up the colors), a can of tomato sauce, water to cover the rest, two cubes of beef bullion, soy sauce to taste (this is where the smell part comes in. i add enough soy sauce until it doesnt smell tomato-y anymore.), and about 1/2 an onion. this can cook on low until you get home, and I'd say maybe 6 hours minimum. It might need some thickening with flour or cornstarch at the end as well. serve over rice.

around st. patty's day, you can buy a corned beef on sale and that can also be made in the slow cooker with some cabbage and potatoes

phew. ok, I'm done, promise... lol

I really like this book: http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Cooker-Recipes-Gardens-Cooking/dp/0696218348/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257108319&sr=1-3

I've found a lot of great receipes there.

I post some crockpot recipes on my non-wedding blog pretty regularly, and I'm about to post another one today!

http://sociallysb.wordpress.com

I put ANYTHING and EVERYTHING into the crockpot, but ground beef is a much harder thing to work with since it falls apart b/c of the fat content. Meatballs and chili are the best.

Have you considered other inexpensive meats? Boston butt pork roasts cut up into 2" cubes can be pulled pork bbq later or carnitas for tacos... and regardless, it only takes 8 hours in the crock pot!

I made my first crock pot meal last night and had a dinner party.. i'm kind of brave I think since I really don't cook... but it came out awesome. I used the recipe from Allrecipes.com I love that site. I did ribs it was so so good, my hubby loved it, and it was so easy and so exciting to think I made something so tasty!

I used my crock pot ALL the time.   I would recommend using the links above or buying a cookbook.  If you are pressed for time, I love these:

http://wildtree.com/Products/List.aspx?ProductCategoryID=35

My friend sells them...YUM!  On an unrelated note, we always get raves when we use their guacamole mix, too...we're such cheaters!