Crock Pot Recipes Making Changes
As a cook, whether you are seasoned or beginning, destined for culinary school or just destined to cook for your family, it’s important to understand that with your crock pot, you don’t always have to follow the recipe. In fact, the most memorable meals come from exploring your options and taking chances.
If you’re a seasoned crock pot cook, you know how to make substitutions and that measurements rarely matter. You throw the food in, dump in your spices and walk away. But if you’re a beginner, you may be nervous to make substitutions, remembering the time you caught the kitchen stove on fire because you decided to use corn oil instead of olive oil. With crock pot cooking, you can rarely make mistakes that cause devastation to your meal or to your kitchen. You just have to be ready to try new flavors and make an emergency substitution of powdered sugar when you don’t have regular sugar in the house.
It is fairly simple to make changes and substitutions to crock pot recipes, whether they are small changes or extreme changes. A crock pot can cook any type of food you can think up and it will come out perfect every time. Because crock pots cook your entire meal over the course of several hours or an entire day, you don’t have to worry about your food being undercooked, so you can add, retract or change as many ingredients as you want to.
Take a general stuffed roast pork recipe for example. While the recipe may tell you to use Shitake mushrooms and green bell peppers and smother your roast in a savory barbecue sauce, you might instead try stuffing it with diced pears or pineapple and smothering it in a spicy barbecue sauce. Or if you’re not so bold, you can change the recipe by simply replacing your Shitake mushrooms with Portabello mushrooms, which would change the aroma and fullness of the flavor inside the pork or swapping out the green bell peppers for orange bell peppers, which would sweeten the meal. It’s up to you what you do because you are the cook. And with crock pot cooking, it can be this simple to make alterations to every recipe you come across. You’re only required to be as sensible as you want to be about the changes you are making to your recipes.
When you’re experimenting with your crock pot and your recipes, always cook to taste. If the idea of apples and gouda cheese stuffed in a chicken don’t sound appetizing to you, replace the gouda, replace the apples or throw out the recipe and make up your own. Cook what sounds appetizing to you. Don’t worry about the instructions on the recipe as much as you do about what you want to taste. Crock pot cooking is different from traditional oven and stove cooking because the meal has typically been cooked over the course of an entire day, rather than a couple of hours. This means that your flavors will be bolder and your meats or pastas will have had a chance to completely absorb the flavors and kicks of the spices and vegetables you’ve put in the mix.
Unlike a traditional recipe done on the stove or in the oven, you don’t necessarily need to make perfect measurements with your recipes or perfect substitutions. You’ll know from the smell whether you have put in enough of your favorite spices. If you are unsure of yourself, it would be wise to purchase a full set of measuring cups and measuring spoons.
If you’re a vegan or you need vegetarian crock pot recipes you can make any type of substitutions that you want, within reason. For example, if you are using crock pot breakfast recipes, like oatmeal, that contain milk, you can make an automatic substitution with water, soy milk, almond milk or rice milk. When you look at a regular recipe for vegetarian substitutions it may tell you to use less of these items because they are not as thick a cow’s milk. However, if you follow the recipe, you will need to watch your crock pot closely. Because crock pots cook food over the course of several hours, water and other thin liquids have more time to be absorbed by the food or evaporate than in traditional cooking. And these liquids will be absorbed differently than milk because of its enzymes. Unlike traditional cooking, you would most likely need to substitute the same amount of thin liquids as you would milk in order to maintain the consistency of the oatmeal.
It’s been said several times here that you can make as many changes as you want and that you only have to be sensible about those changes if you want to be sensible about them. But it’s important to take caution in experimentation. Remember that certain mixtures like vinegar and baking soda are big No-Nos—see your local fifth grade science class— and that some type of liquid or melt-able food is almost always required in crock pot cooking to keep from burning the meal and scorching the pot, and to help cook the food. So when you’re substituting and making changes, remember not to substitute dries for liquids and reactionary particles for non-reactionaries. If you’re not familiar with substitutions and how they work, you may want to search the internet for a typical substitutions chart. This will help you avoid disaster while you’re still new to cooking and will also help you to make wise decisions if you are unsure of yourself when changing your first crock pot recipes.
The most important thing to remember is that aside from the above-listed cautions, it is incredibly difficult to make mistakes with crock pot recipes. Crock pots are incredibly easy to use, you can make all the changes you want to recipes and put in as many different ingredients as you want and the meal will still come out cooked to perfection—soft and succulent, full of juices and full of flavor.
recipes, whether they are small changes or extreme changes. A crock pot can cook any type of food you can think up and it will come out perfect every time. Because crock pots cook your entire meal over the course of several hours or an entire day, you don’t have to worry about your food being undercooked, so you can add, retract or change as many ingredients as you want to.
Take a general stuffed roast pork recipe for example. While the recipe may tell you to use Shitake mushrooms and green bell peppers and smother your roast in a savory barbecue sauce, you might instead try stuffing it with diced pears or pineapple and smothering it in a spicy barbecue sauce. Or if you’re not so bold, you can change the recipe by simply replacing your Shitake mushrooms with Portabello mushrooms, which would change the aroma and fullness of the flavor inside the pork or swapping out the green bell peppers for orange bell peppers, which would sweeten the meal. It’s up to you what you do because you are the cook. And with crock pot cooking, it can be this simple to make alterations to every recipe you come across. You’re only required to be as sensible as you want to be about the changes you are making to your recipes.
When you’re experimenting with your crock pot and your recipes, always cook to taste. If the idea of apples and gouda cheese stuffed in a chicken don’t sound appetizing to you, replace the gouda, replace the apples or throw out the recipe and make up your own. Cook what sounds appetizing to you. Don’t worry about the instructions on the recipe as much as you do about what you want to taste. Crock pot cooking is different from traditional oven and stove cooking because the meal has typically been cooked over the course of an entire day, rather than a couple of hours. This means that your flavors will be bolder and your meats or pastas will have had a chance to completely absorb the flavors and kicks of the spices and vegetables you’ve put in the mix.
Unlike a traditional recipe done on the stove or in the oven, you don’t necessarily need to make perfect measurements with your recipes or perfect substitutions. You’ll know from the smell whether you have put in enough of your favorite spices. If you are unsure of yourself, it would be wise to purchase a full set of measuring cups and measuring spoons.
If you’re a vegan or you need vegetarian crock pot recipes you can make any type of substitutions that you want, within reason. For example, if you are using crock pot breakfast recipes, like oatmeal, that contain milk, you can make an automatic substitution with water, soy milk, almond milk or rice milk. When you look at a regular recipe for vegetarian substitutions it may tell you to use less of these items because they are not as thick a cow’s milk. However, if you follow the recipe, you will need to watch your crock pot closely. Because crock pots cook food over the course of several hours, water and other thin liquids have more time to be absorbed by the food or evaporate than in traditional cooking. And these liquids will be absorbed differently than milk because of its enzymes. Unlike traditional cooking, you would most likely need to substitute the same amount of thin liquids as you would milk in order to maintain the consistency of the oatmeal.
It’s been said several times here that you can make as many changes as you want and that you only have to be sensible about those changes if you want to be sensible about them. But it’s important to take caution in experimentation. Remember that certain mixtures like vinegar and baking soda are big No-Nos—see your local fifth grade science class— and that some type of liquid or melt-able food is almost always required in crock pot cooking to keep from burning the meal and scorching the pot, and to help cook the food. So when you’re substituting and making changes, remember not to substitute dries for liquids and reactionary particles for non-reactionaries. If you’re not familiar with substitutions and how they work, you may want to search the internet for a typical substitutions chart. This will help you avoid disaster while you’re still new to cooking and will also help you to make wise decisions if you are unsure of yourself when changing your first crock pot recipes.
The most important thing to remember is that aside from the above-listed cautions, it is incredibly difficult to make mistakes with crock pot recipes. Crock pots are incredibly easy to use, you can make all the changes you want to recipes and put in as many different ingredients as you want and the meal will still come out cooked to perfection—soft and succulent, full of juices and full of flavor.
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