My Big-Girl Crock Pot :)

7 Quarts...this baby holds 7 quarts!! I was so thrilled when I got my new Crock Pot for Christmas and it is RED!!!  Shiny, sassy, red.

It took me quite a while to bring myself to get it dirty but I finally did when I decided to make a big batch of soup.

You know me - simplicity is best.  I decided it was time to start cleaning out the freezer and one of the best ways to do it is by loading stuff into the crock pot, which can do wonders for freezer burned things like butter beans.

My recipe was simple but absolutely the most satisfying meal I've had all winter.

I started with a couple onions and basically quartered them and separated the slices, added a couple smashed garlic cloves, some freezer burned peas, a dash of rosemary, 2 dashes of thyme, 3 shakes of salt, a pinch of pepper and meat.  Yes, that's how I measure. That's the beauty of a crock pot soup - you don't have to use a lot of spices to get a lot of flavor since it's slow cooked, and I figure, you can always add more later if you need to (and I did have to add some salt upon serving).

The meat was London broil, you can see them peeking through the 8 cups of water I dumped in there too. I see it in big long pieces pretty often but these happened to be cut into thirds, so it helped decipher serving sizes. I love that! Plus, it tends to be cheap - I got this for about $5/pound.

Most recipes I read say to brown the meat before you put it in - but I don't. I never noticed a difference in taste or texture once it cooks for 6-8 hours anyway, so I figure - why dirty another pan?

Do you ever notice the difference?

I put leftovers in small lunch-sized containers, in the freezer. I love knowing they are waiting there for me for later and I don't have to eat the same thing all week (if I don't want to - which I did with this though).

Plus, I'm so proud to be a big girl now, with a big girl  rock pot.  ;0)