These are some great guidelines to help you along in your cooking.

Meats and Poultry

• Buy meat roosts in the sizes and shapes that properly fit your crock-pot, or you will have to find other ways to cut it so that it will fit.
• Use lean meat cuts for low fat meals, or cut away all of the fat before you cook. Also, remove the skin.
• Brown any ground beef, chicken, lamb, or turkey in a pan/ skillet over a medium heat, so that you give the pastas, chilies, and other sauces a nice flavor and color. If you wish to lower the fat content, do it in a non stick pan or use non stock spray. When you have browned the meat, transfer it into the crock-pot.
• Cook meat (chicken, pork, turkey) that is cubed, for about ten hours, but make sure to check up on it after seven hours to see if it is ready.

Vegetables

• Place thick vegetables like carrots and potatoes at the pots bottom, let them stay there under liquid for enough time to keep everything cooked nicely overall. Then put the meat on top of the vegetables, because the meat will cook faster then the vegetables ( it’s true!) Add in any liquid last
• When you are cutting vegetables, cut them evenly for cooking. Smaller sizes are great.
• Stir frozen vegetables during the last half hour of cooking
• Add tender( peas, etc) and highly flavorful ( cauliflower, broccoli, etc) and green ( spinach, etc) vegetables last during the last thirty minutes of cooking.
• Darken onions, and vegetables beforehand, so that you add some color to the dish, and flavor as well. Use the low fat technique mentioned above

Pasta, rice, and grains

• If you want nice and full rice, use the long grain variety.
• Add in the raw rice and barley at the last hour of cooking. You do not want to let the rice cook for hours, because it will be very sticky and sloppy, basically a mess. For another method, you could cook the rice as you would normally on a pot on the stove, and then add it into the meal during the last 15 minutes of cooking.
• The cooking time for brown rice is about twice that of regular rice.
• Use an extra ½ cup of water for ever ½ of grains.
• Add some pasta to your soups in the last few (last 10) minutes of cooking. For any other dish, cook the pasta as you would normally, and then put it in the pot as soon as it is done, right before you are almost ready to serve the dish.

Dried Beans

• All cooking times vary with different bean types and all the different ingredients that are coked with them. Some types, like baby limas take less time to cook than chick-peas and kidney beans. Remember that as the beans grow, they will expand in volume, in fact the volume of the cooked beans will practically double.
• When you are cooking beans like chick peas or kidney beans, make sure to cook it with about three times the volume of water in a regular pot, for ten minutes. Then drain the beans and then add them to the pot with the other ingredients.
• Make sure to soften beans before you add in sweeteners (like brown sugar, honey, and syrup) or acidic foods (like tomatoes) because these will harden the beans as you cook. So, boil the beans for about ten minutes and then lower the heat. Then cover and let the beans simmer until they become nice and tender. Then throw away the water. You may now add it to the rest of the ingredients in the pot.

Cheese, Milk, And Other Dairy Products

• Add in cheese, yogurt, and cream in dishes, soup, and stews right before you are to serve. Then cook it for just enough time to melt the cheese and to warm the ingredients. It is not a good idea to cook dairy products for a long time with the other ingredients, because the dairy will separate and look curdled.
• If you have to cook the cheese with the other ingredients for a lengthy time, use processed cheese instead, because it does much better with heat.
• Add the milk just before you serve the dish, unless it is a dessert, and you have to cook it in for two to three hours, because the milk will curdle if you cook it for two long.
• If you are to cook for a lengthy time, use evaporated milk, because it will last much longer without curdling. It also makes a nice low fat dish.

Fish

• Add in the shellfish, clams, shrimp, and other such things during the last thirty minutes of cooking. If you let it cook with the other ingredients for too long, it will harden.
• Add in small bits of tough fish like salmon in the last thirty minutes of your cooking. Then cook until it is done. If the fish are done, they will easily flake.
• If you are to cook for a long time, do not use light and delicate fish, such as flounder, because it will not hold nicely.

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