Throughout freshman year, I had the luxury of living in Prentiss Hall, which as we know, is conveniently right next to the great Kryzsko cafeteria where I could stay as long as I wanted and eat as much as my pride would allow me. Sadly, all good things have to come to an end. Once freshman year came to a close, I moved off campus, I left behind the comfort and convenience of the cafeteria and began to live on my own merits.
However, once the supply was gone and the ties were cut, reality suddenly came crashing down on me…COOKING IS A LOT OF WORK! Cooking can be time consuming and hard on your wallet; as we all know, the two things college students diffidently don’t have are time and money. However, the college diet of frozen pizza, sandwiches and microwave dinners can really start to wear on a person and after the fifth consecutive day of pasta for dinner, I definitely begin to crave quality, tasty meals.
Then as I was getting ready to go back to school for the start of my junior year, I went to the one person who I knew could help me solve my cooking dilemma–my mom. She went down into the basement and came up with the tool that would change my culinary experience forever, a slow cooker. Cue the choir of angels!! I was instantly hooked. Why?
- The food you can make in it is incredible
- You don’t need to be a skilled cook to use it
- There is no slaving away over the stove with hours you can’t afford to be away from your textbooks
- Little ingredients are necessary to make great food, so the meals are easy and cheap.
- Little to no preparation necessary
- You can come back from class and have dinner ready for you!
Sounds like the best thing ever, right? And there are so many easy recipes out there to make tasty meals, from websites like AllRecipes.com and Foodnetwork.com or for you Pinterest savvy people out there, there are plenty of boards where you can find hundreds of great slow cooker recipes, such as this one by kjsgendrue.
Now, here’s a recipe of my own invention to get started with your slow cooker. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can easily buy one from Walmart or Target for $25.
Caleb’s Chicken Barbecue
Step 1: Gather the Ingredients. You will need some chicken breasts (no need to thaw) and 1 cup BBQ Sauce.
Step 2: Throw the chicken into the cooker.
Step 3: Slather the chicken in BBQ sauce.
Step 4 (optional): Throw in any spices you have lying around. I chose BBQ 3000 (Pro Tip: Accept nothing less than 2000).
Step 5: Turn that sucker on “Low.”
Step 6: Leave and go to class because you’re a good student.
Step 7: THAT’S IT! Come home and enjoy your creation. I like to serve mine with pasta.
