When it comes to single parenting and healthy inexpensive meals, there is but one mantra: “The crock-pot is my friend, the crock-pot is my friend…” With a long day at work behind you and helping-with-homework ahead, single parents need an inexpensive no-brainer meal for supper—preferably one that has magically cooked itself and is ready to serve when you enter your home.
Healthy Slow Cooked Meals for Single Parent Families
If you’ve made it through breakfast and lunchbox preparations, slain dragons at work, yet still have homework to face; preparing a nutritious supper quickly and inexpensively begins to sound like a tall order—if not an impossibility. Enter the crock pot.
If you don’t own a slow cooker, buy a nice large one immediately. If you do own a slow cooker, pull it out of hiding and dust it off—then consider buying one or two more!
Slow cooked meals can transform cheap cuts of meat into supreme delicacies, and dried beans into inexpensive and comforting healthy meals. Long slow cooking at low temperatures helps to protect the vitamin content in foods and none of the nutrition escapes via the steam of a boiling-hot pot.
Because you will use fresh ingredients, your meals will be even healthier still. Crock pot cooking means your family’s meals will be easy and predictably delicious with almost no effort on your part.
Tips for Effortless Dinner Meals
On one of your days-off, spend about ten minutes prepping some standard seasoning vegetables. Dice onions, bell pepper, celery and carrots and place each item in quart-sized zipper bags in the refrigerator for later use.
In this way you will be able to quickly measure ingredients and dump them into the crockpot as you are walking out of the door in the morning. Any other vegetables you may want to use—potatoes, for example—can quickly be washed or chopped and added in the morning, ensuring their freshness.
Easy Recipe for Parents on a Busy Schedule
My Cajun grandmother, who had seven children, taught me the following recipe for red beans and rice. You thought you had a busy schedule? She washed all her clothes by hand, chopped wood and had to cook in her fireplace. If she could manage healthy meals, you can do it too.
Try this recipe out one morning before work and see if your crock pot cannot earn its keep!
Slow Cooked, Cajun Style Red Beans and Rice
Ingredients:
- 1 pound dried red kidney beans
- 1 medium onion, chopped (about 1½ - 2 cups)
- 1 medium bell pepper, chopped (about 1½ cups)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 pound smoked sausage cut into bite-sized chunks - or a leftover ham bone, or other seasoning meat
- 6 cups water
- Freshly cooked hot fluffy rice, cooked separately
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Rinse and sort the dried beans and place them in the bottom of the crock-pot.
- Evenly layering the ingredients, add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, bay leaves and sausage to the slow cooker.
- Gently pour in the water, trying to keep the beans totally submerged.
- Cover the crock pot and set the temperature to cook on Low for 8 – 10 hours, or for 5 – 6 hours on High. This long slow cooking method will yield a creamy pot of beans.
- Stir well, discard bay leaves and serve beans over a bed of freshly cooked hot rice.
Note: If using spicy Cajun style Smoked Sausage no salt or pepper will be required.
Single Parents Advice for Multi-tasking
If you try the cooking-while-you-work recipe above, you will be convinced that your slow cooker is a valuable time-saving tool. But why would I mention that you consider buying more than one?
Owning more than one slow cooker allows you to multiply your good results. If you own two slow cookers, you can make a main dish and a side casserole all at once. If you own an extra crock pot you can make a hot breakfast overnight while you sleep.
Or, if you prefer, you could prep three different meals quickly on the weekend and store them in the pot’s liner in the refrigerator. This way, three days of the week no prep is needed and dinner goes straight into the crock pot as you head out for work in the morning.
Stress Free Dinners for Busy Single Parents
Take a tip from my grandmother. There’s no reason why supper needs to be an expensive, time consuming or stressful event. With a crock-pot slow cooker, slow and steady wins the race every time.
You can read about my grandmother Beulah Richard’s reasons for cooking traditional Louisiana red beans in Red Beans & Rice - A South Louisiana Tradition.
Maria Blanco - Writer/Editor, Certified Family Herbalist, Naturopath, Holistic Nutritional Consultant
Join the Conversation