My crock pot is my friend...

Since the Mystery has only a small camp burner and no microwave or toaster on board, cooking is usually done at the pavilion area, where gas grills are made available to all the residents.  Now, since we lived in a Winnebago for a few years, we are very familiar with grill cooking, but I wanted to cook on the boat.  My solution?  A crock pot.

I was surprised at the number of crock pot cookbooks available on-line and at Barnes and Noble!  Who knew crock pots were so popular?!  Two cookbooks and about an hour pouring over recipes has netted me a couple of surprisingly good dishes besides the old standard of beef stew, soup and chili.

My first attempt at new dishes proved to be rather good.  Gratin potatoes and ham in one crock pot and peach cobbler in the other (I have both a large and a small crock pot now).  I've found several other dinner recipes that I'm rather anxious to try out, especially that chicken and tortilla soup.

Last night, I found a recipe for "Hearty Breakfast Cereal" and thought I'd give it a try.  It consists of oatmeal, sliced almonds, diced apples and cinnamon.  Sounds yummy right?  The reality was not what I expected though.  The oatmeal was rather bland and needed "something" to give it a slight kick in the fanny to get it moving.  Sugar helped, but that wasn't right either.  Bob and I have decided to try the recipe out again later, but adding raisins, walnuts and honey to it.  Maybe it's like a friend of mine always says... "A recipe is nothing but a guideline."  We'll have to make this one a little different, but I'll let you know how it comes out.