From My Table

Be extra careful when putting frozen protein into your Crock-Pot. Some CrockPots reach a very high heat and can cook frozen meats fast enough to avoid having the raw meat at an unsafe temperature for too long, but others can’t.

“Everyone just wants to be told what to do,” the moderator of the Q&A session on parenting I was listening to told the speaker. Just tell us what to do. It would make life simpler, but answers, especially parenting ones, are rarely straightforward.

Sometimes I feel like that with recipes and menu planning. So many of you just want to be told what to do. People will ask me, pen in hand, exactly what to make for a specific meal. In other words, you do the thinking for me. But we’re not one-size-fits-all. Saying “This is what everybody should make for supper” doesn’t work.

Here’s an example. I know how many of you love Crock-Pot suppers. You wait for this set each winter season. But they don’t help me. I know how easy they are, how streamlined they can make your day, but I work from home, and it’s not the thing that saves the day for me. The last thing I want to do at 10 p.m. is make supper for the next day, and I certainly don’t want to do it in the morning after everyone has left to school. But for so many of you it is the answer, and sometimes a savior for a stressful day. And that’s great, because had you followed what I do, you might be overwhelmed.