Changing of the Leaves, Ghosts and Goblins, Cooler Temps and the Magical Crockpot

With the changing of the leaves comes Halloween, with Halloween comers cooler temperatures, and with cooler temperatures come Crockpot time. What a wonderful tool the crockpot is! You can make stews, chilis, soups, roasts, gamehens, and even taco meat. We've yet to fully utilize ours by cooking desserts and other items. However each fall and winter the crockpot gets used and abused. Many roasts, stews, chilis and soups get prepared in it. At least 2 times a week which equates to 4 meals. This week we had a beef roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions on monday. I pulled out the roast and vegetables when it reached the correct doneness, drained the juices to make gravy, sliced half the roast then put the balance of the roast back in with some homemade salsa for a few more hours to have taco meat for tuesday. Thursday was a pork roast with all the trimmings for dinner with half the roast returning the next afternoon with some barbeque sauce for bbq pork sandwich meat. Today was a clam chowder. Many soups etc. will be in the future but maybe not until it cools off a bit more. This coming week looks like a good chance to fire up the grill some more.