LifeHackMom.com

Being a working Mom and getting a nutritious tasty dinner on the table is a constant challenge. By the time I get out of work, pick up the kids and get home, I usually only have about half an hour until the family is expecting dinner on the table.

The crockpot has been a lifesaver because I can throw ingredients in before leaving for work in the morning and dinner is magically cooked for me by the time I get home. It also smells great when you walk into the house.

Crockpot cooking also saves money because very cheap cuts of meat taste tender and great after slow-cooking in the crockpot.

Some of the obvious recipes for crockpot cooking include:

• Chili
• Pot Roast
• Beef Stew
• Soups

Yet other recipes translate well to the crockpot, including:

• Meatloaf
• Pulled Pork
• Potato casseroles
• Oatmeal

Bean dishes also are very tasty if you use canned beans. Several times I have attempted cooking dried beans in the crockpot. They never got soft enough. I believe that the temperature does not get high enough to fully cook the beans.

There are many great crockpot recipe cookbooks out there. I recommend Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with Your Slow Cooker . A good website to check is Slow Cooker Recipes . But usually you don’t even need a recipe. Just throw some meat, vegetables, and some kind of liquid (can of beef broth, jar of spaghetti sauce, lipton soup mix with water) into the crockpot, turn it on low. By the time you get home, you have a tasty main course. Add a salad and some fresh rolls and dinner is served!

For today, I am cleaning out the refrigerator and trying a meatloaf in my crockpot. I’m shaping a meatloaf out of some ground top round that I ground with my Kitchen-Aid, a couple of eggs, a packet of Lipton Soup, and some oatmeal. I’m pouring a jar of spaghetti sauce over it and hoping it turns out well. It’s no gourmet-meal, more like Mrs. Brady, but hey — it’s easy!!!

I went to college with a genius guy, Patrick. He was an overachiever who had scheduled his classes to the max. In order to get his classwork done he trained himself to require less sleep. At the end of one semester he was down to a mere 4 hours of sleep per night and was doing great. He was getting his work done, seemed completely sane, and actually lost a bit of weight. He was looking healthier and seemed sharper.

He did his 4 hours of sleep in one lump per night. I know there is a sleep hack out there (polyphasic sleep) that advocates taking several small powernaps at keypoints during the day. It is quite a bit of training, but I’ve heard the results are successful. I don’t think I have the discipline to do this, nor would my lifestyle support it, but it is intriguing.

In the summer I have no problem getting up early, as long as the sun is up. In the winter, not so much. It is too dark and cold (we’re in Buffalo after all) and it is hard to get out of bed.

I would love to hear some strategies that people have used to make use of hours that we normally spend sleeping. I seem to require 7 hours per night, but would love to shave an hour or two off of this.