Crockpot Challenge Month in Review

While I am no slow-cooking superhero like Stephanie at Crockpot 365, I did use my crockopt for just about every meal for a month. At first it was extremely challenging because I did not even have a microwave to back me up if I messed up the meal or needed something heated up aside from the main dish. But a few weeks ago we purchased a microwave from "Builder's Bargains" and that has helped a bunch.

Several things that were SO awesome about this challenge that I did not anticipate:
#1: I spent even less than I normally do on groceries this month by a long shot
#2: Our energy bill was crazy low this month! I can't give the crockpot all the credit though-I have only been using a washer and dryer in this house for about a week and a half or so.
#3: I've lost weight! Not just because I started counting calories last week-but before that I lost 5 pounds w/o trying-the first weight I've really lost since 3 weeks after O's birth (she's 3 1/2 months old).
#4: I've been stretched to be creative in the kitchen. Not just the crockpot's limitations, but also in using things we've been given-ton's of free pasta and peanut butter, along with fresh produce. Pretty much every other night we've had something with eith zucchini or pasta in it, but we've had enough variety to keep things interesting. Or so my husband says:) Its nice neither of us or our toddler are picky too.
#5: not so unexpected but great anyway-it was beyond fabulous to be done with dinner prep by mid-morning! So many other things creep up on me in the last few hours before Daniel gets home that I loved having the dinner prep done.

Its gone well enough that even though my stove was hooked up last night that I think I will continue to do at least half my cooking in the crockpot for the time being. Maybe more-we'll see.

Here are some of the menu plans from my crockpot experiments this past month-here, and here.