Soupa' Slow: The 5 pm Solution

5 pm is the craziest time around our house. Baby is cranky, mom is cranky, dad is on his way home from work, and dinner is not ready. Usually half of it is on the cutting board and the other half is on the stove, but then the cranky baby demands to be held and by the time dad walks in the door mom hands over the baby without so much as a "hello" and runs to the kitchen to cry. (Okay, maybe it's not that bad.) Truthfully, though, 5 pm seems to be the worst time to make dinner. The solution? The slow cooker.

The Goal: The only thing I've ever made in a slow cooker is pot roast. We love pot roast, but I doubt we would want to (or be able to afford to) eat it every night (or even weekly). Since I LOVE the idea of making dinner while baby is napping in the morning (read: least stressful time of day) I plan to try out a new slow cooker (crock pot) meal each week. If I don't do it every single week, know that I was too stressed out every other night trying to make dinner at 5pm to plan for a slow cooker dinner.

The Contender: Moi. 28-year-old stay at home mom of a seven-month-old and former world traveler.

The Plan: Okay, if you really know me, you know that I can't follow a recipe to save my life. This is the opposite of my husband, who can't depart from a recipe to save his. That said, I'm not a half-bad cook (even my religiously recipe following husband will admit this). Therefore, the plan is to make something new in my slow cooker every week. I will probably use recipes from various sources as general guidelines, and I will very likely completely make some things up. I'll let you know how it goes here. Sound good? I'm not sure, but hopefully it will taste good.

And if you are wondering who my Hollywood stand-in will be....

Ta-Da!

Reese Witherspoon

Don't know if she looks like me or not, but at least it makes me feel good, unlike the conversation with my husband where I said "Hey honey, if my life were a movie, who do you think would play me?" and he responded "Um...I don't know...Rosie O'Donnell?" To his credit, after I said I would never speak to him again, he amended "uh, who's Rosie O'Donnell again?" Right. So Reese it is.