Christmas in a Crockpot

For Christmas Eve festivities a few years ago, we decided to do "Christmas in a Crockpot."  All the food we ate was cooked and served in crockpots...made it easy for us because no one had to slave over a big fancy meal and it was delicious!  I love these recipes because they are easy and flexible to your tastes...I don't measure a whole lot, I just add stuff until I think it tastes good. :)

So get your toothpicks and your napkins ready, here are some of our crockpot favorites...

Meatballs

1 bag of frozen meatballs (you could use a homemade recipe if you have one..I'm all about easy and homemade meatballs are messy)
1/2 a bottle to a bottle of ketchup depending on preference
1 bottle of BBQ sauce
1 jar of grape jelly

Put meatballs in crockpot add rest of ingredients cook for 4-6  hours.  I don't usually add much ketchup, I like the flavor of the bbq sauce better.  Also, I never understood why all these meatball recipes called for jelly...I thought it was weird, until I tried it.  It's good folks!


Lil' Smokies

enough packages of lil smokies for your group
1 bottle of BBQ sauce
a cup of grape jelly

All the ingredients in a crockpot cook for 6 hours on low


 Cheesy Salsa Dip

1 jar of your favorite salsa
16 oz of velveeta cheese cubed

mix it all together in your crockpot  and cook on low,  Serve with your favorite dipping chips.


Now this last recipe wasn't for Crockpot Christmas but we enjoy this in our house throughout the year.


Roast

Your favorite cut of roast
1 package of Italian Dressing
1 package of Ranch Dressing
1 package of Au Jus
1-2 cups of water (depending on how much gravy you like)

optional--add carrots and potatoes


put roast in crockpot (we've done it both frozen and thawed)
add the rest of ingredients and cook on low 8 hours

The delightful smells of this roast will make your mouth water and your house smell WONDERFUL.


I love my crockpot, even though I'm a freak and worry about it all day when I'm not home, I still love it! And I mean I'm a freak, I envision these horrible scenarios about how I'll be in the middle of teaching and my principal will come to my room and tell me I have a phone call and it will be the fire department because my crockpot will have exploded and caught my house on fire.  Is this irrational or do others have these same issues?  Please tell me I'm not alone!

Happy Crockpot-ing!