Slow Cooking at Christmas and Simple Cranberry Sauce Recipe

Cranberry Sauce

Mashed Potatoes

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

Sweet Potato Casserole

Dessert

Green Beans

All the yummy side dishes that need to be on the stove or in your oven

Who has the space - not me?

But this year I am using my NEW slow cooker to ease the load! 

 

 

Right before Thanksgiving I participated in a Thanksgiving Prep Chat with Hamilton Beach. I learned so much from the other Facebookers and Hamilton Beach.

And OK, this may seem obvious to some of you...

but I never gave the idea of using a slow cooker

to assist with my holiday meal one single thought.

Yep, I am late to the slow cooker game!

After the chat I received a 7qt Stay or Go Portable Slow Cooker.

And am thrilled to use it for my holiday cooking and to simplify my meals year round.

Just as an FYI -  while I did receive thew slow cooker, I am/was under no obligation to blog or promote the slow cooker. I am doing this because maybe someone else out there  - like me - was clueless about

 PUTTING THE SLOW COOKER TO USE FOR THE HOLIDAY MEALS!

So many of the chat participants said they were using one or more slow cookers for their Thanksgiving meal...that I could not wait to try this for my Christmas meal! 

At this very moment I have cranberry sauce cooking. 

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Simple Cranberry Sauce

2 bags of cranberries

Juice of one orange

1-2 tsp orange zest

1+ Tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 cup brown sugar  

Place all ingredients in the slow cooker; mix well; turn to high; let cook for about 2 hours 

 Garnish (of you wish) with orange zest!

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 Since I am new to this type of slow cooking 

(I have had different slow cookers over the years - but the last one was seriously cursed so I hardly used it)

I decided to head to Hamilton Beach and check out all of their recipes. 

I am excited to be freeing up some oven and stove top space by using my new slow cooker.

I plan on adding some mashed potatoes to the slow cooker menu tomorrow using the Easy Slow Cooker Mashed Potato recipe found over on the Hamilton Beach site.

So, yep, I am all

"kitchen geeked out"

about the possibilities of my new slow cooker!

Not only will this gorgeous Slow Cooker help for the holidays,

it will make my vegetarian chili (our fave meal) and every day meal prep so easy!

Of course their are recipes for slow cooker meals, sides, and dessert all over Pinterest and the web, but I am pulling my first recipes from the Hamilton Beach website.  I did ask for some chicken cooking advice on Facebook to and had a great response from everyone their too!

What do you prepare in your slow cooker? 

  

This post is written and created at 504 Main by Holly Lefevre

disclosure: I received a Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker  but was under no contract/obligation to blog about - doing it because I love it!