It's dinner time!!! What do I do???

We had an amazing crock pot for dinner last night that everyone (even the girls!) liked so I thought I would share the recipe.  But it got me thinking about how we even got into "crockpotting" in the first place.  It all started when my awesome friend Laura shared with me a great tip for when you are pregnant.  Her mom came over and they worked all day  filling up her freezer with frozen casseroles before her first baby was born.  I thought it was a great idea.  So the July before the girls were born my mom and Grandma came over and we spent almost a whole day making casseroles that we froze for later.
 A few tips if you are going to try this:

• Pick out a few of your favorite casserole recipes and make 2 or 3 of them!
• Pick the casserole recipes that will freeze well.  We tried one of my favorite casseroles where there is potato chips on the top and it turn out gross and soggy!
• Have all the ingredients laid out on a table before hand.  Adam and I tried to shop for everything the Sunday before we cooked but I still had to run out and get a few things during our cooking adventure!
• Prepare the casseroles in a disposable casserole dish.  You don't want to do dishes when you are taking care of two infants on very little sleep!
• Label, label, label!  Make sure you write on the casserole what temperature you should bake it at, for how long and covered or uncovered!   Believe me, you don't have time to dig through your recipes to find this out! Just get some tape and put it right on the casserole.  I just used blue painters tape!
• Take the casserole out of the freezer and put it in the fridge a GOOD 12 hours before you want to bake it or else get a frozen pizza ready instead!  I learned this the hard way!

We made about 30 casseroles that day with Grandma and they lasted about 4 months (interspersed with take out, frozen pizza and other casseroles and dinners that people made for us!)  So then in January Adam and I were missing our easy, go-to meals so Adam spent a Sunday making a few more casseroles to freeze as I played with the girls.  Then in the spring my friend Laura saw this idea for "dump meals", where you put all the ingredients for dinner in a ziploc bag, freeze it and then when you are ready, "dump" it into the crock pot.  We thought that this was a great idea so we gave our kids to the husbands and spent an afternoon (we spent the morning shopping for it together) making these. We made two of each recipe and then split them up at the end.
Here are the websites we used for the ideas!
 http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/09/slow-cooker-freezer-meals-make-8-meals.html
http://www.stacymakescents.com/100-days-of-no-processed-meals-crock-pot-style

For the past few months, what I do(because it is just too crazy at dinner time around here) is Adam or I make the crock pot the night before.  Then before the girls get up, I just put the crock pot in and turn it on! I can spend the day having fun with the girls and dinner is ready when Adam gets home!  We have been trying different crock pot recipes from cook books that I pick up at the library after story time and we have found some really simple and tasty (our two requirements for a crock pot recipe) ones.  I will share more later but here is the one we had last night!

Ravioli Lasagna
The ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef, browned and drained
1 (28 ounce) jar prepared pasta sauce
25-30 frozen cheese or meat ravioli
2 cups of Italian blend shredded cheese
2 tablespoons warm water
1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning (like Mrs. Dash)

The directions
Brown and drain the ground beef on the stove top.  Add the contents of a jar of pasta sauce and keep the jar for later!  Stir to combine.  Scoop a spoonful of the meat mixture into the bottom of an empty slow cooker.  Add a layer of frozen ravioli.  Add more meat mixture, then another layer of ravioli. Continue layering until the meat and ravioli have been used.  Top with the shredded cheese.  Put the warm water into the empty sauce jar and shake.  Pour the tomatoey liquid over the top.
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.

Tips:

• Use crock pot liners (find them near the ziploic bags and tin foil at the super market) so you don't have to soak and scrub the crock pot.  Adam can usually find a good coupon or sale on these and we just stock them in the basement!
• I have an issue touching/looking/even thinking about uncooked red meat so Adam suggested that I just buy frozen meat-filled ravioli next time and skip the whole browning the red meat thing!  Even easier!
• Crock pot recipes usually tell you what size crock pot to use.  I just always use the same one and all the recipes usually turn out fine!
• I added a tablespoon or more of Mrs. Dash Italian seasoning to this recipe to spice it up a bit!