[Kitchen Witch]

SOUPS AND SANDWICHES

If you've never made soup in a crockpot you don't know what your missing! Crockpots bring out the flavors and retain all the natural meat and vegetable juices.

You can start a soup with leftover turkey, chicken or a ham bone. Then you can build almost any traditional soup with a few seasonings and vegetables. Place the ingredients in your crockpot in the morning and by dinnertime you're ready to serve. Complete the meal with thick slices of buttered bread heated.

Cooking soups at such low temperatures will not effect them if they are cooked longer. At the minimum recommended cooking time, stick a fork in the meat and several of the larger vegetable pieces to see whether they are done. Try not to keep the lid off any longer than necessary because steam and heat escape very fast. It takes a long time to replace the heat loss after you've replaced the lid.

If you want, try some of the short-cut soups which start with a packaged mix or canned product as a base. They are surprisingly good and take less cooking time than soups "made from scratch".



Crockpots work fine for serving pots for hot sandwiches. You can combine your sandwich mixture and leave it for several hours.

Sandwiches can be completely assembled and kept warm in your pot. Don't plan to keep these sandwiches much longer than the suggested time because the bread will become soggy.