It was a Two Crockpot Night and I been Working Like a Dog (as sung to the tune of ITS BEEN A HARD DAYS NIGHT by the Beetles!)

My husband and I commute to work together and we usually roll in the driveway at about 5:35 pm.  But, last night we had supper on the table at 6:15pm.  And it was not take out or frozen pizza.  By using two crockpots and mixing up some homemade cornbread, we had a Sunday-type supper on the table in 45 minutes.  Wow, we loved it!  And combine that with the fact that we are in the car driving to work at 7:15am each morning, we discovered a wonderful way to put dinner on the table.


This is what we had:


Ham (we bought a small bone-in ham at Aldi for $8.00, which will also feed us sandwiches for lunch and I will be freezing the ham bone for making beans on another day)
Hashbrown Casserole
Homemade Cornbread Muffins
Corn (storebought, canned)
Large Lima Beans (from my freezer)

Directions for the Ham:

I took the ham out of the freezer that night before bed.  I ran some water on it, removed the wrapping and put it in the empty, unplugged crockpot (Crockpot #1) (with the lid) on the counter overnight to thaw out- so that I would have it all ready to go the next morning.

The night before, I mixed up the Hashbrown casserole:

1/2 bag of frozen hashbrowns (again from Aldi - very cheap) dumped into a different large crockpot (Crockpot #2)

Stir well to mix together in a small mixing bowl:
1 can cream of chicken soup (generic is fine) or make your own like here
1 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt - I used plain yogurt because I had made homemade yogurt two weeks ago)
1 1/2 cup grated cheddar or colby cheese (I had an 8 oz rectangle of cheese from Aldi and grated half of it)
salt and pepper

Dump this mixture over the hashbrowns.  (If using the whole bag of hashbrowns I would double the chicken soup/sour cream (or yogurt) and use two cups of cheese).

Stir well in the crockpot.  Put a lid on it and put just the crockpot insert with the casserole in there in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, we plugged Crockpot #1 with the ham in it (covered with the lid) (a different outlet/circuit just to be safe) and turned it on low.

I removed the crockpot insert from the fridge (Crockpot #2) with the hashbrown casserole in it, put it in its crockpot, plugged it in and turned it on low.


When we got home, dinner was almost ready and I mixed up the following cornbread recipe.  This took maybe 2 minutes!

First preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Homemade cornbread muffins:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 medium egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder (3 teaspoons)
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup cornmeal (I used yellow).

In a large bowl combine the oil, egg, milk, sugar and salt. Mix it very well with a fork or spoon -making sure the egg mixes well.. Measure in the baking powder, flour and cornmeal. Mix again until all of the dough particles are moistened. Do not over mix. The whole thing should take about 20 to 30 strokes. Spoon the batter into a dozen oiled or sprayed muffin cups or one round cake pan. Bake at 400° for about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool slightly before removing from the pan.


NOTE - I have this cool little pan that makes like twinkie size rectangle shaped muffins.  We love this size for cornbread.  I got it at Walmart a long time ago and it worked great for this recipe, BUT a muffin tin is what I use, too, since I don't always remember that I have that different pan.

I had made some large limas the other day and had a couple of servings in the freezer.  I thawed that out, opened a can of corn (my hubby is a corn LOVER and since that is the only vege he eats besides potato, that was what he wanted), and

DINNER WAS SERVED!

It was SOOOO GOOD and I highly recommend using the multiple crockpot method to get dinner on the table FAST!