Tonight’s post is a twofer. Two nights in a row I used my fail-safe slow cooker.

The night before last was Chicken Chili. It was pretty good considering that I ran out of half of the spices involved. I can’t tell you how many time I Googled “Substitute for….” and fill in the blank with an assortment of seasonings.

The only thing wrong with this recipe is that it called for a side of pork rinds. If my husband were here, he’d tell me to buy (specifically) chicharrones. The name of which I continually mispronounce. Rather than scouring the chip aisle for chicharrones, I decided that corn chips would be a better [easier] choice. Haven’t you ever had regular chili with Fritos? Amazing! Not so much for Chicken Chili.

The corn chips got entirely too soggy entirely too fast. Eventually, I was just eating chicken mush. I notice a theme in my cooking. It all turns to mush. I digress. Perhaps that’s why the recipe said a “side” of pork rinds. I decided to mix in the Fritos with the chili….mistake number one.

Onto tonight’s slow cooker meal. Alabama Roast. So delish and so easy! I threw the roast into the slow cooker with all kinds of yummy ingredients, 8 hours later, voilà! An amazing roast dinner with a side of Cheesy Broccoli and Cauliflower.

I was a little apprehensive about the amount of liquid that was required for this recipe. Meaning, I didn’t think it would be enough. But then I remembered that when you slow cook meat, the juices come out of the meat and the meat cooks in its own juices. How nice.

So far I don’t think there have been any lessons to learn with the Alabama Roast. There is a very small margin of error in the recipe, which works to my benefit.

Lesson learned: Don’t add corn chips to Chicken Chili. Attack the chip aisle with a fierceness to find pork rinds.

Positive lesson learned: My slow cooker needs its own super hero theme song.