Cooking tips

My friend Lee, whom I have mentioned in the past, was at Michigan State when I was there. Although I believe we never took a class together, we moved in overlapping circles and, if memory serves, were confirmed in the Catholic Church at the same celebration. He was also one of the guys with whom I shared an apartment the summer between my graduation and my entry into the monastery. 

Lee tracked me down -- or stumbled across me, I am not sure which -- by way of the blog and has been a faithful reader ever since. He is one who does not post comments, however, but we engage in frequent emails. In the charming, though no doubt naive, belief that future generations may wish to know the subject and content of our correspondence, he even makes copies of all this and at the end of the year sends me a DVD containing the past twelvemonth's exchange. 

At any rate, after reading my post about the beefs this morning, he sent me this message that I thought worth passing along to you:

Here is a tip that my friend Shirley passed on to me several years ago and I've followed it faithfully ever since.  Instead of spraying your slow-cooker with Pam (or whatever) to make for easy cleaning, put the removable bowl part of the slow-cooker into a turkey-sized oven bag and then put the ingredients into the now-protected bowl.  The bag is designed not to catch fire or burn.  Once you're through cooking and have dumped the contents out into a serving dish you simply pull off the cooking bag and have a completely clean crock-pot.  It works wonderfully and I've been doing it now for several years.

Life just gets easier and easier, don't it?