January 23, 2015

A shout out to Nerdy Moms!! This morning I decided to make use of leftovers and use my crockpot once again to make some white chicken chili (with a twist, as I have leftover chicken with barbecue sauce). However, I have always been dissatisfied with the lid of the new crockpot. It's too thin to be insulating (let's face it, everyone knows heat rises) and not heavy enough to stay down. I wondered if I put a heavy beach towel on it, would it cycle on less or if it even contained a thermostat. I talked to my husband about this and he thought surely it has a thermostat, but I would need to watch out that it did not overheat and start a fire (good advice). So I went to the web to see if I could find anyone who had done this before. I was dissatisfied with many articles I read about comparing crock pot usage to electric stoves or gas stoves, even though they had some good information, they didn't even inform me whether the test was done on high or low on the crockpot and what difference this made. (I crave the old detailed articles that Amy Dacyzyn used to write in the Tightwad Gazette). However, I did find one blogspot that mentioned this called The Analytical Mom. As I was looking around on her website, it looked like she quit writing in 2013, probably due to discouragement which I gathered from this article. This is such a shame, as she wrote good articles that I liked. It's also a shame that I didn't find it until now. I wrote her a comment, but we will see if she finds it by whether she chooses to post it. However, this makes me think that all of us nerdy moms (new or old) should get together and link our blogs. Not only could this help others of the same persuasion find them, but it will be a great encouragement to us as well. If you are a nerdy mom that blogs (crave efficiency, details, use vocabulary that some people can't identify with, always want to build a better mousetrap, etc.) please email me at farm@powellacres.com if you would like to see this happen (or if you already know how to do this, as I will have to look up the best way.) OR if you are a viewer and know of nerdy mom sites you like to peruse, please send me those as well and I will contact them. Thanks for reading! Btw, on the crock pot, I put a heavy beach towel folded on the top and when it got hot after about an hour and a half, I turned it off. Around noon when I add the remainder of the ingredients, I plan to turn it back on, wait until it reaches a hot temperature and turn it off again (still with beach towel covering it.) I'll let you know how it turns out.