A slow cooker is an electrical pot designed for convenience, and it allows a cook to place all of a recipe’s ingredients inside and nearly forget about it as it slowly cooks for anywhere between four and eight hours. People can start their dinners before they leave home for a full day at work or school, and return at the end of the day to a delicious hot meal. Crock-Pot® is a trademarked brand name for a type of slow cooker, and Crock-Pot® ham can be any one of numerous recipes that call for ham as the main ingredient.
Crock-Pot® ham is typically a meat and vegetables kind of meal, but Crock-Pot® ham can also be a dish that mixes the ham with lentils, chicken, beans or other ingredients. A Crock-Pot® ham can also be as simple as placing a large cured ham in the appliance and coating it with brown sugar or other flavoring, along with some liquid to ensure the ham remains moist. Another easy dish that can be slow cooked is a ham casserole.
Slow cookers like the Crock-Pot® come in a number of different sizes, and depending on the size of the ham used, a cook might need one of the larger slow cookers. These pots are estimated to cook dinners for as few as four people to as many as nine or more. Cooks can even use a traveling Crock-Pot®, which comes with a special lid and its own bag and accessories to tote it from one location to another, perhaps for a holiday ham at a relative’s house. Other slow cookers are designed with a large cooking pot divided into two sections, so two different recipes can cook or warm simultaneously, and still others come with three cooking spots for larger gatherings.
Cooks who use their slow cookers to make Crock-Pot® ham recipes have the option of cooking on a low temperature for many hours, or a higher temperature for fewer hours. Often the cookers have a third setting, warm, for when slow cooker dinners are finished cooking but it’s not yet time to serve them. Usually it is necessary for a slow cooker recipe to cook with a small amount of liquid, such as water or sauce.
