Cooking minus the boxed helper

I am coming a long way on my goal to lean to cook five meals that don't come with a box containing the instructions. My mom got me hooked on this website called allrecipes. I can search for meals about a thousand different ways and save the recipes I like in my own personal recipe box. There are also reviews of most of the recipes and people can leave comments about what they changed that made it better. (No, I don't work for allrecipes. I just love the site.) I have tried several from the site and my favorites are the slow cooker/crock pot recipes. Since I am a working mom and I leave my house between 7 and 8 pm and don't get home until after 5, the crock pot really saves me. Here is what I have tried so far:

1) Tuna and macaroni casserole - this one is easy. Cook a box of mac and cheese and add a can of tuna, some milk, a can of cream of mushroom soup (the recipe called for cream of celery but I prefer the mushroom) and sprinkle some shredded cheese and parsley on top. Cook in a baking dish for 20 minutes on 350 and it's done!

2) French dip sandwiches - I cooked a roast in the crock pot for about 6 hours with a can of beef broth, condensed onion soup mix and about a half a bottle of heavy beer (again, I took liberties. Instead of using a whole bottle I only used about a half). Then I served it up on french rolls and used the juice for Au jous dip. Another hit!

3) Beef brisket - I've actually done this one before. I wasn't sure the kids would like it but they did. They raved about how good it was. This was also super easy. Put a 3 lb. beef brisket (not a corned beef brisket) in the crock pot. To make the sauce, mix two bottles of chili sauce, a packet of dry onion soup mix and a small spoonful of chopped garlic (or use 2 tsp. of garlic powder). Mix it all together and pour over the brisket. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. This is perfect for the long days when I have to leave early.

Next up is brown sugar meatloaf, which sounds really good. I don't really like meatloaf, but this got rave reviews. I wish I had pictures of what I have made so far so you could see my progress. I have brisket in the crock pot right now so I'll try to get a photo of it before I serve it.

Another good cooking tip I have learned is to wait until the grocery store puts meat on sale then stock up on as much as they will let me buy. Then I just separate it into the size I will need and put in baggies in the freezer.