Stylish Crockpot Buffet to Spruce Up Your Dinners

The Holidays are here, which means for many of us, we will be hosting a family dinner.  My husband and I love to entertain.  Together, we’ve made some good meals.  But the biggest problem we have is finding a way to keep the food hot so that when we serve it to our guests, it’s ready.  I’m sure you’ve faced that too when entertaining.

Over the years, I have accumulated a number of crockpots.  I have a green one with flowers on it from the 90’s, a newer white Crockpot with the warm feature (love that!), and an one quart Crockpot for smaller things.  Unfortunately, when used together, they don’t quite set the scene we’d like when entertaining.  They appear, well, mismatched.

Crockpot HookUps

Recently, Crockpot came out with a smart concept called Crockpot Hook Ups.  They created a connectable entertaining system in a modular design that keeps your food hot while looking presentable on your kitchen counter.  Crockpot Hook Ups come in various sizes – two 1 qts., 2qts, and 3.5 qts.

You buy the sizes you think you might use most and then you can hook them up together, creating a Crockpot buffet line of your tantalizing dishes.  In fact, you can hook up six various sizes of Crockpot Hook Ups together to accommodate a larger number of guests.  And guess what?  You only need one plug!  Each Crockpot Hook Up contains a patented plug that allows you to plug into another (underneath the Hook Ups) and you can keep the Hook Ups right next to each other or put space in between to make more of a buffet presence.  I love this feature.

And when it’s time to store away your Crockpot Hook Ups, you can just push the cord back into its housing and there are no more dangling cords.  In fact, Crockpot made it even easier.  Just put the Crockpot in it’s place, turn the glass lid upside down and then you can place another Crockpot Hookup on top of it for easy storage.

The Stoneware

I love the flexibility of the Stoneware. Each stoneware Crockpot is very versatile with the ability to be used in the oven, microwave, and even dishwasher.  And a dishwasher safe glass lid accompanies each crockpot, so you can easily see the food in each Crockpot.  I also noticed an indentation in the Crockpot stoneware, so you can actually keep a spoon in the Crockpot while the lid is on!  This is great, now heat doesn’t escape if someone keeps a spoon in the Crockpot.

Thanksgiving

My husband and I were excited to use the Crockpot Hook Ups for the first time, so we used them at Thanksgiving to keep our food warm and make our serving table look, well, more professional.  We used the 2 qt. and 3.5qt. models in red.  We cooked up our  food ahead of time and placed them in the Crockpots for dinner about 1/2 hour before we began our  feast.  We put in homemade creamed corn in one and Hungry Jack mashed potatoes (my favorite) in the other.  Both side dishes were ready to go while keeping warm.  In the meantime, this freed up more time on the stove so I could use two burners to make my gravy, the way my Mom always used to make hers.

The Crockpot Hookups we used were a pretty red color, so they naturally spruced up our buffet table.

Crockpot Hookups come in 5 great colors – Metallic Red, Metallic Sage, Metallic Copper, Metallic Blue, and Metallic Black.  The colors are nice, reminiscent of paints you’d find on a car.  The 3.5 qt. Crockpot Hook Ups sell for $49.98, the 2 qt. for $39.92, and the double 1 qt. for $49.98.  Walmart carries a couple of the colors in store, but all the colors are available online at Walmart.com.

A Mom’s Perspective

After using two of the Crockpot Hook Ups for Thanksgiving, I could easily see how having more would be beneficial.  Our stuffing and turkey look slighted, they could use some warming up too.  For Christmas, we will have even more hot dishes to put out on our buffet.  I could see adding two more units to clean things up a bit on our table.  I will most likely get another 3.5 qt. one and the double 1 qts. one.

I really like the low profiles of the Crockpot Hook Ups.  They look more professional, they add interest to the buffet line because they are unique in shape, and who doesn’t love a splash of red thrown into the mix?  Of course, Crockpot Hook Ups aren’t only meant for serving food.  You can cook in them too.  They have three settings – High, Low, and Warm.  I plan to cook a meal with the 3.5 qt. one this week.  It will brighten up my kitchen during the day and it will be fun to serve the family from it.

If you’re putting together your shopping list for Christmas, consider adding Crockpot Hook Ups to your list.  Our family does a Secret Santa gift every year with a $50 limit each Christmas Eve.  I would like to buy two of these to gift – one from my husband and one from me.  That way, when the next Holiday rolls around, other family members can bring their food warmed up in their Crockpot Hook Up…and we can just hook them up to ours to create a larger Crockpot buffet line…I love it!  OK, I know this idea sounds “self-serving,” (pun intended!) but I know that my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws would really appreciate using the Crockpot Hookups in their homes too.

What would you serve up in your Crockpot Hook-Ups?