I bought a slow cooker today ...

@msolga,

oh msolga...I dont own a slow cooker but one of my girlfriends is an amazing cook and she does it...and everything she cooks in it is just devine!...I will ask her.

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@KiwiChic,

Thank you. It'd be good if you could, KiwiChic. Along with all the other things I intend to try out in my slow cooker, it's definitely on my list! Smile

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@msolga,

She just pops it on in the morning before work and its cooked when she gets home! I will ask this weekend as to temperature and how long to cook...actually I should also invest in one especially for winter!

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@msolga,

Right she cooks it for 8 hours on the low setting....she puts her veges on the bottom ie spuds, onions etc under the corned beef then pours about 1.5 cups of water over it.

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@KiwiChic,

Thanks KiwiChic. Much appreciated! Smile

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Here ya go, panz! Smile

Quote:

gosh, I was looking all over for the slow cooker thread. Turns out there's like...3 of them!
Someone gave me a slow cooker and I made bachelor chili. I call it bachelor because it's simple and quick.

I put a lb of ground sirloin, lb of tiny-cubed pork, a can of kidney beans(15oz) a can of water(15oz), a package of Carroll Shelby's chili ingredients, half a minced Vidalia onion, a Tbsp of sugar and a 1/4 cup of "masa" into the crock pot and turned in on low. Prep time is about 5 minutes.

4 hours later....done. Served with shredded asiago(on sale!) and sour cream. Had to open a bottle of Beamish Irish stout ....had to.

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@msolga,

That recipe I just re-posted here was from panzade, btw. I don't think my post made that clear.

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@KiwiChic,

Tomorrow, corned beef!

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@msolga,

Yum! let us know how you went.

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@KiwiChic,

Oh I will! Smile

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@msolga,

It was pretty good, KiwiChic. I think the recipe I used is a bit more convoluted than your friend's. (I'll post it later, if anyone's interested.)
I'm getting the hang of this slow cooker now. Seems it's a wee bit faster (not all that much, but important for some recipes) than the timing some recipe books recommend. Very useful to know this!

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@msolga,

This is helping me figure out that for my own life, slow cookers are only mechanical aggravation, re which I distinguish myself from people who are not home all day, a lot of the week. OK, then, I'll still pay attention, re braising type recipes. I suppose I have a bias re do-it-for-you .

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@ossobuco,

I meant bias against the do it for you paraphenalia... though I change my mind from time to time.

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@ossobuco,

when I was an office worker I had a small soup bowl size slow cooker that I took to work 3 days a week where I made cajun beans and rice. I would also make Jiffymix corn bread. good healthy lunch = $1.00.

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@ossobuco,

Fair enough, osso. Smile

But even when I am home all day, sometimes I find it a really useful to put the food on to cook earlier in the day & not have worry about it for the rest of the day ... sometimes I sort of lose my "inspiration" as the day wears on! Wink

And I honestly think that the food is tastier & some meat (like the corned beef I cooked last night) is much more tender & succulent than I could achieve on the stove top. Apart from anything else, I can't get the gas flame quite low enough (without worrying that it might become extinguished) for a proper slow cook & it cooks faster than I'd want.

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@dyslexia,

Yeah, and I had a rice cooker early on. So?

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@ossobuco,

Well, my bias is a bias - I like regular cooking, the whole complexity of activity. I admit to being retrograde.

I get that "regular cooking" is a moveable idea. I was early in the US re some things, woks, for example, though not early re the asian communities. Still, I am slightly weirded out by crockpots.

I was early re there even being articles about all this stuff.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

Well, my bias is a bias - I like regular cooking, the whole complexity of activity. I admit to being retrograde.

Funny, I think the whole "complexity" thing is very modern, for people with too much time or staff or something.

Pots on the backs of stoves for days, that's the old-school approach. Pots in coals for days, old-school. Chunks of ingredients cooking for a long, slow time, old-school. Mincing, dicing, complexity of textures and flavours - very modern.

I see both as having their places, but if I want to cook the way my great-great-grandmothers would have cooked - long, very slow braises are the way.

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@ehBeth,

I meant complexity if you are looking at a wide range of cooking, across continents. I'll never become Kelleresque, much less the newest version of el Bulli, although plenty of (well, maybe not plenty, but well regarded folk) did complexity before all of us, some possibly rivaling a lot of the recent foo foo.

I'm all for braises, but when I do them, do I want to put them in a tinny contraption with a timer, given I don't have to? I like the cast iron dutch oven I got at the army navy quonset hut store with the odd owner on the vacant lot at 9th street.

Each to his or her own..

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@ossobuco,

The question for me has been whether to spring for good crock pot, given my own life and my own spare budget. I am not gone from my house forty or more hours a week. Only once in a while, with the occasional recipe, am I tempted.

1 Reply

I bought a slow cooker today ...

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