Slow cooker - good or bad ?

RobAMerc

Hi all,

tesco are selling a slow cooker for 25 ish yoyo.
I was wondering if you guys know much about them or have an opinion on there usefulness in keeping with a healthy diet.

I like the idea of coming home to a cooked meal ( even if it was me who cooked it the night before )

metamorphosis

Buy it! Great thing to have - i'm off to tesco now in a while to see if they have one i can get.

RobAMerc

any info as to what I can cook in it

also, am I right in thinking I just shove the stuff in it the night before - then turn it on in the morning and eat it at tea time ?

thanks

Salmon Leap

These slow-cookers are great value! We use ours quite often and have cooked anything from casseroles and stews to full chickens in. Even did our Christmas Spiced Beef in it and came out lovely although the meat does be very tender afterwards and can be awkward to slice.

brianthebard

RobAMerc wrote: »

any info as to what I can cook in it

also, am I right in thinking I just shove the stuff in it the night before - then turn it on in the morning and eat it at tea time ?

thanks

You can cook pretty mcuh anything in it. They will come with a few recipes in the instruction booklet to get you started. The main thing to be aware of is it won't boil off liquid in the same way as a regular stove cooker. Also veg supposedly takes longer than the meat in a slow cooker for some reason, althoguh I didn't find this to be the case the other day when I tried to make stew. You don't necessarily have to have everything in the cooker the night before either, unless you wanted to marinade or something. I have a half leg of lamb in mine atm, going to cook it for about 6-8 hours i think. Its great for using cheaper cuts of meat as well, they will soften up loads from the long cooking time.
There are plenty of blogs out there about slow cooking so you'll find loads of recipes.

Bottle_of_Smoke

What is this thing? never heard of it before

brianthebard

http://www.thriftymammy.com/2010/03/24/8-advantages-to-using-a-slow-cooker/
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/slow-cooker-questions.htm


Got one for xmas.