...because I can feel self-righteous all day about the fact that I have dinner organized. Normal frypan meals only give me a couple of minutes of satisfaction between the time when I've done the hard work and the time when the dinner is on the table. And I don't get to enjoy those 2 minutes because I'm so busy yelling at the kids to get to the table.
Slow cookers all the way.
I completely disagree.
ReplyDeleteThere's something unique and creative about adding ingredients and stirring and building and tasting-as-you-go. There's nothing better than using fresh ingredients that you've bought on the way home. Or, even better, that you've just picked from your garden. It's a spontaneous and life enriching way to cook. And the kids help. In 30 minutes you can make just about anything. A risotto. Or any pasta dish you want.
Slow cookers are TV dinners for people who only watch ABC. They make boring, lifeless, soulless mush.
I'm surprised at you;)
I don't think that it is soulless at all. The flavours have had time to develop in a way my usual 30 minute or less meals just can't match.
ReplyDeleteI love my slow cooker. Do you have any recipes to share? I would love to expand the menu here.
The slow cooker allows dinner to be cooking while I breast feed, while trying to keep the other girls under control and generaly play police mum at that critical time of day. I'd love to use the cooker more.
Now this is fun!
ReplyDeleteAl - If dinner is your creative time, then I say, go for it. Stir and build and taste till you heart's content. Make an artwork of it - and family time too, if you can.
As for us, we prefer to throw dinner down our throats so we can have quality family time sitting in the car driving through a brand new concrete tunnel!
Mel - Let me recommend beef and whole mushrooms. Yum.
I traded my wife the power drill I got for a present with the slow cooker she got for a present, making each of us much happier.
ReplyDeleteI do like it, but I wonder if I'm approaching it wrong and nullifying the good thing about it. I'm disenchanted, to be honest.
I like to make stews and curries. I heard some place that you ought to brown off the meat and fry the onions (and spices) beforehand though.
So when I've done this, it kind of ends up being just as much trouble as normal cooking, if not more. I've got the browned meat and frying onions going in my frypan, why not just keep going in the fry pan rather than transfer it all then to the slow cooker, leaving me with an extra big thing to wash up??
Am I doing it wrong? Should I not brown and fry first? If I don't, surely I'm asking for gross boiled meat..
Ben. Am I doing it wrong? Should I not brown and fry first? If I don't, surely I'm asking for gross boiled meat..
ReplyDelete"gross boiled meat" is the signature dish of the slow cooker.
You need to brown the meat and fry the onion, garlic and ginger if you are going to make an edible curry/stew.
Ben, I'm hearing you.
ReplyDeleteBut I think you misunderstand the purpose of the slow cooker. It's not a time saving appliance so much as it is a feel good appliance. It lets you bask all day in the fuzzy glow of domestic glory. It is 8am and I've made dinner. How legendary am I? I even impress myself sometime. Did you hear what I said? It's 8am and I've made dinner!
Time is not the point. The taste is also secondary. It would be worth eating "gross boiled meat" for the self righteous feeling the slow cooker can give.
BTW. We did a huge cookup of dahl in the slow cooker a couple of weeks ago. Not all of it fit in the sc, so we did the extra bit on the stove. The slow cooker produced a way superior product. (Mind you, we fried up all the tasty bits first...)
Time is not the point. The taste is also secondary. It would be worth eating "gross boiled meat" for the self righteous feeling the slow cooker can give.
ReplyDeleteHilarious. Disappointing and idolatrous. But hilarious nonetheless.
For what it's worth, Sally Wise has written a book of recipes on Slow Cooking unimaginatively called, perhaps not surprisingly, Slow Cooker.
You can read about it here
http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=166653
I have her book A Year in a bottle which is brilliant.
I am still laughing at your 'signature dish' line!
ReplyDeleteBen, Jamie Oliver reckons if you don't brown the meat, it turns out sweeter when the meal is cooked. I've tried both and personally, I can't taste the difference. I don't brown to save time. Bu I do coat the meat in flour.
ReplyDeleteI love my slow cooker, but I've had a few hits and misses with it. I still haven't worked out how to make a curry in it with milk/coconut milk. Does the milk curdle in the pot? hmmm.
The best part about it? Coming home and smelling your dinner waft outside through the front door. Extra smugness points, Simone, because people think I've been home cooking all day when I haven't. heh.
I love my slow cooker too! I agree, Simone, your line "It's 8am and I've made dinner" does it for me too! The smell through the day if I'm here, or when I come home is worth it too, I agree Soph.
ReplyDeleteAl, 5pm is not a great time for creativity when you are tired and the kids are too.
I'm a new comer to slow cookers - my vision of them was stews and silverside - but they're much better than that. We've found some great recipes, including Sally Wise's.
Hi Wendy.
ReplyDelete5pm is not a great time for creativity when you are tired and the kids are too.
True.
We have a routine in our house that may be a bit unique but it works well for us. I get home each day about 5 so that there can be 2 of us around for arsenic/witching hour. I start cooking about 5:45 while Rachel gets the kids in the bath. What we have for dinner will sometimes have been decided on between us in the morning. So the meat is out of the freezer or I've got a list of things to get on the way home.
Sometimes when we haven't decided what to cook Rachel will have found something that looks nice in a cook book and she'll leave it open on the bench for me when I get back.
I then cook the tea, serve it up, and we're normally eating by 6:15-6:30. I then tidy up and help with songs/prayers/stories for the 3 kids. When the wind is at our back we get to watch ABC news after the kids are in bed.
I can see why the slow cooker might be a Godsend for families where the wife does all the cooking.
Particularly if the family is OK with boiled food;)
I agree with how some of you have commented (but not in so few words) that a slow cooker is more of a 'time shifting' device/tool for cooking dinner rather than a 'time saving' device. It means you can do all the chopping, frying, measuring at a different time of day which is more convenient for you (either because there isn't going to be time for you to do it when you get home in the evening, or the demands of that time of day don't allow for spending time in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteNow if you want a 'time saving' cooking device for curries and stews, then a pressure cooker is the way to go. Dishes which have a cooking time of 1.5 - 2hrs in a conventional pot, only take 15-20 minutes in the pressure cooker (once it is up to pressure). I must admit they aren't cheap, but I've managed to acquire both my Mum's stove top ones (she now owns an electric one) and they find themselves in constant use during the cooler months of the year.
Al, I can see why it wouldn't work for you, unless you did it early in the morning before work. Slightly irrelevant, but I write a menu, at least a week in advance, and buy most of the food for that in one main shop (two when we're living in Japan). Writing a menu has been one of the best things for feeling in-control of meals as well as keeping control of our food budget!
ReplyDeleteMenu's are good. When we're on song we do the same. We spend way less and waste heaps less.
ReplyDeleteGood tip.