It’s been a long day at work and my head’s in a daze.
Dan’s stayed in town late tonight so I’m walking from the bus stop. It’s a pleasant walk downhill then along a nice bush track, but it probably takes me 20 minutes. My feet start rubbing, my stomach starts growling. Although daylight savings has retained the sunlight, dinner time is fast approaching.
I fling my heavy bag off my shoulder onto the concrete veranda, zipping and unzipping pockets to reach for my keys. When I finally swing the door open, a warm waft of home-cooking overcomes me. I’m home alone and dinner’s ready.
Oh how I love my slow-cooker. My Mum’s had one for a while but I always saw it as an unnecessary luxury until we picked one up in a $20 BARGAIN at Aldi earlier this year. Since then my eyes have opened to the world of tough cuts of meat and remarkably simple flavours needed to create delicious and easy dinners.
My favourite way to use it is to bung in some chopped casserole meat or chicken thigh with roughly cut veges, a few herbs and spices, and a (large) splash of wine, port or other alcoholic goodness.
All ready for a long, slow day of stewing…
I do this the night before, cover it in foil in the fridge and bring it out in the morning for it to cook while I’m at work. It’s the best feeling after a long hard day to come home and not only know you don’t have to worry about dinner, but nobody does. I often just chuck in a bit of pasta, rice or cous cous to finish the dish off, or simply cook that separately and eat them together. Just a couple of bits of toast work just as well on the really lazy nights.
…it seems to have cooked nicely…
…it sure is yum, and especially good with pasta.
The only drawback to slow-cooker meals is they all seem to have this particular taste of something similar. It’s kind of like when you reheat a meal in a microwave, it doesn’t matter what it is, it kind of tastes, err microwave-y. I swear there is a slow-cooker flavour that you always get! At first we thought it was because we were always putting wine and tomatoes in every dish no matter what other ingredients the recipe called for, but we tried it with satay chicken. No wine, no tomatoes. Same slow-cooker-y taste. I think this has something to do with the electric current that runs through the meal when it’s in the slow-cooker for up to 12 hours some days. Maybe it’s because we have a bargain Aldi machine. It’s not an unpleasant flavour though so I will keep on using it.
I’m looking forward to using my slow-cooker to experiment with different cuts of meat that might not be so desirable cooked in other ways.
We tried ham hocks which were interesting. I’ve also got my eye on a recipe that combines corned beef with cider – sounds weird!
Apparently the slow-cooker also ventures into the realms of meatloaf and even cake if you’ll believe it… we’ll see about that.
Cutting Corners 
Nothing better than knowing its cooked and ready except…. Dinner being cooked by someone else when you weren’t expecting it:-)
cooking gammon joints in coca cola is a good one in the slow cooker – lots of recipes on the internet. nigella lawson in the UK does a good one. we have a crockpot slow cooker which is more of an earthenware style pot and i havent found things to have the same type of taste and we’ve done quite a few different dishes in ours. i’d like to try doing cakes and steam puddings in ours next to see how well that works – never mind having your meal ready and waiting for you – how about a nice cake?!?
Wow, Coca Cola is an unexpected one! We’ll have to give that a go. And I’m still not convinced on the cake but it’s probably worth a try. Thanks for the tips!
I am going to buy a slow cooker just to try this coca cola idea!
Did you end of trying the corned beef and cider? I’m interested…. I’m also inspired to buy a slow cooker now, but perhaps I’ll wait until winter rolls around again!
I want a slow cooker now! This sounds tasty http://www.goodness.com.au/organic-recipes/slow-cooked-moroccan-beef-stew.html