Ive just bought a 6 litre slow cooker.
I'm in love already and work up to the smell of pea and ham soup, in fact I could smell it ALL night long ;-)

Im after great ideas rather than full on recipes as of course I can google recipes.

My kids love curries and savoury mince. I love any melt in your mouth meat as well as soups.
Can I cook risotto in the slow cooker? Pasta?
Has anyone had success with desserts?

Cheers
Vanessa

My winter favourite is beef cheeks done any one of several ways: Himalayan Masala; Braised with Black Olives; Vanilla Braised; Braised in Red Wine; Black Bean and Chilli; Braised with Turmeric & Chilli.

On the soup front, this year's favourite is Roast Pumpkin & Capsicum followed closely by Mushroom, Barley & Bacon.

How good are beef cheeks - I actually tried to get some yesterday but sadly the supermarket I got them from previously didn't have any until Tuesday. They are soooooo good. I ended up buying bacon bones.

Im currently cooking a whole chicken with celery, mushrooms, onions, garlic and carrots with rosemary. Totally made up recipe.
Im hoping to get a nice mushroom/garlic and rosemary soup and a chicken I can shred for lunches during the week or to put ontop of rice for the kids with a drizzle of Teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds.

Vanessa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2019 12:49AM by Vanessa45.

Vanessa, our supermarket no longer stocks beef cheeks - when I asked why not, he said they were all exported. So I went to my butcher and he keeps me well supplied - he's nearly always got them in stock.

In fact, the butcher's meat is so much better than the supermarket meat, I'm on the verge of asking him if he would consider doing a weekly special and I will supply him with a printed recipe to accompany the meat on special. Instead of paying me in cash, he could supply me with meat enough for a couple of meals. Does that sound fair?

That sounds like a perfect plan!
The ones I bought werent that expensive but I guess theres only 2 cheeks per cow so I can see why with people lime you and me there arent too many to go around. I wonder where they export them to?

I have heard Pak n Save (Albany) often have them but the ones I got were from New World (Long Bay) that has recently opened. Its super new and modern and actually has a butcher you can talk to!

The first time I tried them I won a competition and got a whole lot of meat from [www.firstlight.farm]. There was Wagu beef and a heap of beef cheeks - Im seriously addicted to them.

Vanessa

Great plan Lorna.

On another note...
Does anyone know does a slow cooker consume much power?
I think Im addicted! Ive had it on all night and all day!!!!

Vanessa

Vanessa, look at the wattage on the manufacturer's label on the appliance. Think about a 40 watt bulb which uses very little power if left on for long periods and compare the wattage of your slow cooker. The higher the wattage, the more power it uses. If you look at your power bill, you could probably work out how much per hour any appliance costs to run by looking at how much per watt you are paying your electricity supplier.

Futher to my above post, some time ago I did some research on my old Ralta Crockpot compared to using an oven, and I posted the results on Foodlovers. Here is an extract from the the post:

"I use my Crockpot in preference to the oven because of cost. The oven is expensive to keep going for 3 or 4 hours compared to the Crockpot which can be left going for hours for just the cost of a light bulb or two. The wattage on my old Crockpot is 220w on high and 110w on low. Most of the slow cooking is on low once the correct temperature is reached. Compare that to the wattage of an oven that operates at an average 1900 watts. Let's do the math for a beef casserole using this calculator: [www.alterenergy.co.nz]

The cost of my power is 32.465 KWh so

Crockpot: 32.465 x 110kw x 6 hours = 21.43c
Oven: 32.465 x 1900kw x 3 hours = 185.05c

Look at it another way: I could have 7 crockpots going for a little less than the same cost as 1 oven! Something to think about."

Another aspect is that if your electricity is supplied on an off peak/peak system then using a slow cooker overnight will use off peak power.