Hi all. I'm tossing up whether to buy an electric slow cooker. Until now, I've casseroled on an electric stove top (in a massive cast iron Dutch Oven) or in a slow oven. I'm curious as to others' experience with cooking WAP style in slow cookers. And wondering more generally what advice people have, about what cooking equipment they have found most useful.
Me, I'm really enjoying all my cast iron stove top stuff, especially once I switched to saturated fats rather than vegetable oils. And the 70s Temuka round casserole dish I picked up at the op shop does good mileage -- oven casseroles in winter and right now it's my sauerkraut crock. Lastly, buying a skimmer has made making stock much easier; I bought the sort that looks like an oversized tea strainer rather than a slotted spoon. Works a treat.
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I also love the food cooked in my Dutch Oven, but have recently bought a slow cooker and it's just great. I do different meals in it. Don't expect your Dutch Oven recipes to come out the same when cooked in a slow cooker.
One thing to remember is that there is virtually no evaporation, so no concentration. It means you need to pay attention to seasoning and flavours. If you're cooking hard vegatables, make sure they're on the bottom, or they may still be hard when everything else is cooked.
It's very, very economical, though, and it's absolutely convenient sometimes. You can prepare the food and set it cooking, go out, and come home at dinner time to a perfectly cooked meal.
Sorry I 4got to say that i use my slow cooker for making stocks, only thing it does right i think. throw bones in the pot, add water, add half glass of wine, add vegie offcuts, and herbs. go to work come home to fresh stock. works best with the lid only half on for steam to escape. dont cook any longer than 10 hours, 6-8 is best.
I love my slow cooker, great for doing a whole chook, silversides, and oxtail soups/stews, I have become a expert on the slow cooker and different recipes as we are from paddock to plate we get lot's of cuts of beef that are only good for slow cooking. I get it ready the night before, then it is already to go in the morning. I did splash out and buy a presure cooker this year, it is brillant, love it, so that is another way to go instead of a slow cooker.
If my calculations are correct my slow cooker uses .05 cents per hour.I dont have a very big one but its 225 watts. I dont have an oven so I cant compare but im pretty sure that itl be more than that.
For some reason I always thought slow cookers were better on power than ovens? Can anyone clear this up?
Hubbie did the calculations For a casserole in the oven for 1 1/2 hours uses most power , cook casserole on stove top for same time also lots of power, slow cooker for 8 hours is cheaper than oven , pressure cooker for say 5 mins on high and 30 minutes on low heat on stove top is cheaper still.
I don't think I made myself very clear before. Hope that helps.
I know Sally Faloon recommends slow cooking to preserve nutrition but there are some blatant errors in her book so I without some clear evidence I will stand by my pressure cooker as the best appliance. The short fast cooking times of the pressure cooker are also said to preserve nutrition with all evaporation contained in the cooker. No more watery stews with no flavour which came from my slow cooker and the great flavour as you get from the slow, oven cooking without wasting all that power ( more economical than the slow cooker!) and saves time. And anyone who knows me knows I am completely biased too as I wrote the NZ Pressure Cooker Cookbook.
I hardly use my slow cooker. Only when I need extra cooking capacity, really. A big pot on the stove gets me pretty much the same result.
The most useful piece of equipment in my kitchen is my Magimix Compact food processor. It seemed like a lot of money when I bought it, but I use that darn thing every day. It saves me hours and hours every week. I've never looked at it taking up my very limited bench space and been sorry. It's worth the bench space, the money it cost, the clean-up afterwards.
For cooking, I use a couple of big pots, and two high-end stainless steel Calphalon pans. Again, a lot of money, but such great pans, I hardly ever use anything else.
I think there are too many different types of cooking/kitchen equipment out there. By selecting a few high-quality items, you can do pretty much everything there is TO do in your kitchen, and with a lot less clutter. I would love to see a photo list of "must have" kitchen items with reviews. Wouldn't that be cool?
slow cooked 5 grain porridge recipe, do tell :)
I confess I agree with you and do not like casseroles so much done in the slow cooker for some reason. bit more of a winter gizmo anyway, but mine sits idle a lot.
Hi Rachel. We've had an electric slow cooker mostly stored in a spare room for the last couple of years because I never thought the casseroles I cooked in it were as nice as those cooked in our beautiful Le Creuset cast iron casserole dish in a slow oven. If I am out of the house all day though it is useful as you can put it on in the morning to do its thing all day long. I have also started using it recently to slow-cook a 5-grain porridge overnight which is great to wake up to and the kids love. So, several years down the track, I am finding it useful. It does take up quite a lot of kitchen space though.
As for other kitchen appliances right now I'm looking at buying (for about the 10th time) a blender and am hoping to get a VitaMix 5200, although am still doing a bit of research. I did start a discussion thread about a year ago asking for advice on juicers/blenders which there were some useful comments on. Cheers, Bronwyn