General Chat

If I do a piece of meat I don`t cover it with liquid but I know other recipes say the opposite , there is lovely juice comes off the meat joint to make gravy.
Ros xx

If at first you don't succeed.

Well the meat was lovely, the carrots which were diced really small and the potatoes thinly sliced were not quite cooked. so next time will add on another hour or two.

Ann
Glos

Glad to hear it worked! What are you going to try tomorrow?

Rosemary, i did turn it up to high for the last 40 minutes.

I am going to try chicken breast tomorrow.

ann
glos

i use oxtail soup with meat veg and patatoes cook it all day it's lovely.

I have a very basic slow cooker with just a high and a low setting but the principle is the same. If simple rules are followed it works very well.

All food MUST be piping hot when put into the pot. I would get it hot in a large saucepan first.
Once added to the slowcooker my recipe book tells me to put it on high for about half an hour before turning to low for the rest of the cooking period.

It will not spoil if left in for an extra couple of hours but every time you open the lid it will lower the temperature so you'd need to switch to high setting for a short time to bring it back up.

This means a meal prepared in the morning could be shared by different people if they have different meal times so long as the earlier ones put the lid back on and put it on high setting for a short while (10 minutes perhaps).

A slow cooker is the modern version of a Haybox
http://www.inthewake.org/b1cooking.html
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/hayboxcooker.htm

I was once on a Girlguiding weekend and another Guider was doing the cooking for a group. She'd brought along 2 slow cookers and (despite my telling her that I always made sure the food was hot before going in) she said it would be all right! She put loads of meat and veg on and left them all day but the food was cold when she put it in.

When we got back to the hut tired and hungry after a day out narrowboating the food in the slowcookers looked much the same as when it went in and the vegetables were still firm! We had to quickly improvise.

So the rules are:
Put food in hot
On high for half hour or so then low till needed.
No peeping and replace lid and reheat for short while if lid opened.

Sue
x

glad it was a succes , Ann
Try Minestrone soup or make stock overnight with left over bones,
I nearly put --your old bones --LOL
Ros xx