Wouldn’t it be great to return from work to a delicious home-cooked healthy meal without having to spend hours in the kitchen? Well thanks to slow cookers, you can. These traditional kitchen gadgets are currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity as people are realising how convenient they are for making cheap, healthy family meals.
A slow cooker is an electrical appliance that sits on a kitchen worktop. It usually consists of a large ceramic cooking pot with a lid and uses electricity and water vapour to cook food gently over a period of several hours. Some models need to be switched on before you head off for the day, whilst others can be programmed to come on at a particular time. Some can even be set to change from cook mode to keep warm mode after a certain length of time.
The principle of a slow cooker is that you simply throw your chopped raw ingredients, for example meat and vegetables, into the cooker along with a liquid such as water or stock and then leave the slow cooker to cook the food at a low temperature over several hours. The result is a perfectly cooked dish ready to eat at the end of the day.
Slow cookers are ideal for cooking many different types of stews and casseroles as well as soups, chillies and curries. You can even use them to cook traditional desserts such as sponges or rice puddings. They are also great for cooking large cuts of meat such as gammon. And because a slow cooker keeps food moist, it is a particularly good method for cooking cheaper cuts of meat which might not fare so well with other cooking methods.
Some people worry about leaving a meal to cook all day but because of the low temperatures, it’s almost impossible to burn a slow cooked meal. And as an added bonus, the slow cooking method results in very little washing-up – making it ideal for busy families or those working long hours.
If your family regularly needs to eat at different times, slow cookers make it easy to feed everyone at the time that suits them. The slow cooker keeps the food hot, meaning that individual family members can simply serve themselves when they are ready for something to eat.
So if you’d like a change from ready meals or take-aways when looking for a convenient after-work meal, why not invest in a slow cooker. You will find them in electrical stores, department stores and some larger supermarkets. Alternatively take a look online for a wide selection ranging from cheap and cheerful basic models to more expensive versions with a range of various settings.
For more information and recipes to try in your slow cooker, visit: www.bbcgoodfood.com