The slow cooker in the picture above is the one we were given as a wedding gift. It's nearly 27 years old, but it's not been used that much. As you can see, I make chicken stock in it. And I recently succeeded with a vegetable minestrone. But that is the extent of my slow cooker successes.
I really want to love my slow cooker. I want to sing its praises and be totally in love with its ability to calmly cook my dinner. But I don't. Any time I cook meat in this thing it comes out dry, compared to cooking the same thing in the oven. The meat has not ever come out tender and juicy. Tender yes, juicy no. The last casserole I did left me with some carrots that were cooked perfectly, and others that were still crunchy, and that thing had been going for 8-9 hours.
My Mum tells me not to get rid of it, because she thinks the old slow cookers do a better job. Their low setting cooks at a lower heat than the new ones. She has a new one and she misses her old one, but she was unable to replace the lid when that broke, so she was between a rock and hard place.
The other problem I have is that most recipes have a 6-8 cooking time, and I'm out of the house for about 11 hours, so that is just never going to work. I know, I know, I could get a timer thingy like what you use to turn lamps on, but with all the other issues I have going on, it just doesn't seem worth it.
So, what am I doing wrong? I want this thing to be my best friend, and at the moment it mocks me from the bottom cupboard. Surely I'm not the only one who is yet to fall in love with this busy-mum's-best-kitchen-friend device?
1 comment:
If your Mum prefers the older models, maybe you could swap with her...her newer SC might have a 'keep warm' function to fix your timing issue
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