Keeping up appearances.......

HappyNow

Very excited this morning because last night I bought a slow cooker. £10 from Tesco, yay! A very pretty, shiney, black one which looks lovely on my worktop.

I can't believe how much I have 'ummed and ahhed' about spending a tenner. It just goes to show how my mindset has changed. Anyway, I also bought the ingredients for a huuuge veggie soup (or stew - gonna see how it turns out!) and I'm off to get that started now. I'll be back shortly to catch up on everyone else's news but I just can't wait to play with my new toy !

Alice_in_Poorland

That's a bargain of a slow cooker. Hope your soup/stew is a success. xx

HappyNow

Thanks Alice, the soup (as it became!) is lovely and the slow cooker is GREAT! I was a bit surprised that it didn't hold that much, 3.3 litres sounds a lot but you're only supposed to fill them half full. The recipe I used serves four and that was about half way up the slow cooker.

I decided to go for carrot and coriander soup, using a recipe that Domino linked me to a few days ago. I used the cheapest carrots I could buy, value onions and a couple of scratty old potatoes lurking in the fridge. It cost next to nothing, and the flavours are so intense and it has such a fantastic texture. It is restaurant-quality if I say so myself, and a million times better than the Covent Garden carrot and coriander that I used to buy and love. Yep, I'm a convert!

So, there will be more slow cooking for me today (and probably every day), but it has made me realise that I have very few containers suitable for freezing food. I should have been saving margarine tubs etc as I went along, but I haven't. I will sadly have to splash out on some to make the most of my new toy. I will look in the Pound Shop and Home Bargains which will probably be cheapest.

Shelski_2

Hi Happy

Look in Home Bargains for Pour and store bags. They're really easy, like freezer bags but they stand up so that you can put soup etc into them.
Otherwise the £ shop does the chinese style plastic tubs with the lids that can be reused and are micro and dishwasher safe.

I've got a very old slow cooker that has been sitting in the garage since I left Uni 1n 1995!!!! I keep meaning to clean it and try it. Everyone seems to rave about them.

Glad your soup tasted so good. You never know, I may just try it one day this week.

HappyNow

I've never heard of pour and store bags but they sound just the job so I will look for them, cheers.

Definitely worth having a look at your old slow cooker. Hopefully it will still work, but if not Tesco are selling them cheaply. They were £10 last week, but when I got mine on Friday the £10 'reduced' tickets had been taken away and they were back at £12. I decided to buy one anyway and it still went through at £10! Bargain, and they have good reviews too. I'll find you the recipe I used and put it on your diary for future use, should you get inspired!

PinotGrigio41

Hello Ladies,

Just been catching up your slow cooker / soup posts ! Pour and Store bags are great, but Ive always paid a small fortune for them. I don't think I have a Home Bargain new me, so I will have to try and hunt them out. My SLow cooker was bought for me in 1989 and is still going strong. Looks a l bit old fashioned so I hide it int he cupboard when not in use, but I love it. My favourite is a sweet potato and coconut soup that goes down a treat with everyone, but to be host I cook everything and anything in mine, and on fireworks night it sits happily in the corner keeping the mulled wine warm !:D

babyblooz

Just made my first ever mushrooms, soup with half a tray of quite wizened sorry looking mushrooms, a chopped onion, two sad little potatoes, vegetable stock cube, half a teaspoon of chilli sauce, garlic puree, salt and pepper and the magic ingredient, a good sized dollop of low fat creme fraiche. Schuzzz it all together with a stick blender and believe you me it is LUSH!!!

And to think I would have thrown them all away before ... tee hee hee ... clever me!

mumof3plusoh

Well done Happynow on your slow cooker purchase. I have one but don't use it enough. If you haven't already please could you post the soup recipe. Many thanks.;)

HappyNow

PinotGrigio41 wrote: »

Hello Ladies,

Just been catching up your slow cooker / soup posts ! Pour and Store bags are great, but Ive always paid a small fortune for them. I don't think I have a Home Bargain new me, so I will have to try and hunt them out.

I'm going to be near a B & M Bargains today and I've never been in one of those, so I'll check for the Pour and Store bags there and report back!

babyblooz wrote: »

Just made my first ever mushrooms, soup with half a tray of quite wizened sorry looking mushrooms, a chopped onion, two sad little potatoes, vegetable stock cube, half a teaspoon of chilli sauce, garlic puree, salt and pepper and the magic ingredient, a good sized dollop of low fat creme fraiche. Schuzzz it all together with a stick blender and believe you me it is LUSH!!!

And to think I would have thrown them all away before ... tee hee hee ... clever me!

That sounds really nice! And such a good disguise, no-one would ever know they were on their way out . I'm very proud of the way I never throw anything out nowadays .

mumof3plusoh wrote: »

Well done Happynow on your slow cooker purchase. I have one but don't use it enough. If you haven't already please could you post the soup recipe. Many thanks.;)

Hi mumof3plusoh, thanks for popping by . This is the one I made and I really recommend it.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7003/carrot-and-coriander-soup
If you're doing it in a slow cooker you might want to use a bit less stock, but I didn't realise that so used the stated amount. Then before I blended it I drained off a bit of the excess and saved it for my next venture (which was a tomato-based vegge pasta sauce, using the recipe 'bung-it-all-in-and-see-what-happens!)

HappyNow

I've joined the Flylady thread today on the OS Board. About time I did some housework instead of sitting on here too long .

Not very money-saving for me because I've had to turn on the immersion heater. We've done without that for weeks now apart from on cleaning days. I should add that we're not a (particularly) mucky family; the shower is electric, the dishwasher and washing machine heat their own water, so the only thing we use the hot tap for is washing our hands and wiping down surfaces. And because of the distance from the hot water cylinder to the taps, we've always finished before the water even runs warm. So, I decided that was a waste of money and turned it off. And guess what? No-one has even noticed!

Right, must get my pinny on!