Buying a slow cooker (which? & why?)

renegade

Hya Luis, I had a family of 4 and used a Prima Model, when the kids moved on and the partner, I bought a Morphy Richards samller model, as I now live alone it is ideal, it is great, I use it to its capacity and freeze what I dont eat . I can assure you can leave them on overnight on the low setting with no problemthey are very economical as you can use the cheaper cuts of meat that require slow long cooking. I use braising steak, stewing steak, cheap lamb chops, minced beef and throw in a stack of veg.
They will not heat sauces to the thickness you sometimes require but you can always reheat on the hob and thicken the sauce that way.
The only drwback can be that sometimes I like to have dumplings and they are not hot enough for that and you cannot transfer the cooking pot to the oven. All in all I would get one they are terriffic!

jobbingmusician

Daniel_B wrote:

I will need a timer won't I?
Away at work all day.


Dan

No, you won't. I've left stuff for 18 hours before now! :eek: (Although OH thinks that curries get less fierce the longer you leave them.)

If you're just hoping to switch the SC on in the morning and come home to a hot meal, you'll be fine - that's what they're designed for! What I tend to do is to do the preparation the night before (sometimes I brown the meat and fry the onions to start the thing off, but often I don't bother and just sling everything in - which is healthier as well as lazier ). Then I put the SC crockpot into the fridge with its lid upside down (it fits better that way as the domed lid is then concave instead of convex, but you may have more space in your fridge than I do). In the morning I put the pot back into its housing, switch it on low and leave for work. Lovely meal to come home to! :beer:

RacyRed

jobbingmusician wrote:

Then I put the SC crockpot into the fridge with its lid upside down (it fits better that way as the domed lid is then concave instead of convex, but you may have more space in your fridge than I do). In the morning I put the pot back into its housing, switch it on low and leave for work. Lovely meal to come home to! :beer:

I am not the only one who does that then :j :j

jobbingmusician

Heh heh heh - shall we start the bulging fridge club?

Reformed_Money_Waster

As part of my economy drive I've decided it's time to invest in a slow cooker, but I have a few questions first, starting with which size to go for.

We are a family of five, my wife and I, and three children aged 13, 11, and 8. To me a 3.5 litre slow cooker sounds ample, but elsewhere I've seen people recommend as much as a 6.5 litre model for my size family, which I can understand, but won't that be overkill for most occasions as it does sound like rather a lot? Do the bigger models increase the capacity horizontally or vertically? If horizontal then wouldn't I'd be forced to cook more sauce whatever just to cover my ingrediants? I suppose as I've now started to freeze left over portions it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

Of the current Argos models are there any to be avoided as I've read of some slow cookers not actually being slow and burning stuff over eight hours even on the lowest setting. I want one that has a removeable pot that I can bung in the dishwasher, and preferably easy to remove when full to put on the table to serve from.

Thanks in advance.

pawpurrs

If you go to the index at the top, and look under slow cookers, there is all the infomation, you need. HTH :j

jobbingmusician

1. If you have a freezer, there is no such thing as SC overkill 2 of us usually manage to clean out a 3.5l cook, so I'm sure 5 of you will be fine with a biggie.

2. If it burns stuff on lowest setting, send it back!!! This is exactly what they should NOT do!

3. Somewhere recently there was a thread about a cheap 6.5l from Amazon, I think - sorry no time to hunt for you now as I really must do some work and stop browsing this board....

HTH

Reformed_Money_Waster

pawpurrs wrote:

If you go to the index at the top, and look under slow cookers, there is all the infomation, you need. HTH :j

Ooops! Sorry, noob alert, I should have searched the boards first.

Reformed_Money_Waster

jobbingmusician wrote:

1. If you have a freezer, there is no such thing as SC overkill 2 of us usually manage to clean out a 3.5l cook, so I'm sure 5 of you will be fine with a biggie.

There is the size issue too, not sure I want something massive cluttering up my kitchen. Although I'm still working through the thread pawpurrs pointed me too, at the moment I'm learning towards the 4.5 litre Antony Worral Thompson one at Argos as a compromise.

pawpurrs

Remember it depends what you want to cook in it, there are only two of us but i have the big MR one, because i can do leg of lamb, chicken etc.

Have you got a cupboard it can be put away in, thats what, i tend to do.