Sally Wise - Slow Cooker: Easy and Delicious Recipes for All Seasons

This book is dedicated to my family,
and to fellow experimenters and consumers of the contents of the
faithful crock pot over so many years.

For a time, there seemed to be a common perception that crock pots were a thing of the past, a fad that came and went in the 1970s. For those of us who were young housewives at the time, however, there was hardly a benchtop that was not adorned with a resplendent orange crock pot, put to good use in making casseroles, soups and other culinary delights for our families. With the advent of the microwave, and with women returning in even greater numbers to the workforce, and the growth of ever-so-convenient fast food outlets, crock pots faded into the background. They were eventually relegated to the depths of our cupboards and were often to be seen sitting forlornly on garage sale tables, discarded and unappreciated. But there is now a resurgence of interest in slow cookers that is causing many of us to think once more about their advantages. They make good economic sense.

Most models available today only cost a few cents per hour to operate. They also allow for forward planning in the preparation of meals. For working families, it means that dinner can be on the table in a matter of minutes after arriving home, when often the last thing we feel like doing is preparing a meal. In this way it also saves money by removing the temptation to buy pre-prepared meals on the way home. The slow-cooking process retains maximum nutrients, as all the delicious juices are kept in the food, and the extended cooking time results in better distribution of flavours. The cooker is very versatile in that it cooks soups, seafood, chicken and meat to perfection.

Vegetables are far less likely to become mushy and unpalatable, and desserts are moist and delicious. It frees up the oven for other uses, and needs little or no tending as it cooks. In summer, the kitchen does not become overheated through using the oven and in winter the kitchen is not filled with steam from pans cooking on the stove. Food is very unlikely to burn, and if we are held up at an appointment, rarely is any harm done to the food as it slowly simmers away in our absence. Not to be neglected is the fact that almost daily we receive a barrage of information about the dangers of eating processed and takeaway foods. We are looking more closely at the number of food additives on labels, suspecting that even if they do no harm, they certainly are not doing us a lot of good.

With slow cookers, we can easily control the contents of our food, all the more important for those with food allergies or intolerances, or people on special diets. Fats need to be removed from meats and poultry before adding to the slow cooker, which is also good news for our health. It is for all these reasons that I recently pulled my old crock pot from the depths of the cupboard, feeling a little guilty for neglecting it for so long. Alongside it were three others, purchased at garage sales on a whim, in memory of how useful my old faithful had once been, promising myself to soon go back to slow-cooking with renewed enthusiasm. I recalled with fondness how my crock pot had been associated with markers in my life. After bringing my third baby home from hospital, I used it each day, putting a simple meal into it in the relative calm of the morning, knowing that even if the sky fell in, I could rely on having a meal on the table that night.

As my children went to school, I would make soup so that when they came home in the afternoon there was always a welcoming aroma and something good and nourishing to eat. Then, when I went back into the workforce, I would spend a mere few minutes before I left preparing something in the crock pot, switching it to the Low setting, guaranteed to come home to the wonderful smell of a meal well cooked, with time to spare for a cup of tea or glass of wine before serving. All these thoughts ran through my head as I looked at the chips in the orange paintwork and dings in the shell of my old crock pot. It surely deserved better for all its hard work, and I immediately determined to bring it back to its former usefulness. This indeed has happened, and the slow cooker once again never leaves my benchtop and is constantly in use. I now wonder how I ever did without it.

As I used the crock pots more, I developed new recipes that have led to this book coming into existence. These recipes are designed specifically for slow-cooking, made with common everyday ingredients. They show that slow-cooking does not need to be confined to mere soups and stews, and showcase the flavours that can be attained so easily in our quest for tasty and wholesome food. I hope you enjoy preparing and eating them as much as I have enjoyed putting them together.

Recipes in this book have been prepared in a range of slow cookers, using either a 3.5- or 4.5-litre capacity cooker. Wherever the size of the cooker is crucial, this will be indicated in the recipe.

Cookers with greater capacity are suitable for larger quantities and are ideal for soups and casserole style dishes to feed a crowd, or to provide enough to freeze for later use. Some cookers, particularly the older ones, have an element at the base, whereas a number of the more current models have a side or wraparound element. The latter are more suited to puddings, such as lemon marshmallow meringue pie. Many slow cookers have two or more temperature settings. These settings can vary from one cooker to the next, so it is very important to read the manufacturers instructions carefully. For instance, I have a 30-year-old cooker where Low means Keep Warm (by some other cookers definitions), Medium means Low and High means the same as other cookers.

Most modern cookers have a Low and a High setting. Some will have an Auto option, which means it starts cooking at High, then switches automatically to Low. If a cooker has a Keep Warm setting, it means that after the food is cooked it will hold the food at a safe temperature until serving time. There are also cookers which have an option to delay the start of cooking; this is not recommended for meat, fish or poultry dishes. Hence the need to read the manufacturers instruction book to ascertain how best to utilise your slow cooker.

When purchasing a slow cooker and wondering about the right size for your needs, think about what you will be using the cooker for.

A small family? Entertaining? Is one enough? (I have four slow cookers and use them all.) Also consider if you will need it to fit a cake tin, pudding basin or souffl dish. And decide if you want one with a round or oval shape the latter is better for cooking certain roasts, such as a leg of lamb. For any dish where size really does matter, this will be specified in the recipe instructions.

Yes, slow cookers cook foods at a lower temperature for an extended period of time, but the temperatures reach a level far above the recommended food safety levels. Any bacteria are destroyed by the multi-directional heat combined with the steam created in the tightly sealed container. As a general rule, the Low setting is approximately 94C (200F) and the High setting is approximately 149C (300F).

One hour on High is more or less equivalent to 2 hours on Low. This may vary to a degree in some recipes, which will have instructions to this effect. Some recipes require cooking on a specific setting. For meat dishes, as a general guide only, follow the table on the next page. Check for information in the instruction book for your cooker for any variations.

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