I love slow cookers. Love them. Due to my extremely limited short term memory I always forget that there is something on the stove that needs to be stirred and it ends up burning or in some cases catching on fire. So I have in the last 8 years fallen in love with the slowcooking world. My handy Crockpot which I had owned and used often for 6 years wasn't working as well as it should have so for Christmas I asked for a slowcooker.
Enter the king of all Crockpots:
Very pretty don't you think? This bad boy has a "probe" you can stick into the food and it will stop cooking once your food reaches a desired temperature. Which is handy for roasts or whole chickens . . . other big hunks of meat. I normally use mine for soups, sauces and beans. This thing lets me program the exact amount of time I want it to cook and at what temperature. If you aren't into fancy programming it also works just like a regular Crockpot. I purchased my beauty at a Wal-mart but it can be yours by shopping here.
Tonight: Navy bean soup. Mmmmm. No stirring, no burning and no scary fires.
In the slow cooker vs. pressure cooker world, we roll with the pressure cooker. I can never get it together enough to get the food in the slow cooker early in the day, so I do the 5 hours of cooking in 30 minutes with the pressure cooker.
ReplyDeleteBut that's a pretty fancy one you've got.
Yeah, for roasts and meats I like the pressure cooker for the same reason. But soups, sauces etc I do the slow cooker.
ReplyDeleteDo you cook dried beans in the slow cooker? I have been trying to use dried beans more lately since the canned ones can be lined with BPA and have added salt, etc. I have been using a pressure cooker, and I can cook dried beans in about 8 minutes! (Plus overnight soaking.) But, it would be cool to be able to make the whole soup at the same time - is that possible?
ReplyDeleteYup, dried beans too. Just dump everything in and cook. That's what we did with the navy bean soup - we used dried beans and it took about 6 hours on high. I use the pressure cooker for big hunks of meat that I haven't allowed enough time to cook using the regular method.
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