My husband and I have always led hectic lives. Being doctors, we have always worked long hours and crazy shifts. When we first got together and started cohabiting, we tended to survive mostly on ready meals (yes, I know……) When we had kids, our already jam-packed schedules became even more chaotic. As a result, one thing that was really suffering was our diet. Additionally, we found that we had a lot of food wastage. We stocked up on ingredients with good intentions but frequently ended up being busy and making alternative meal plans whilst our uneaten supplies passed their use-by dates and soon ended up in the bin.
Shortly after I had our second child, things only got busier. In particular, I struggled in the evenings. Yes, I was not working for a while but the evenings involved entertaining both children, bathing them, bedding them, and then having to finish dinner preparations. Of course, if there were any glitches in the routine (which as you will know with young children in the mix there often are) the evening meal would be delayed/cold/burned or subject to some other time-related catastrophe. The last straw came when I was preparing a chicken one afternoon and I became distracted by one of the children. Rushing to sort whatever it was out, I put the bird in the oven and neglected to turn the oven on. Of course, I didn’t notice this until much later in the evening when I realised that the kitchen wasn’t gradually filling with the pleasant aroma of cooking poultry. Needless to say, the bird ended up in the bin and we found ourselves with yet another takeaway that night. That was when I decided things had to change. I wanted to be more organised in terms of the meals and I wanted less wastage. Additionally, I felt as though my cooking wasn’t that interesting and I craved delicious meals as well as more variety.
Enter the slow cooker.
Now I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this contraption has well and truly changed my life. I am now able to completely plan what I’m going to cook on a weekly basis by looking through slow cooker recipe books, making a shopping list, and ordering my food shop (which I now get delivered weekly at a convenient time) accordingly. Planning in this way also means that I avoid so much food wastage and I get to dodge the supermarket ( a place which, by the way, I hate). To top it all off the meals are mostly delicious, almost foolproof and can be prepared well in advance and kept warm once done so that you can eat when you are ready and when circumstances allow. This latter perk has meant that meal preparation is mostly a stress that is taken away from my already hectic evening schedule, and timing various components of a dish is not so much of an issue. To top it all off, I find that most meat is cooked perfectly in the slow cooker and is wonderfully succulent (a result that I didn’t often see when I cooked stuff in my oven. I blamed the oven, obviously).
When I started using the slow cooker and following recipe books, my husband commented on what “a great cook” I had developed into. He was also impressed that there was almost invariably a meal on the table (or ready to be on the table) pretty much as soon as he walked in the door. He also commented on the new, diverse range of dishes that we were consuming. Little did he know that I had discovered a massive cheat and of course I didn’t come clean about this!
There are loads of different slow cookers available for purchase. Models also vary in their capacity, so it’s important to take in to consideration how many mouths you are looking to feed before deciding on the one most suited to your needs. Below is the one that I mostly use; the Crock Pot.
In addition to the slow cooker being convenient, it also allows a lot of opportunity to use healthy ingredients, thus yielding vitamin-packed meals. Below you can see an example of some of the healthy components of said dishes. Many of the books feature recipes with a wide range of preparation times; some taking only 3-4 hours and others closer to 8-10 hours. Not only can you prepare savoury meals in the slow cooker, you can also make desserts in it. You may have also guessed that the slow cooker can be your best friend when it comes to hosting a dinner party, because again you can time the meals to be ready just when you need them to be, giving off the impression that you are the most chilled, organised and skilled hostess there ever was.
I’m not done yet either, there is still another shortcut that I commonly adopt. I enjoy vegetables being finely chopped, and I find it quite a tedious business accomplishing this by hand. Therefore, my next hack involves using a food processor. My favourite piece of machinery for this purpose is undoubtedly my Cuisine 4200 Magimix (pictured below). I have had this since I was a student and it has not only lasted me many years, I still use it frequently for all sorts of preparation. It comes in handy for chopping vegetables, mixing together cake ingredients, and even whisking egg whites fit to be added to a chocolate mousse. It’s one of my best ever domestic investments and it saves a lot of time.
There are tonnes of slow cooker recipe books out there to cater for a variety of tastes, cultures and diets. Below are pictured three of my most frequently used favourites. These include The Slow Cooker Cookbook by Audrey Deane (published by Robinson in 2015), BBC Goodfood’s Slow Cooker Favourites (published in 2011 by BBC Books), and 200 Slow Cooker Recipes by Sara Lewis (published in 2016 by Hamlyn).
Regarding the Crock Pot and the Magimix, I have owned both of mine for a number of years, and so there are probably newer models available now. I would recommend both of these appliances to any busy home cooks. As I have mentioned, both make my life so much easier and have allowed me to produce some really tasty dishes. Just don’t tell my husband how much I cheat!