Slow Cooker at Aldi

[mint]

RH, cooking with an Aga is a cinch.  Just make sure you open the oven to check the food sooner than you would otherwise.  In my experience (not extensive), they cook very quickly and efficiently.

And I wasn't thinking of a frozen chicken as I never buy frozen chicken.  Come to think of it, I don't buy frozen meat much; usually chilled meat which I then stick in the freezer if I am not cooking it more or less by the following day.

[Judith]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Do people find they need to cook stuff for so long in a slow cooker? I only ask because we have a Tesco Value slow cooker - so nothing flash at all - with three settings: high, low and off. If I stick it on high and leave it to do its stuff, then I find I have to turn it down, or even off, after a maximum of about 4-5 hours. By that time, it seems able to turn the most vulcanised of meat into a tender casserole.

[/quote]

I find the newer slow cookers cook more quickly than my original Prestige (about 30 years old) which is truly a slow cooker - takes much longer to get up to speed, but you can safely leave it, whereas the newer ones all tend to boil over ....  On high, 4-5 hours is about right, on low 7-9 onwards, but it has to be on a lot longer to really overcook  (or loose too much water with over boiling)...

It is, though, the only sure way I have found to get French meat tender .. and even then I tend to marinate first ....

For those who get a watery mush - you do not need as much water (Proviso above apart) as you would in a normal stew ... practice, in this case, makes more perfect, though even now I have the odd disaster ....

[YCCMB]

I agree about the water, Judith. My first attempt was a very watery casserole, but now I add very little water at all, and find that there is still plenty of liquid.

[Judith]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I agree about the water, Judith. My first attempt was a very watery casserole, but now I add very little water at all, and find that there is still plenty of liquid.[/quote]

In over 30 years I think I've only had one go dry on me, and that was because it was left on too long ... I long ago gave up following a recipe, and I've only had one or two disasters, in  a very long time of using slow cookers.  It is important to remember that vegetables make quite a lot of water of their own ... and for French meat, I do the opposite of the instructions - I put the meat in first in the liquid, and as long as the veg have some water, they seem to cook fine, making more liquid as they go along.