Cooking Nice

The best thing about slow cooking is the way that you can throw a delicious meal together with just a few ingredients from the store cupboard.

Your slow cooker will pay for itself easily. The time saving as you are making a meal makes it priceless. But, if you intend to make slow cooking part of your regular meal times, then it pays to have a few staples to keep in your cupboards to make meal planning easy.

Beans – Beans are a very economical source of protein that cook very well in slow cookers . Beans have their own individual flavor which can be enhanced by the herbs or spices you use when cooking them. Beans can make a meal base when you cook them with meat or even be the main ingredient if you are a vegetarian who wants to make a simple and speedy dish. Whether borlotti, lentil, haricot, or black-eyed, beans can be the start of some fantastic slow cooker dishes.

Fibrous Vegetables – For starters, these means good old spuds and the average kitchen has at least a few potatoes lurking around in the vegetable rack.  They are a really versatile food. Mash them, fry them, stew them, or chuck them in the crockpot. Potatoes add thickening to stews, soups, and meat-free meals. Potatoes and other fibrous veggies like carrots, swede and turnips, take a time to cook, so they can be thrown in the slow cooker with meat and can cook for a long time.

Fresh Herbs – Using herbs can dramatically change the flavour of almost any meal you make. Herbs can also be bought dried, but they release a much better flavor if they are added to the crockpot fresh. You can even grow your own fresh herbs in the house in small pots on your kitchen window sill. All you need is a nice sunny spot, some compost, and remember to water them regularly. Herbs you’ve grown yourself can even be dried to extend their life, making them easy to keep around without worrying about wasting them. Remember to add your herbs near the end of the crockpot cooking time so the flavor infiltrates the cooked meal and doesn’t disappear during the cooking time.