Today I downloaded a new Zumba track that makes me want to dance, to use as motivation to workout if I don’t want to excerise. Yesterday I stocked up on low fat cereal bars to have in the house for when I need a chocolate fix and don’t want to spoil my diet. I’m doing as much as I can to ensure ‘damage limitation’ for those times when I has less willpower to stay on track, and the evening meal is one of those potential ‘danger zones’ in a day when I could easily go off course.
By the time I’ve collected the kids from school, started them off on their homework and prepared the food, sometimes I’m so hungry that I am tempted to snack rather than wait for the meal to cook. So it’s best for me to make sure I don’t get too hungry because this is when I’m likely to make bad choices. This is why I love those days when I use the slow cooker.
Once the preparation is done in the morning, all I have to do at teatime is serve it up. Today we had a beef stew and jacket potatoes which was delicious and very filling. I used the Morphy Richards Slow Cooker to make this meal, and loved how large the ceramic dish was- it would fit a whole chicken in, it was so big!
My old slow cooker which I’ve used for years is quite small, but as it was a gift and I didn’t choose it myself, I’ve never shopped around for slow cookers, so I didn’t know that you could get different sizes. I found the large oval ceramic dish on this one to be ample for my needs- it is a great size for a family. Plus, it is a lovely green colour and looks good, so if you used oven gloves to transport it and sat it on a heatproof mat, you could use it as ‘oven to tableware’ too.
It came with a glass lid- perfect for checking on your food whilst it is cooking. My old slow cooker had a brown ceramic lid to match the pot, so you have to lift the lid to check the food which makes the cooking time needed, longer. As slow cooking retains the heat and moisture in the ceramic dish, it is best to not take the lid off too many times- only if it is necessary to add more ingredients.
I don’t know about you, but when I get a new piece of equipment, I would rather play with it than read the handbook. It doesn’t matter if it is a printer or a slow cooker! Fortunately, slow cookers are pretty easy to figure out without checking the manual. This one has a dial to set the cooking temperature to low, medium or high, and a light to show you the device is on – it is as easy as that!
So using the cooker today was a doddle. The hardest bit about preparing the meal was the vegetable chopping and that didn’t take long either. This slow cooker was from K&Co and is £37, but you also have the option to buy now pay later to make the purchase that bit easier.
If you are a working mum, spend a lot of the day out or just want to make mealtimes easy, it is worth giving slow cooking a try. I’ve decided to try making a rice pudding in it tomorrow – I have a new recipe to test!
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