Alternative cooking methods to using a slow cooker...?!
Alternative cooking methods to using a slow cooker...?
I recently bought a magazine with several recipes I'd like to try but they all require a slow cooker. I don't own a slow cooker and am reluctant to buy one just so I can try out these meals - they might not be as tasty as they look! Can anyone suggest some alternate methods for cooking? Would a dutch oven on the stove top be any good? If so, do I have to cook the dish for as many hours as the slow cooker method requires?
Answers:
slow cooking can be done on a stove top or in the oven. The keys are low temperature so your food doesn't burn and keeping it covered or being there to add liquid so the food doesn't dry out. The times might be as long as the slow cooker recipe calls for but that'll likely depend on what you are cooking. I'd use the times as a guideline checking for tenderness about half way through your cooking time. Then every half and hour or so.I cook large quantities of spaghetti sauce (for 100 ) people overnight ( 8 hours) in my oven which I set at 175 degrees which is as low as my oven will go .
fast food
Just cook in a deep covered pan in the oven at about 250F. It will have the same effect as using a slow cooker.
Just buy the slow cooker. The meals are very good. I have never experience a bad recipe in the slow cooker.
You can try a dutch oven but put it in the oven at the recomended temperature for the cooker. Youcan try 225 degrees.
If you're a working Mom, or even if your not, go buy a slow cooker! I am stay at home now but have had one of these things in my home for jeez, like 30 years! The ones with the removable dish are easier to clean. PLUS just google search crokpot or slow cook recipes and you will find thousands of easy ways to cook dinner. One of my family's fav's. Get a 3lb pork shoulder with bone in, skin off. Put it in the cooker with a scant cup of water. Turn on low and walk away for about 6 -8 hrs. 1/2 before you want to eat, take a fork and pull the bone out, chop the meat up ( it falls apart, and remove most of the liquid. add a LARGE bottle of your fav barbecue sauce and let it cook on low another 30 min. get out your buns, chips, and veggie. Dinner! AND you'll have left overs for tomorrow night!
DON'T buy a slow cooker. Clutter and expensive and stupid. Put your dutch oven (which you already have) in an oven. Voila! Slow Cooker!
You can do slow cooking in the oven in a heat proof pot. 200-250 degrees.
Slow cooking takes a long time, like 6-8-10 hours.
I just used a slowcooker last night, never use a recipe for it.
I put in some round steak, cut to fit,
sprinkled it with garlic salt,
some carrots,
one potato because my husband ate the other ones.
and a can of cream of mushroom soup
It was kind of like stew but the meat was in 2 chuncks although the cooking made it very tender.
I put it on at like 9 pm and off at 9 am so it was very well done.
I served the sauce/juice on cornbread.
You can put chicken in the slow cooker and it turns out really good too.
If you have a family invest in a slow cooker. The recipes are quick, easy and done when you get home from work. Just make sure that you get one where the pot can be detached from the heating unit. It's a lot easier to clean.
But you can cook slow cooker recipes in a dutch oven. You need a real heavy pot. A teflon pot will not do this. Put whatever recipe you have in the oven on 275 for as many hours as the recipe calls for. Be careful if your oven doesn't heat equally as well. You don't want burnt spots on your dishes. This happend in my oven. The back is A LOT hotter than the front.
Don't use your Dutch oven on the Stove top. Even if it's cast iron (which is the best), you cant get the burner low enough to prevent burning. Put your Dutch oven covered,in the oven at about 225 F. degrees. Cast iron th by all means the best because of heat retention properties and ability to cook so evenly. Cast iron will even allow you to save energy, gas or electric, because the cast iron retains heat so well the oven will turn on less frequently and the cast iron will keep your food cooking closer to the 225 which you set your oven. This works at any temp. you set your oven.