Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Ultimate Slow Cooker

Using my slow cooker has become a bit of a regular thing at the moment, especially during these cold times. I have perfected rice pudding, and do a mean chicken and lentil casserole, but tend to cook the same things over and over again. Hubby therefore surprised me last night by bringing me home a present. Ultimate Slow Cooker by Sara Lewis. He got it from the Book People, and it has to be one of the best books I’ve looked at in a long time. Real homey style food, that’s classy enough to serve for friends. Most of the recipes have little tips as well, such as alternative ingredients, at what stage to freeze, or how to make it dairy free. All English recipes as well which I find quite refreshing. The majority of slow cooker cook books, tend to be American and refer to crock pots, with all measurements of zucchini and all purpose flour in cups.

So I sat on the sofa last night and went through it with a bunch of blue stickies and tagged all the recipes I want to try. Here is the list

Caldo Verde
Smoked gammon and mixed bean chowder
Bloody Mary soup with chilli oil
Abruzzi Lamb
Spiced pork chops with sweet potato
Pork, orange and star anise
Sun-dried tomatoe and chicken pilaf
Kashmiri butter chicken
Frikadeller
Chilli black bean stew
Mixed mushroom and lentil braise
Mediterranean fennel with nutty crumble
Cheesy vegetable galette
Sticky toffee apple pudding
Double chocolate and sweet potato cake

So the plan is to try at least two of these a month, more if I can manage it. Providing I can work out how to upload pictures with constantly having to bug hubby, I will post photos of my efforts to accompany.

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Test Post

Just testing the waters on what I hope will become my new obsession!