A Thrifty Cookbook

One of the cookbooks I return to again and again is " Slow Cooking Properly Explained". It is only a small paperback and initially when it arrived I was a little unsure about it as it does not have photographs of the finished dish.

This is a picture of the copy I have but it has been updated several times since then and the front cover is a bit larger with a more modern picture now. The reason it is one of my favourites is that there isn't a recipe in it which hasn't worked exactly as it has been written down and for me that is quite unusual. Normally I find the temperatures aren't quite right or I needed a bit more instruction in certain places, but not with this little book. You have the feeling that the author has made every recipe in the book and tweaked it until she is sure that it will work in your slow cooker as well.

We have 3 slow cookers, 1 is a standard modern one bought cheaply in Tesco and the other 2 are both second hand, 1 was only 50p from a jumble sale as it had the cable missing. A spare kettle flex soon fixed that and there we had an enormous slow cooker which is ideal for doing baked potatoes in.

My favourite recipes in the book are the vegetarian ones as it is hard to find decent recipes for vegetarian food which don't cook down to a tasteless mush whilst the cooker is on. The one for curried vegetables is regularly used when I'm going to be late at work and the other favourite is the one for golden sponge pudding which is often used for Sunday lunch.

The great thing about slow cookers is that they can be left safely all day cooking a meal whilst you are out and about doing something else. Three nights a week I'm back from work after 6pm and that is when the slow cooker really comes into its own as if I prep something in the morning I know that there will be a hot meal waiting for us as soon as we come in the door tired and hungry so there will be no talk of being ready meals or thinking about take-aways or picking something up from the shop on the way home.

I think slow cookers are great as long as you know how to sue one properly and that is exactly what this little book can teach you.

Today's challenge :- Have you ever used a slow cooker ?