January drew
to a close at the weekend and signalled not only the end of what genuinely
feels like the longest, darkest month ever but it also signals the end of my
first month of the Delicious Dozen challenge!! Woopwoop!! Slow cooking has been
fab and my last couple of recipes were a real triumph (more details later) and
they will definitely be used again.
Even though I have enjoyed the cooking challenge
I am finding it sooooo much harder than the baking challenge despite two
crucial details which should have made it easier!! 1) I don't have the pressure
of cooking something brand new every week which can become relentless and 2) I
have to eat 'real' food anyway so it should be easier to squeeze in cooking new
things instead of slightly unnecessary sweet treats.
I think part of the problem is that - as I expected - when you cook properly you need a lot of different ingredients, many of which I haven't used before or for a very long time. This not only fills up the cupboards in our relatively small kitchen but it also makes me a bit nervous! I really feel like I don't know what I'm doing when I'm using things I've never used before and I can't wing it yet with quantities or flavour combo's. As you know the aim of my challenges is not to increase my anxiety levels but reduce it, my worry levels are high enough already thank you!! I know I've only been doing it a month so the winging it skills will take time to master (and then the anxiety will hopefully reduce) but the herbs and spices storage space in our house isn't going to get any bigger so I might need to be a bit more selective with the recipe choices in future.
As an antidote to my fretting about oils and vinegars I did bake a couple of times as well, once in the slow cooker so that was a double whammy!
Anyway, lets get down to the yummy bit. I made another four slow cooker recipes in the second half of January, two of them were even from my recipe book!
Easy
Chinese Chicken
Ingredients
- 2tsp grated fresh ginger
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 star anise (I am not a fan of these so just left them out)
- 150ml Chinese rice wine or medium dry sherry
- 2tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1tsp sesame oil
- 5tbsp water
- 4 skinless chicken thighs or drumsticks (there were 6 things in a packet so I just chucked them all in)
- Spring onions to garnish
- Serve with rice (we prefer noodles so went for them instead)
Method
- Add all the ingredients (apart from the chicken) to a bowl and mix. Place the chicken in a saucepan, add the spice mix to the pan and bring to the boil.
- Transfer to the slow cooker, cover and cook on low for 4 hours or until the chicken is tender and cooked through.
- Remove the star anise (if using). Transfer chicken to a warmed serving plate, garnish with shredded spring onions and serve immediately.
As you know
as part of the slow cooker challenge I was trying to find recipes you can just
chuck in and leave all day while you are out at work. I thought this recipe
would be perfect for that until It was 6.45am and I got everything out of the fridge
when I realised that the ingredients needed to go into a pan first and that it
only needed 4 hours when I am usually out of the house for at least
ten...oooppps! It turned out that it didn’t matter though, it still tasted
delicious. The chicken was really dark in colour, it almost looked like duck
but it was really yummy and it just dropped off the bone so you got every lat
piece of yumminess.
Pulled
pork
Ingredients
- 2 onions sliced
- 1.5kg boned and rolled pork sholder
- 2tbsp demerera sugar
- 2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1tbsp American mustard
- 2tbsp tomato ketchup
- 1tbsp cider vinegar
- Salt and pepper
- Hamburger buns to serve
Method
 |
| Handy dandy meat thermometer |
- Put the onions in the slow cooker and place the pork on top. Mix the usgar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, ketchup and vinegar together and spread all over the surface of the pork. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 8 hours on low.
- Remove the pork from the slow cooker and use two forks to pull it apart into shreds.
- Skim any excess from the juices and stir a little juice into the pork. Serve in hamburger buns with extra juice on top.
 |
| Our friend Kat enjoying the pulled pork we delivered to her house! |
The pork just fell apart and didn’t need much
shredding, it did however need more seasoning! Gggrrrhhhh I still can’t get the
seasoning to be strong enough! Anyway, we decided to cheat a bit and add some
BBQ sauce to the pork to liven it up a bit. I think it might actually be worth
making two batches of the seasoning paste from the recipe so you could use one
for cooking and one for mixing into the pork once it has been shredded. I will
give that a go next time and let you know what happens.
Baked
potatoes
I never
really think to make baked potatoes, I think they take a disproportionately
long time to cook for how much enjoyment you get out of them but I thought I
would give them a go in the slow cooker to see if I could change my mind about
them. I made them for us for a Saturday lunch and they were nice, they were
super easy but sadly nothing special. They would be good for a summer BBQ
though if you were in a hot country and didn’t want to have the oven on for
hours and hours, no need to worry about that in sunny Scotland though....BUT on
the plus side I did read on a blog post last week that cooking in a slow cooker
for 8 hours takes the same amount of electricity as using an oven for 30
minutes. Not sure if that’s true but it sounds convincing and as they say every
little helps when it comes to saving! 
Chocolate
fudge pudding
So, the worry about ‘proper’ cooking drove me to try to find a happy medium of baking in the slow cooker. This sponge pudding definitely isn’t a looker (it looks a bit like a lava flow, it is black rather than chocolate brown!!!) but the fudge sauce underneath is yummy and it is quite a clever way to bake. We did like it but I can’t say I would rush to slow cooker bake again, I think you can get better results from normal baking which takes a fraction of the time but I’m glad I tried.
I will definitely be using the slow cooker again during these long dark months, the feeling of getting home, opening the door to the delicious smell of a fully prepared meal really does brighten up a dreary evening.
But onwards and upwards to my next bite of the delicious dozen....February is Indian month!! Having struggled with getting enough flavour into my slow cooker foods I thought it would be a good time to take things to the other end of the spectrum with some serious spice! I really don't know how this will go, I have NEVER cooked real Indian food before but it's a short month so if I'm terrible at it then it will be over quickly and my poor husband won't have to suffer for too long!
Have a yummy couple of weeks, see you
soon!
x Linds x
