Slow and steady

I AM deeply in love with my Crockpot -
sorry, slow cooker.
It's an affair that began in my early 20s
when my grandmother bequeathed me her
hot orange crock, a 1970s original with the
gravy stains of numerous casseroles baked
with volcanic hardness onto the front. No
amount of sponging would ever remove
them and the crock itself sports a maze of
fine cracks created by hundreds of slow
cooked meals.
My grandmother told me that nothing
could go wrong in a Crockpot. She was
always a woman who loved a good culinary
short cut.
"Follow the instructions," she said. And
when I queried her where they were, she
sighed. "They're on the front."
There, hidden underneath the spills were
pictures of onions, chicken, meat, carrots
and other vegies.
"Just throw it all in," Gran said.
"Honestly, you just can't go wrong. The
worst you will end up with is soup."
Slow cooking in a Crockpot is a moist
process.With the glass lid on, the contents
literally stew in their own juices, and I've
never had anything boil dry with my tried
and true recipe of one tin of tomatoes, a
refill of the tin with water and a good slug
of whatever red is open. Put the setting on
high and you'll be lucky if the meal is done
in four to six hours. On low, casseroles
simmer for eight to 12 hours, perfect when
you're working.
I've tossed in cheap skirt steak with a
commercial curry paste, tomatoes and a
handful of assorted vegies from the bottom
of the fridge in the morning to come home
from work and find my husband swooning
with joy over dinner that rivals his
favourite Indian.
I once cooked a dinner party for six with
a Moroccan lamb curry and still managed
the Saturday chores of getting three boys to
various sporting events around town with
one car while appearing to have lovingly
"slaved" for my friends without even
breaking a sweat. (Although I removed the
Crockpot from the benchtop and made sure
I served it in a slightly more stylish dish. A
girl does have standards.)
A slow cooker works because it allows
the throwing - literally - together of a hotch
potch of ingredients roughly chopped and
seasoned in minutes. On Sundays, I've set
up the cooker in the morning and gone for
a snooze in the afternoon to wake to find
the house smelling delicious. It's like
having your Mum over to stay.
Throw the ingredients of bolognaise
into the crock in the morning, and
ravenous teenagers will fuel themselves
after school. A tub of ham offcuts from
the deli, a packet of soup pulse mix, an
onion and half a crock of water, and you
have a filling winter soup. Gran was right.
The worst that can happen is soup.
Fantastic soup. But I've also had
successful risotto, roasts, a brilliant osso
buco and even a pudding.
After Gran's Crockpot died, a garage sale
provided me with my second pot. When I
smashed the lid on that, I was in despair.
Where, oh, where does one find a Crockpot
in this day and age?
Until a random trip through KMart
changed my life. They're not called
Crockpots any more and they're not bright
orange and brown.
My new Slow Cooker has a low, high and
automatic setting. It has a white crock and
is brushed stainless steel. It's so trendy; I
can even leave it out when the guests arrive.

First published in Good Living in The Sydney Morning Herald, January 22, 2008