ARGH - is there a slow cooker heaven?

[Casmie]

Well, everything was still crunchy and not cooked through after 8 hours which is a fairly good indicator, no? WHY do I only discover this just as we're ready to sit down and eat?!

It gave me almost a decade of service though, so I guess I can't be too cross... now where are all the threads saying which is the best slow cooker?

---

This thread is old now, so some of the suggestions are out of date, but we’ve very recently refreshed our best slow cooker page with plenty advice on choosing the right one for your family. We hope you find the guide useful.
MNHQ

it is possible to live without one though (never heard of these things until I came to live here.....and will never buy one either )

am I being insensitive?

or controversial?

Nooooooooo.... can't live without one, use it at least once a week

ohhhh there there casmie.......

Ooooh no, id be lost without mine, infact me and my mom have just swapped slow cookers cos hers was a larger one.

The one we had a was a Swan one, quite old but worked fine, the one we have now is a cordon bleu one.

Fill me in - how would a slow cooker transform my life? Genuinely interested

Yes - e.bay!

franch - it transfers preparation time to a less hectic time of the day. I tend to do the prep 9am ish and it's ready to serve without further intervention (well, okay, sometimes I use cornflour to thicken the sauce) at 5.30pm when we all have tea together. Takes the pressure off having to deal with/entertain two small children at that 4.30/5pm time slot while also trying to cook the meal!

Hmm! What kind of things do you cook in it? Casseroles casseroles casseroles?

I do (hence the only once a week ;) ) but you can do other stuff too (soups, puddings... I forget now would have to look up the recipe book that came with it!)

R.I.P. Casmie's cooker.

Now you can get this one from Lakeland and tell me whether I should get one too!

marthamoo and casmie-I have that one and its fab (but Shh! dont tell lakeland as they are great but got mine from amazon as cheaper)
Makes fab rice, steams without steaming up kitchen and is slow cooker too-what more could you want.
Casmie-dont think of it as a replacement for the one you lost, just something to ease the pain

Problem is - a) I don't want a rice cooker b) I already have a steamer I like and c) isn't the capacity of the slow cooker reduced as a result of it being jack of all trades?

I'm open to being convinced, I'm just a bit skeptical from what I've seen so far...

I bought it as I had sort of been thinking about a rice cooker and ditto a slow cooker, and there it was on the back page of the lakeland catalogue!
It is a 10 cup slowcooker so quite large, the steamer tray is small and removable, so doesnt affect size. There is only one mode for slow cooking though and have seen recipes for full and low so assume some cookers have 2 modes?
Can set it to slow cook for x hours and then it switches itself to keep warm.
Rice cooker bit is great, again switches to keep warm after rice cooked. I think it may be one of those things you dont know you need IYSWIM Can steam a few veg at the same time as cook rice too.
Someone else here was recommending this one too.

Hmm... am half tempted now... how many litres is 10 cups?

Answered my own question... 3.2L. My ex-slow cooker was 2.5L and a bit too small so it should be okay, shouldn't it?....

Ponders

I have the Tfal rice/slow cooket combo and I love it. It is great. But having said that, we eat a lot of rice.

Okay okay, I've ordered it already Plus the Braun multiblender professional thingie ended up in the basket too ...

I want one....

I@ve got one - doing a roast in it tomororw

Always said I'd never get one - but then decided to and I'd not be without it now. The other good thing about it, as well as moving preperation time (and most stuff doesn't take long to prepare anyhow) is that you don't have to watch it, or keep checking it

I got one a couple of years ago thinking I would use it all the time, but I've been very dissapointed. Whenever I've made anything it has always turned out kind of blah, IYKWIM. All the flavours get lost somehow.

Message withdrawn

Okay, I have to come back and report that I am really disappointed with the Tefal 3-in-1. I don't know if I just got a dud, or whether I've just been used to a lot better, but it feels very much like a jack of all trades, master of none.

The rice cooker - despite following their instructions to the letter, I have consistently got dry un-fluffy rice out of it.

The slow cooker - 8 hours cooking and despite being piping hot, meat isn't tender, small cut potatoes still are quite firm. Extremely disappointing as my old Morphy Richards was so superb in comparison, and this was the main reason I bought the tefal - to replace my broken slow cooker.

The steamer - great, apart from the steamer basket is tiny. I tried to cook one normal sized cauliflower in there and couldn't close the lid!!! Would never do for a family of four's vegetable requirements.