Jane’s Journey
The connection
I flirted with the idea of a slow cooker and put it on the back burner as “one for the future”, until I met Meg with her compelling story.
Slow cooking with the “sacred intention of slowing down” creates a sense of peace and calm after a full day of work and school. Meg realized that meal planning coupled with slow cooking allowed her to be more attentive to her family’s needs while dinner slowly cooked. With the addition of meditation and yoga into her daily life she found increased clarity and focus throughout her day.
Enticing aromas of dinner cooking in the slow cooker welcomed her family as they returned home. Sharing a relaxed, tasty and nutritious meal became enjoyable and beneficial to the whole family.
New beginnings
As a recent immigre to Chicago with a young family, I was laying the foundations for us to feel “at home”. As we navigated the choppy waters of finding a school for my Kindergarten aged daughter, I began to envision how our daily lives were soon to change. I consider the impact of making this time together over dinner as a defining moment in our family life.
United at dinnertime
As a stay at home mom and home cook, I like to indulge myself in kitchen experiments, but that becomes a luxury, which I don’t have time for if I’m aiming for dinner at 6. I’ll admit, some muddled mealtime values had evolved from living and traveling in different parts of the world. I cooked every meal from scratch and we always ate at the dinner table, however our girls would eat before us due to work constraints and our preference for later European dining times. Consequently we ate around 8pm. I realised that once schooling began, dinner time may be the only occasion during the day when the four of us could be united with no distractions. It became my mission to make 6pm dinner a new norm for us all before Kindergarten started.
Serendipity
Meg’s story struck me at a time when I was trying to make weeknight family dinners work and within a week of our paths crossing, I had purchased my first Slow Cooker (follow my initiation below). It was time to infuse my repertoire with some weeknight realism by cooking relatively quick, easy to prepare and nourishing dinners.
Cookbooks re-visited
As I studied library cookbooks, adapting recipes for my slow cooker and incorporating fresh produce from my urban garden, it dawned on me that I could look at all my prized cookbooks in a new light. My favourite adaptations include a Jamie Oliver – influenced Ribollita, a close friend – inspired coffee and cocoa dry rubbed Beef Rib and a David Thompson – motivated Thai eggplant & coconut curry. I had banished the myth from my head that all slow cooker food was one-dimensional – grey, stewy and gruel-like.
My initiation
Off I go…..
I had no idea what make of slow cooker to buy. I was unfamiliar with the brands and didn’t know the difference between a Crock Pot and a slow cooker. Now I know, the first is the original brand, the first slow cooker. As I familiarised myself – All Clad, Crock Pot and Hamilton Beach to name a few – and read a myriad of conflicting online reviews, I decided to set some criteria. My purchase would be under $100 and stoveproof: for multipurpose use, to brown meat, and to reduce cleaning up effort. A 6 quart would be optimum, any leftovers can be frozen and i can cater for bigger family gatherings.
I got it!…..
I found my slow cooker online, then sourced locally in the sale at a retailer so I could see exactly what I was getting. This purchase had become serious. I proudly unpacked my Oval 6 quart Hamilton Beach programmable stovetop slow cooker! The stovetop element narrowed my choices considerably for under $100 but I have no complaints.
Now what?…..
I was excited, but didn’t know where to start. It was tempting to cook on the stovetop (after all I was now the owner of a lovely new casserole) and my culinary knowledge was being seriously challenged by this alien piece of kitchen equipment. “Won’t it burn?” Of course not: the temperature and moisture retention ensure you won’t cremate your dinner (providing you don’t remove the lid during cooking). I made mistakes with liquids (adding too much because surely that will dry out). I was adapting to a new method of cooking and realised there was no need to invent new recipes, but instead adapt and craft my own from existing favorites and allow for some experimentation along the way.
All good meals come from a few simple building blocks: good ingredients assembled in the right order and cooked for the optimum length of time and voila!
Like most things we learn, eventually they become second nature.
My first 3 slow cooker dishes:
chicken broth, chicken pot pie, clear chick pea & fennel soup with coriander
