Slow cookers

We have used a slow cooker at home for the first time this year and cooked several different dishes. I am sure that it would be very convenient in a caravan; just one problem, we don't like the way it cooks the food. Often the fat from the meat seems to permeate throughout the dish and is unpleasant. Definitely not our preferred method of cooking and it will probably end up in the local tip in due course.

I've been using a slow cooker for a fair few years and not had this, do you brown off the meat first before adding it to the cooker. 

What type of things have you made using it, I make curries,bolognese, chilli, stews, goulash, slow cooked ribs, brisket of beef is good. Lamb might be a bit on the fatty side depending on the cuts used. 

Strange you saying that because it was the same reason we gave up on the Slow Cooker we had as we didn't like the food it produced. If cooking a casserole type dish we now use a combination of microwave to get it started and then the main oven. Gave it to one of our sons and he used it for all sorts of things successfully. 

David

Don't put it on the tip Hitchglitch, hand it over to a charity shop that take electricals! 

I use the slow cooker a lot in the winter as I like stews etc. I also cook a whole chicken, browning it first in a pan, putting a few sliced veg and onions (plus a spot of wine) as a base layer in the cooker for a nice gravy which I thicken up later. No wastage with the chicken, everything falls off the bone. Have this with separate roasted veg one day then a curry the next, you could do this with any large or small piece of meat.

I use a different type of slow cooker. Its called a thermal cooker. Check out a web page called Mr D's thermal cooker.

You only cook on gas for ten minutes with it. Close it up and leave for 6 or 7 hours. Have cooked many things from stews, curries with rice at the same time, bread & butter pudding etc. Best piece of kitchen equipment I have ever purchased. I use it at least three times a week at home. And always take it away in the van.

You can prep a meal to take with you on your first day of holiday. Just pop it in the car. Then you can have a piping hot meal 6 or 7 hours later when on site and all set up.

Oh and yes the best part. NO smell of cooking food at all. Its all sealed in the pot. No its not a pressure cooker. Think of it as a big flask.

A few hundred years ago they were known as hay box cookers.

Quite expensive for the smaller one at £89 but interesting.

We are exactly the same - and don't enjoy the taste of food which has been slow-cooked.  I think it does all have an underlying 'same' taste, whether you've cooked a chicken, or beef, or lamb.  We were discussing whether to get rid of ours just before I saw this post - but it will be to a local charity shop which takes electrical items, not the skip.

We were given ours, unused, so if anyone one would like a very lightly used one they would be welcome to it.

Can only presume you are doing something weird when using them as I couldn't live without my slow cooker and every meal tastes like it should and so much tastier than when cooked by quicker methods.

I wouldn't  go as far as saying I couldn't  live without it but I do use mine a lot and don't  have any issues with it. Everything tastes as it should and some are even better, no expensive electric or gas burning away for hours, no food drying up, no having to keep going back and checking it. Cook 2 or 3 times the amount needed then freeze for another day.