I'm not a slow learner when it comes to cooking with this (Morphy Richards 48719 Slow Cooker)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	Morphy Richards 48719 Slow Cooker
Date:	22/06/09 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap meals, cooking whilst you're out

Disadvantages: mainly used in winter months

Last winter, I was determined to cook more meals from scratch, and to do that as well as working, we decided to get a slow cooker. I wasn't sure what to get but I did know that it had to be big enough to feed the whole family, as well as looking the part in my kitchen.
The Morphy Richards fit my requirements, as well as being oval shaped which is good for fitting joints of meat into should I ever want to, and it did look quite modern and sleek in my cream and green kitchen.

The slow cooker has a 3.5 litre capacity which is adequate for a family of four. It has a toughened glass lid which will stand up to the heat of cooking without letting steam escape during the process.
The pot is dishwasher safe which doesn't affect me but would perhaps factor into the buying decision for some people, and the most important thing for me is the easy removable pot which whilst is sturdy enough to withstand the cooking, it also isn't too heavy for me to lift in when I have prepared my meal.

A slow cooker is designed to cook food items slowly over a period of hours making family life easier. I hadn't realised how much you can actually cook in a slow cooker, but I have learnt fast over the months, and had some success meals as well as some disasters using the cooker.
The main thing to remember when using a slow cooker is not to remove the lid whilst it's cooking. This puts the time of cooking back 15 minutes each time you remove the lid, which I learnt the hard way very soon after buying it.

The Morphy Richards model I have has three temperature settings, low, medium and high. I find I cook almost everything on medium, unless I'm out of the house for hours and hours and then it tends to go on low. For some reason the first time I used this, I was too scared to leave the house in case something went wrong and I started a fire. This is actually a common conception to new users of slow cookers, and you will get over it very quickly once you realise what it can do for your life.

Preparing a meal in the slow cooker is so simple and once you get into the routine of doing so you'll wonder what ever stopped you buying one sooner.
I always chop my vegetables very small as root vegetables don't cook very fast in a slow cooker; in fact they cook slower than meat.
You must remember as well that you don't need as much water as you would add if you were cooking a casserole in the oven. This is because the steam re adds itself to the cooking liquids and process.

Once I have prepared my meal, I sometimes brown my meat if I am leaving the skin on, or if the chicken for example has skin off then I don't worry about browning it at all.
In the slow cooker everything goes, and I decide how long I am going to be out of the house. If the meal is going on in the morning then the cooker goes on the low setting, lunch time then it goes on medium setting, and I only use high if I'm in the house whilst it's cooking.

It really is as simple as making sure the crock pot is placed into the slow cooker when the cooker is off. If you heat the slow cooker before adding the pot you run the risk of cracking the pot and that would spoil your whole product.
Once the lid is securely on, you can turn on at the wall, and switch to your required setting. There is a red light that will glow to show the cooker is on.
Walk away and leave it!

I am always so tempted to peak through the lid when the food is cooking, but the steam prevents you seeing anything through the lid, despite the little vents in the top of the lid, it does a good job of only letting the wonderful aromas of the food escape and nothing else.
The sides of the slow cooker will get hot during cooking so it's important not to touch when it's on, and I would recommend when the food is cooked, to leave the crock pot inside the cooker unless you really need to remove and use a serving spoon to dish the meal out.

The great thing about the slow cooker is that if you cook something like chicken on the bone, it literally will fall off the bone and the meat will be so tender, you'll have a new outlook on a chicken drumstick.

The cleaning process of the cooker is easy, as I mentioned you can put the crock pot into the dishwasher if you have one, but if not just wash as normal. You will get a ring around the pot where the sauce level s sat during cooking, but as long as you don't leave for ages then it'll come off easily.
The lid can also be washed as normal, but the slow cooker outer casing must only ever be wiped over with a damp cloth as required. I find this should be done just quickly after every use to prevent spills from staining and marking the inside of the cooker. You'll prolong its use this way.

The Morphy Richards cooker costs a few pence over £20 and has the potential to last you years, helping you create cheap meals that taste wonderful.
I really can't recommend this cooker enough to anyone who is looking for a low cost slow cooker. I have had lots of experiments in mine and look forward to many more. The only point I would add is that it doesn't tend to get used so much in the summer as it tends to be used for winter warmers such as casseroles, but that's not to say it can't be used in the summer, it's just down to your imagination.

Summary: a great budget slow cooker