People kept asking us what we wanted for our wedding and so we came up with a list of suggestions that were non brand specific. One of the things on our list was a slow cooker and my husbands relatives bought us this one from John Lewis.

I was very excited because I had always wanted a rice cooker but could never justify the extra space taken up in the kitchen. I never knew that you could get one that could be a steamer, rice cooker, porridge maker and slow cooker in one.

I absolutely love it. It is easily one of the wedding presents we use the most. I use mainly the slow cooker option but I have used all four functions successfully. To slow cook, I normally brown the meat and onions in a seperate saucepan and then decant all of it and all the vegetables and liquid into the slow cooker and switch it on. The buttons are very easy to use once you have read the manual and because I have used it so much it is second nature to me now. But I have noticed my friends using it and not understanding why it is flashing to begin with so I guess you really do need to read the manual the first time. I set it to cook overnight or sometimes I set it in the morning and it cooks while I am at work. It is nice and big so you can fit a whole chicken in it. It feels a lot safer leaving this cooking than leaving things in the oven while I'm not there.

The rice cooker I find a bit more fiddly. I have to follow the recipe for exactly the right amount of water and rice or some of the rice turns out crispy. You can't make it up like you can with the slow cooker. When I follow the recipe though it makes beautiful rice.

The porridge making function is good for more than just porridge. You can use it to raise the temperature in the cooker and although it only sets for about 10 minutes that is enough to boil or fry something quickly. Also you can use it for making rice pudding out of the rice you have just cooked. It also is a lot less washing up than making porridge or rice pudding in a pan because it is so non-stick.

The steamer function I have used the least but mainly because I don't tend to eat much boiled / steamed veg. The few times I have used it has worked very well.

I am always singing it's praises to people. If we have friends coming round in winter for a weekend I will put a stew with dumplings in it before we go out for the day and when we come back it is all ready for us. It has a keep warm setting that it automatically goes to which is really useful if you are out longer than you intended. I am not sure if you are supposed to do this but several times I have taken the metal dish out of the slow cooker and stuck it under our browning grill on the oven to brown off dumplings or potatoes. It has survived that treatment fine. And the non stick metal dish is very very easy to clean.

Other things I use it for:

* Making chicken / fish / vegetable stock - on the slow cooker setting
* Making mulled wine, first on porridge setting and then on the slow cooker setting - people can help themselves and you don't have to worry about a pan on the stove at a party.
* Keeping curry hot at a buffet, people could help themselves when they arrived.

I have even taken it on a self catering holiday (now I sound really sad) because it can do rice for so many people and can just be plugged in anywhere. All in all, I couldn't wish for a more useful gadget in my kitchen.