Hullo!
saw in the other thread a few of us are a bit dubious about what food companies actually put in our grub, not just talking about take aways either its the convenience stuff, the tv dinners and even the "healthy" options have salt and stuff that you might not use in them.
A couple of months ago me and the bf saw a crock pot (sometimes called a slow cooker) in a hardware shop on special offer so we thought what the hay and brought it, its like the one in the pic and cost about £25-.
The really great thing is its already paid for its self and saved us a huge ammount of money (and what with me being back at school now we kind of need to save all we can) for making a whole pot full of stew or soup you get 7 or 8 tubs (you know the plastic one from the chinese? about that size) full to freeze so thats dinner for a week... oh aye you kind of need a freezer too.
Its really great because you just wack in all your ingreadients at the beginning, put a jug of water/stock whatever on top wack the lid on and leave it. stir it occassionally but its not massively important as long as you have enough liquid in it it wont burn, (might boil over if you put too much in lol) but the thing is you can leave it cooking while you go off out it takes anywhere from 4 to 9 hours depending if your cooking meat (omg sooo tender!) and if you do use meat you can use the cheap cuts because it cooks for so long it really does go all tender and juicy.
Also you can make stuff with lentils, dried peas, barley etc and you dont have to soak it over night first.
Basically what im saying is if you spend a fortune on tv dinners just buy one of these. every few weeks me or the bf will make a batch of stews up and it works out at about 70p a meal, you know exactly whats gone in it and because its cooked under a lid all the flavour and vitimins stay in it.
anyhoo hope this helps someone and if you want any recipies etc ill post some because they are really yummy.
saw in the other thread a few of us are a bit dubious about what food companies actually put in our grub, not just talking about take aways either its the convenience stuff, the tv dinners and even the "healthy" options have salt and stuff that you might not use in them.
A couple of months ago me and the bf saw a crock pot (sometimes called a slow cooker) in a hardware shop on special offer so we thought what the hay and brought it, its like the one in the pic and cost about £25-.
The really great thing is its already paid for its self and saved us a huge ammount of money (and what with me being back at school now we kind of need to save all we can) for making a whole pot full of stew or soup you get 7 or 8 tubs (you know the plastic one from the chinese? about that size) full to freeze so thats dinner for a week... oh aye you kind of need a freezer too.
Its really great because you just wack in all your ingreadients at the beginning, put a jug of water/stock whatever on top wack the lid on and leave it. stir it occassionally but its not massively important as long as you have enough liquid in it it wont burn, (might boil over if you put too much in lol) but the thing is you can leave it cooking while you go off out it takes anywhere from 4 to 9 hours depending if your cooking meat (omg sooo tender!) and if you do use meat you can use the cheap cuts because it cooks for so long it really does go all tender and juicy.
Also you can make stuff with lentils, dried peas, barley etc and you dont have to soak it over night first.
Basically what im saying is if you spend a fortune on tv dinners just buy one of these. every few weeks me or the bf will make a batch of stews up and it works out at about 70p a meal, you know exactly whats gone in it and because its cooked under a lid all the flavour and vitimins stay in it.
anyhoo hope this helps someone and if you want any recipies etc ill post some because they are really yummy.
