At the end of a busy day you are very likely to be tired, hungry and looking forward to sitting down and enjoying a meal. Rather than dashing out for a takeaway or settling for a chilled ready-made meal from a packet, wouldn’t it be great to serve a delicious and nutritious home-cooked meal from your slow cooker?
Whether you live alone or simply find you will be having a solitary night in, cooking can be a chore. Slow cooking is the perfect way to create flavour-packed meals with the minimum effort and fuss. Ideal for soups, casseroles, vegetables and desserts, this method of cooking means you can prepare meals in advance and leave them unattended to cook for as many hours as they need.The drawback with so many slow cooker cookbooks is that most recipes require time-consuming preparation and include pre-frying ingredients such as onions and meat - not something you often feel like doing first thing in the morning, or before going out for the day or off to work.
While the meals in this book make the most of fresh foods, they also take advantage of time-saving ready-prepared ingredients such as garlic and ginger purées (pastes), and frozen vegetables including diced onions, sliced mushrooms and (bell) peppers. The fresh equivalent is also given, so you can use whichever you prefer. Cans and jars of prepared ingredients also feature in the recipes, including cooked beans and pulses, fried onions and ready-made white sauce.
The basic principle behind the slow cooker is that it cooks food slowly at a constant temperature.This has many advantages, one of the greatest being that it develops and enhances the flavour of food, while retaining its texture. It makes even the toughest meat meltingly tender – in fact, the less expensive cuts are better suited to slow cooking. Slow cookers are also environmentally friendly; their low wattage consumes about the same amount of electricity as a light bulb.They can save up to five times the energy of stove-top and conventional oven cooking, making them ideal for those on a budget. The essentials of slow cooking are incredibly simple, but do have a look at the following pages before you start to use the recipes.
All the recipes in this book have been created to use a range of ingredients that are easy to buy on a small scale, so you don’t have to worry about spending a fortune on unwanted food. They are designed for one, but many make two servings - one to serve straight away and one that can be jazzed up for the following day, or frozen for a later date - saving both time and money. There are mouth-watering meals to suit every occasion from light lunches and midweek meals to delectable desserts and indulgent cakes. Solo eating has never been simpler or more enjoyable!