The Fabulous Slow-Cooker!

Slow cookers, also known as crockpots, are one of the greatest kitchen gadgets. It allows you to make a delicious, healthy meal without actually being present, making it one of the most useful items parents can own.
If you find yourself in a time-crunch often (what parent doesn't?) and feel you have to choose between providing your children healthy meals daily or getting everything done, this will be the answer to your prayers.

For those of you new to slow cooking, I'll explain what it is and some of it's many benefits. A slow cooker is an electrical cooking appliance invented in the early 1970's that cooks on your countertop. It works by heating up to and maintaining a low temperature for an extended period of time, so that it is safe to leave unattended. It usually has only two temperature settings (high and low) for cooking and a "keep warm" setting. The gorgeous slow cooker pictured above is the All-Clad Stainless-Steel 6-1/2-Quart Slow Cooker with digital control panel, which allows for more precise cooking.

Slow cookers come in a variety of sizes and styles, and feature removeable porcelain or ceramic cooking inserts that you can bring to the table to serve the food in. Many, like the All-Clad slow cooker featured here, even have a timer so that it stops cooking at a pre-set time. I used to have one that was more old-fashioned and I had to manually turn it off when I returned home from work or running errands, requiring me to be home around the time I would want it to stop cooking, but now I have the All-Clad slow cooker that is digital and programmable up to 26 hours:


All-Clad is known for high-quality appliances (almost all my cookware is from All-Clad), and this slow cooker is no exception- it's absolutely wonderful. Not only does it have a large oval-shaped 6-1/2-quart ceramic insert (ideal size to make a family dinner) but with the control panel, I don't have to return home to turn it off. It allows me to program the slow cooker to start and turn off over a 26-hour period, so I can set it the night before for the next day's schedule. It also features a glass lid so I can see the food cooking, and stainless-steel housing, which not only looks beautiful but lasts a long time. My manual starter slow cooker went kaput on me within a couple of years, and part of the reason was the lower quality exterior.

Benefits of the All-Clad slow cooker include:

♥ Freedom from actually cooking. You add all the ingredients to the pot before you head out for the day, put on the cover, and turn it on (if you have a manual slow cooker) or leave it to self start (if you have an automatic slow cooker like the All-Clad slow cooker featured here), and go! A slow cooker on low cooks at 200 degrees, and gives you at least six to ten hours of freedom, depending on what you are making, to do other things...Imagine turning it on at 8 am before work, and being able to return home at 6 pm to a fully cooked meal!

♥ The food is delicious, juicy and tender. All the juices stay in one pot while it cooks, marinating the meat and enhancing the flavor of all the ingredients. Less expensive cuts of meat benefit from slow cooking, being more tender than they would otherwise be.

♥ Ease of cleaning...only one pot was used, only one pot has to be cleaned.

♥ The aroma of the cooking foods fills the house, but the heat does not. When you return home, your home smells delicious and welcoming- one of my favorite aspects of the slow cooker.

♥ Preheating is not necessary. Stirring is not necessary. They aren't even recommended.

♥ It cooks various foods at once. You put everything in it- the meat, the veggies, the beans, the potatoes, the entire meal.

♥ One appliance for making dinner saves room- it is always on my counter, and using the All-Clad slow cooker allows me to have a lot of counter space that would otherwise be taken up by pots and pans:


♥ The food is healthy! The vitamins are not boiled away with water that is spilled out, and you don't have to resort to fast food or take-out to have food for your family at the end of a busy day. You pick exactly what your family eats.

♥ Versatility- with the slow cooker, you can make a wide variety of foods, from chicken and lasagna to soups and chilis.

♥ If you want to use it for multiple meals a day, you can set it to high and cook lunch and dinner in the slow-cooker. On high, meals are usually ready between 2 1/2- 3 hours.

♥ Allows you to multi-task. If you want to vacuum while the food is cooking, if you want to prepare a cake, if you want to leave your home to go to the bank, post office, etc, if you want to play with your children, you can. Because the All-Clad slow cooker features a timer to turn it off as well, you don't have to rush home either. The slow cooker turns to the "keep warm" setting so your food stops cooking but doesn't get cold.

♥ Allows you to make tasty food, even if you can't cook. There is no technique to using a slow cooker.

♥ Food doesn't burn. As a result of using low heat over a long period of time, the food can't char or burn. There is no risk of fire. With traditional slow cookers, if the food cooks for an extra hours it may start to dry out (not burn), but the digital control panel of the All-Clad prevents this from happening by stopping at a pre-set time, making it a better choice than manual slow cookers.

The All-Clad Stainless-Steel 6-1/2-Quart Slow Cooker comes with a recipe book filled with delicious ideas, but I wanted to share one of my favorite recipes anyway that is not included in this pamphlet, which shows how incredibly easy it is to use a slow cooker to make a divinely tasting meal for your family:

Honey Mustard Chicken


Ingredients

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup honey

Place the chicken in a crockpot. Mix honey and mustard together and pour over chicken. Cook on high for 3 and 1/2 hours or low for about 7 hours. Serve over rice and with your favorite side.

(yep, that is really it!)

I like to serve this with broccoli (which can be tossed in to the crock pot near the end of the cooking time so you don't have to use another pot). My family loves it! I prefer to buy all organic ingredients, which is the beauty of slow cooking- I pick the foods my family eats, and the quality of those foods, but feel like it is served to me at a restaurant, because of the lack of work involved and the fabulous taste.

Slow cookers are making a strong comeback because of the many benefits. If you have children and want to be able to give your family a home-cooked dinner everyday, check out the All-Clad Stainless-Steel 6-1/2-Quart Slow Cooker on Amazon...it's available at a great price with free shipping.

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