Bachelor Cooking With Crock Pots

a slow cooker Oval Crock Pot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My brother has flown the nest and moved into what I can only describe as a bachelor pad, so I'm helping him brush up on his cooking skills so he isn't forced to live on cereal or hang out at my place! I'm a massive supporter of crock pot food preparation. As soon as I purchased my crock pot not too long ago, it's made a huge difference in the standard of my home-cooked dinners on days when I am pressed for time. Let me quickly add up the advantages:

• Cuts down physical preparation time.
• Makes meals more delicious.
• Can't beat that, can you?

Home Cooking Without Slaving

Just imagine you're having one of those "don't want to venture to the store" days: you've got haphazard foodstuff inside the refrigerator, perhaps some frozen chicken breasts, somewhat wilted celery, a clove of garlic clove, perhaps a bag of rice. You've got dinner!

Here's another example: In the early morning you get one pound of inexpensive, low fat stew beef, slice some carrots, potatoes and also a small red onion, add a bullion powder package and include with water. Give it a stir, set the crock pot on low and go to work. When you come home after a long day at work, your house smells incredible, like you have hired a chef and they've got dinner waiting for you! Salt and pepper the stew to taste and enjoy. The remainder of the stew can be refrigerated or frozen to provide 3 or 4 more meals. Stew often tastes better the next day anyway! This dish costs about 12 bucks for the ingredients and five minutes of prep work and gives you 4 or 5 meals! Bachelor's dream? I think so!

Get the Most From Your Pantry

It gets even better: the crock pot's magical talents include things like tenderizing even the roughest meats. The least expensive cuts of beef are generally also the leanest, providing you with all the advantages of consuming red meat without having the extra fat you'll see in the expensive marbled cuts. Slow-cook a tough cut of beef for 8 hours and it will melt in your mouth.

Importantly for the bachelor, a crock pot is a great way to improve cooking skills while keeping it basic and tasty. With a few common spices like basil, paprika and rosemary you will soon figure out which taste best with different meats or vegetables. Experiment with chopping your ingredients larger and smaller. Chili, soup, even stuffed peppers turn out great in a slow-cooker.

Cooking at home is the best way to make sure you eat right, and there's no easier way of creating delicious and healthy food than with the help of a slow cooker. 

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South African Potjiekos

One of my favorite things to make is stew. I know that seems really boring, but it's not! There are so many different things to do when it comes to stew, different types of meat, different vegetables, the choice of stock or a sauce, even the addition of seasonings can really make a huge difference to the flavor. One of my favorite types of stew is called Potjiekos.

I first discovered Potjiekos while traveling in South Africa a few years ago. The dish is traditionally prepared outdoors in a traditional type of cast iron pot with three legs. In fact. the name Potjiekos literally translates to "small pot food". I loved the stew so much that I bought one of the traditional pots to bring home with me (let'snot even talk about the excess baggage fee for a cast iron pot!). It's usually set directly on a fire, but I just set mine on the barbecue and it works just fine!

The dish made it's way to South Africa from the Netherlands in the 17th century where it became popular in small villages because it could be cooked from small amounts of many ingredients. The Voortrekkers would cook Potjiekos on their travels adding whatever wild game they shot to the pot each day. The same pot was used every day, just replacing the bones with new ones and adding more meat to the previous day's leftovers.

This is my recipe for Potjiekos, I don't claim that it is entirely authentic! But, it's my inspired version of this South African dish.

Ingredients

• Cooking oil
• 800g of lamb
• 2 chopped onions
• 5 sliced carrots
• 1 cup of sliced green beans
• 10 pattypan squash
• 250g mushrooms
• 10 baby potatoes (peeled)
• 3 cobs of corn cut into thirds
• 1 bottle of beer
• Chutney

Method

Heat the oil in your heavy pan and fry off the meat and the onions until browned, then add the beer (or red wine if you prefer) and top up with enough water to cover the meat. Leave the meat to simmer for an hour or two until the meat is tender. Add in the potatoes and the corn (and any other veggies which take a long time). Mix the mushrooms and chutney together and layer on top of the other ingredients. Cover the pot and leave to simmer for another 30 minutes. When the veggies are halfway done add in the rest of the mushrooms and the carrots, beans and pattypan in layers on top and continue cooking for another 15 to 20 minutes. Season to taste and serve with rice. 

The secret to great Potjiekos is that you must NEVER stir it! It should come out in layers! Tender juicy meat topped with steamed veggies. Enjoy!!