Getting acquainted with Big Ears

SO FAR all the recipes I’ve attempted on my slow cooker, Big Ears, have been fairly basic ones – the ones that accompanied the cooker itself.

I suppose their purpose is to familiarise me with the cooker’s uses.

The simple beef stew I made, for example, was to acquaint me with the browning/sealing function of the cooker, as much as anything else.

Then the chicken and white wine casserole demonstrated the need to cook poultry for the shortest time.

Today, I did the simplest dish of all – a boiled ham, a gammon joint cooked in water on low for ten hours.

And oh yes, it was beautifully tender – if fact, it fell apart as I was trying to lift it out of cooking pan.

And yes, it was very tasty, although I think cooking the ham in cider might have made it bit richer.

The trouble is, though, I don’t really feel these recipes are exactly stretching my culinary abilities.

We do have a couple of slow cook books with recipes aplenty, but My Good Lady is insisting that I continue with the included dishes, so that I become fully conversant with all of Big Ears’ little quirks.

Looking ahead, though, I see some more interesting ideas coming up: a Bolognese sauce for example, a Sausage Pot, a Thai beef curry…

There are some dessert ideas, too – but neither MGL nor I are really pudding people, so I might just skip these.