Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Saturday 11 October 2008

Slow Cooker

Last week I went into Hereford for an appointment and popped in to Sainsbury. I spotted that they were selling off their own brand Stainless Steel Slow Cooker for £ 9.98, less than half price.

I had been thinking about getting one recently, in previous years we have had the Aga on all winter so cooking slow food was never a problem, but we only use the Aga now in the very depth of winter or if there is a prolonged power outage as it uses far too much oil and our wallet AND our conscience tell us not to use it.


So a 4.2 litre Crock Pot for less than a tenner seemed like a bargain, so I bought one.

Mid afternoon on Saturday we put in a couple of small lamb shanks from our local butcher Wallers in Ledbury, half a glass of our homemade Damson wine, some stock, shallots and carrots from the garden, and some local celery and button mushrooms.

5 hours and 1 KWh later and it had turned into this....

And when we added some of our beans and spuds, this is what we had for dinner on Saturday night. I can honestly say it was delicious, and we normally eat very well! We thoroughly enjoyed it, along with some more of our home made wine.

I can see us eating a lot of food cooked in the Slow Cooker this winter..........good job we like Casseroles and Stews!

6 comments:

  1. That looks absolutely delicious!! I have a Rosemary Conley slow cooker but have never gotten around to using it as yet.
    I was successfully losing weight when I went up to Scotland with my OH and son for a break and to help nurse my dearly loved father-in-law and sadly to say our goodbyes as he had only two to three weeks to live due to lung cancer... anyway.. sorry about being morbid... I kind of lost the momentum of dieting and have now most annoyingly piled all lost weight back on.... I just cannot get my head around it at the moment. Thus RC slow cooker still in box!!! Maybe I should give it a go..

    Jane xxx

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  2. Delicious! That looks very much like my slow cooker. Now that it's getting cold out I feel like making something hot and substantial.

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  3. Mmm, interesting - I think I'll have to pop down to my local Sainsburys later and see whether they're on sale there too - we've been thinking about buying a slow cooker for a while, but they always seemed a bit pricey. This looks like a bargain though!

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  4. I think our sainsbugs had run out, but I don't ubnderstand why they were selling them off? Still, it was a good buy....Tonight we hare having spare rib chops with apple, leek, carrot, mushrooms and peppers, cooked in home made cider.

    Food miles either our garden OR 5 miles away for the Pork!

    Jane, Tpals, dig out your Slow cookers and get cooking! :-))

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  6. Jane, was very sorry to read your comment about your late Father in law...I listened to The Archers today where a character had a stroke and was quite surprised to be in tears. It reminded me of what happened to my Mum, she had the first of many strokes when I was 10 and it reminded me of finding her on the floor and calling the ambulance....36 years ago, but still it has the power to affect and upset!

    So NEVER apologise for remembering your family who are no longer with you....its the best way IMO , to honour them...by remembering them.

    Hugs to you

    CW xx

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Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

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