Crockpot | Semantically driven

I recently wrote about my slow cooker and the Margaret Fulton crock pot cookbook. Yesterday I cooked the mushroom meatballs from her crock pot recipe book and despite my trepidation they turned out quite well. I wasn’t sure about the canned mushrooms as they looked very unappetising.

Meatballs in the slow cooker (crock pot)

You can see in the photo that I’ve got my red kidney beans soaking so that I can make a bean mix that I use for nachos and/or tacos. Soaking half a kilo of red kidney beans will eventually give me enough bean mix for four-five lots of nachos for the two of us. Now that I have the slow cooker I cook the bean mix in it because it nearly always used to burn when I did it on the stove top but I don’t have that problem with the slow cooker. See why I love it?

Here’s Margaret Fulton’s mushroom meatballs recipe (with my adjustments in brackets):

Ingredients

500g (1lb) lean minced beef
250g (8oz) minced pork and veal (I used sausage mince)
1 egg
3 tablespoons chopped parsley (I used parsley and oregano as my parsley’s mostly gone to seed)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1.5 cups fresh breadcrumbs
(I added one small chopped onion to meatball mix)

Gravy

240g (8oz) can muchrooms in butter sauce (I think I’d prefer to make my own next time)
1 cup stock
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup dry sherry (I should get some cooking sherry but I read you can also use a bit of vanilla essence which is what I did. It smelt awful at first but worked out okay)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup sour cream

Method

Combine all ingredients for gravy except sour cream in crock pot; stir thoroughly.

Mix all ingredients for meat balls. Shape into walnut size and brown in frypan. Add meat balls to gravy mixture in crock pot, cover and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours, or High 2 to 4 hours.

Fifteen minutes before serving, stir in sour cream, reheat on High. Serve with noodles or boiled rice. We also ate with some steamed broccoli as it doesn’t seem right to have a meal without vegetables.

Serves 6.

It turned out quite well and will do us for a couple of meals and I’ll put the rest into the freezer for another meal.

Margaret Fulton's Crockpot cookbook

When I was growing up in the 70s many of my meals were done in the crockpot (done by mum that is). Now, about 30 years later slow cookers (as they are called now) are making a comeback here and I’m a convert.

A few people I know have bought slow cookers and swear by them. I sort of listened to them and wondered what all the fuss was about and gradually all the talk started sinking in. It sank in so much that I finally went and bought one with a voucher I had from Christmas.

I have certainly got my money’s worth out of it by using it at least once a week and I love it. The main thing I love about it is that once all the ingredients are in the cooker you don’t have to do anything. When I’ve cooked large meals in a saucepan, for instance, I’ve had trouble with some of it sticking to the bottom of the pan but with the slow cooker this doesn’t happen. It’s an absolute breeze to clean.

The other thing I love about it is that I have enough food in it to feed us a few meals so my freezer always has leftovers.

I love it so much I must have told nearly anyone who’ll listen about it. I now have evidence that my talking about my slow cooker has sunk into at least one person because she presented me with Margaret Fulton’s Crockpot cookbook this week. She knows I’m into op-shopping and she also knows I’m into my slow cooker and this book was from the op-shop. For the non-Australian readers, Margaret Fulton is fairly well known here for her recipe books and in fact I have another of hers I found second hand that’s an encyclopedia of food and cookery and has lots of those basic recipes that most recipe books don’t have.

It’s got some fascinating recipes in there. One these recipes I wouldn’t eat if I was desperate the Pressed ox tongue. No thanks.

The great thing about the book is that it talks about adapting your favourite recipes for the crockpot or slow cooker, and did you know that you can cook cakes in a crockpot? Neither did I. I’ve got some experimenting to do thanks to Margaret Fulton and my colleague.

Slow cooker meatballs

Crockpot (slow cooker)