In which GG learns about slow food

This Christmas, darling Glutton Boy gave me a slow cooker. I'd been mithering about buying one for ages but two things had put me off: 1) I am a bit OCD about leaving things on 2) I have a very small kitchen. But on the understanding that slow cookers are designed to be left on for 12 hours I feel relatively comfortable with it. And I've already cooked in it - lamb shanks cooked in pale ale. And delicious it was too.

So this got me thinking about what sort of cook I am - I'm not the sort of cook that has a million hot pans on the go, that when people come round I'm plating up towers in the kitchen. And I don't know anyone else like that either. I am more of a shove-it-all-in-the-slow-cooker-and-pour-myself-a-gin kind of girl. Which is by far the better in my view. How much nicer to spend time with people I've invited than to stress that the souffle hasn't risen properly. Really, who needs that kind of stress?

And a slow cooker lends itself to the sort of cheap and delicious food I love. The mainstay of the Jewish sabbath is a casserole called a cholent. My grandmother cooked this as does my mum and she leaves it in the oven all day. It's a slow one so you don't have to do any work once the sun sets. Brisket, carrots, potatoes, butter beans, stock. Sometimes pearl barley but I find it sucks up all the moisture so not brilliant in some ways. And it is absolutely delicious in its simplicity. Plain, tender and nourishing in all kinds of ways. How lovely to come home from a crap day at work and find a dish of loveliness bubbling away on the counter top. How much would that make you feel that someone was looking after you, even if that someone is really you.

I have loads of people coming over in January as I've just moved house and I am planning a succession of slow-cooked delights. Pig cheeks, a good chilli, a daube of beef, oxtail for the more robust of stomach and adventurous of spirit. And, another blessing for January, a really economical way to cook.

Cheap, tasty, uplifting. Much like GluttonGirl herself.

Much love
GG