Down to hEarth

Slow cookers. Faraway daughter found one hiding away on a shelf at her new home in Shanghai and is now curious as to the best ways to utilize this appliance. She has mastered the instant pot, wok, skillet, roasting pan - but now its the slow cooker. She wants to talk about how to make it useful and it took me a couple of days of thinking to get at an answer. Slow cookers are a great tool for two things: Starting a dish early in the day so you can enjoy it later and slow cooking a tough cut of meat into sublime tenderness. Most slow cookers have high or low settings that allow you to cook for a couple of hours or up to eight hours. It can also keep soups, stews, mulled cider warm for as long as you want. Slow cookers were a staple of the pot luck - when you wanted your baked beans to stay warm on the buffet for a couple of hours. Instant pots now do what the slow cooker used to do so well - the long, slow braising of a chuck roast or pork shoulder. Where the slow cooker still shines is ...