All Things Slow Cooker

In this episode of Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel the Body, Mind and Soul, Martha McKinnon and Peter Morrison dive into the world of slow cooking, discussing its versatility, ease of use, and the various recipes that can be created with a slow cooker. They share personal experiences, tips for food safety, and favorite recipes, emphasizing how slow cooking can simplify meal preparation and make cooking enjoyable. The conversation highlights the benefits of using a slow cooker year-round, making it a valuable kitchen tool for busy individuals and families.

All Things Slow Cooker Podcast

Video Transcript

Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel the Body, Mind and Soul. I’m Martha McKinnon from the blog Simple Nourished Living and with me is Peter Morrison, my brother and partner.

Peter Morrison (00:12)
Hello Martha MacKinnon.

Martha McKinnon (00:14)
Hello, Peter Morrison, how are you today?

Peter Morrison (00:17)
I’m good. How are you doing?

Martha McKinnon (00:20)
I’m doing really well. So today we’re going to talk about all things slow cooking. I’m a huge slow cooker fan. I’ve been using the slow cooker on the website for longer than I want to mention probably more than 10 years. And a lot of people have written in asking for slow cooker recipes or some talk around slow cooker. So I thought we would do that today. How does that feel?

Peter Morrison (00:48)
It feels good, because I like it, but I don’t use it as much as I probably could. So I’m always looking for new ideas and new suggestions.

Martha McKinnon (01:07)
Yeah, I guess I like cooking and I like food, but I think I call myself a bit of a lazy cook. And I find that slow cooking works for me. I guess because it’s done ahead, you you sort of think ahead, you plan ahead, you prep ahead and then you just put it in there and it goes about doing what it needs to do. And then you can get on with your day.

Peter Morrison (01:35)
Mm-hmm.

Martha McKinnon (01:36)
I had a little experience in the world of restaurant cooking and that whole like short order, you know, I just I love to watch cooks who cook like that, who’ve got pots and pans and things, you know, going all at once pastas and skillets and ovens and broilers. And that’s just never been me. You know, the whole thing about, the slow cooker is doing its thing. And now I can, you know, put some rice in my rice cooker or I can make a salad while the slow cooker cooks.

I guess I’m not a great multitasker. And so it’s just magical because, you know, by the time I do those other things, I’m not trying to tend to several pots and pans all at once. And so I’ve been using the slow cooker, gosh, and I love it. And so I love to encourage others. And again, it just makes life easier.

Peter Morrison (02:30)
Isn’t there a picture on the website of your first crock pot from like your wedding or engagement party or something like that?

Martha McKinnon (02:37)
I think so, because I did get a crock pot as a wedding shower gift back in 1986. And so it would be vintage. And I found one. It has now since died. It just kind of finally gave out. And but I was able to score one of the same sort of vintage a round one. The crock pot Rival, sort of crock pot brand.

Peter Morrison (03:03)
Rival was the brand, yeah.

Martha McKinnon (03:06)
Rival was the Crockpot brand and it was at a yard sale here last summer. So I was able to score and it was in just impeccable shape. So I’ve got one now that is very much like that old original one. So yeah, so a long time, a long history with slow cooking and there are tons and we can link out to our slow cooker category on our website because we have a lot of slow cooker recipes on the website.

And there’s many things you can do with the slow cooker beyond, you know, everybody thinks maybe soups and chilies and pot roast, but it’s more versatile than you realize. So we can explore a little bit about that. You can even cook, you can roast a chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and it’s not going to be crispy, but it will be fall off the bone tender. And that’s what I love about slow cooking.

It keeps the food typically very moist and tender. And so I love that. It’s great for in these times of, you know, escalating grocery prices. It tends to work really well for cheaper cuts of meat, because again, cooking in moisture, cooking slowly tends to tenderize those cheaper cooks of meat. So that has advantages.

And it’s great for beans. I love to cook dry beans in it. So there’s a lot of versatility beyond just soups, although I’m a huge soup fan. Soups, chilies, stews work well in the slow cooker too.

Peter Morrison (04:39)
I was amazed because I always thought of, before I knew anything about slow cooking, I always thought it was a soup like you were saying, like it just made soups or roasts or something. So I was really amazed when some of the breads that you’ve turned out that are on the on the website.

Martha McKinnon (05:01)
Yeah, yeah, so you can use it to bake. And again, I just I’ve found it fun because it was a way for me to just have fun and to play. And so you can bake in the slow cooker, quick breads, cakes, desserts, crisps and cobblers.

Peter Morrison (05:17)
Do you need any special equipment other than the slow cooker?

Martha McKinnon (05:22)
So it depends on the size of the slow cooker. Sometimes you can just, if you’re doing like a cobbler or a crisp, you can just do it right in the crock of the slow cooker itself. But oftentimes I’ll use another dish inside the slow cooker. You know, if a loaf pan will fit or some other Pyrex type dish inside. You can do even things like cheesecake. Because oftentimes cheesecake, there’s a concept in French cooking called a bain-marie where you’re cooking the pan inside water, which is a much gentler approach to cooking. So you can actually use your slow cooker that way, where you can actually put a little water in it and then put your cheesecake in it, cover it, and just let it cook really lowly and slowly. And it often will cook more easily, evenly than if you tried to do it in the oven. So it can be a fun, versatile tool.

Which has been part of the challenge I think over the years is I find like to not get caught in a rut. You know, it can be helpful to figure out how to make cooking fun. I’m this big fan of with habit change, how do you make it easy? How do you make it enjoyable? How do you have your environment support you? And the slow cooker has just been one of those devices that’s helped make cooking more enjoyable for me.

Peter Morrison (06:41)
Are you, I know we had a recent podcast where we talked about air fryer and how a lot of people want a recipe, but an air fryer is really just a smaller oven that you can really, it’s easy to experiment with. Do you feel as comfortable experimenting with the slow cooker as you do air fryer, or do you feel like you would rather be following a recipe?

Martha McKinnon (07:10)
No, I think again, it’s one of those devices that, what’s the word? It’s just, it’s harder to make mistakes.

Peter Morrison (07:20)
Intuitive?

Martha McKinnon (07:23)
It’s more forgiving. It’s more forgiving, right? Because you’re cooking low and slow in the oven. So you’re kind of, it’s often you’re braising or you’re low cooking. And so it’s very forgiving to cook in it. So I don’t feel like you always need a recipe to cook in it at all.

Sometimes, you could use, I think any of your favorite recipes could be easily transferable to the slow cooker. One thing you might wanna just check, there are lots of, if you just Googled, how do you turn an oven recipe or a stove top recipe into a slow cooking recipe, there’s lots of guides and templates that will tell you. Like if something takes an hour on the stove or in the oven, it’ll tell you it’s going to take, you know, maybe four hours on slow in your slow cooker. So there are those kinds of guides out there to help you.

So the biggest thing would be, how long will it take? And then the other consideration is because it is a closed container, you’re not losing as much steam as you would if you were cooking something on the stove top, you might use less liquid. So that’s the other general consideration that if you’re transferring or translating a recipe from the stove top, use 25% or 30% less liquid so that it’s not too liquidy.

But no, I think that it is forgiving. I think you can take any recipe that you like and make it in the slow cooker. But there are tons of slow cooker recipes out there, too, that you can refer to. We’ve got a ton. And if you just Google something, you’ll find it.

Peter Morrison (09:00)
Now, most, well, I think all slow cookers have, is it low and high or medium? Low and high and some have a warm setting? Are there temperatures that correspond to those settings or is it random?

Martha McKinnon (09:24)
There are temperatures that are supposed to correspond and again, I can’t just name them off the top of my head but if you Google that it’ll tell you like what low is supposed to equate to, what high is supposed to equate to, but you will find variability in the slow cookers. It used to be like the older slow cookers did definitely cook slower and then it was decided that from a food safety perspective, food needed to come up to like a safe temperature within a certain amount of time and so the requirements for slow cookers changed. I’m not exactly sure when, but clearly the slow cookers of today are not as slow as the slow cookers when they first came out in the 70s.

So that’s a consideration too. If your recipe may tell you that it takes 10 hours and maybe it did back with those really old slow cookers, but it probably is going to cook a lot faster and maybe it’s going to be done in six or eight hours now.

Again, your slow cooker may cook faster or slower than somebody else’s, so you have to kind pay attention to check on the food occasionally just to make sure that it’s not getting overdone. And there a lot of more sophisticated slow cookers now where they’re more digital. They’re just not flip a button low and high. You can program them. You can program them for so many hours, and then they’ll flip to warm, which can be helpful with some of the modern ones.

And some of them now have, you can actually cook, you can actually do your pre-cooking or your sautéing of your maybe ground meat or your onions right in the device because it’s not ceramic. It’s more sort of tough, usually like a Teflon metal. And that was the Ninja puts out a product. And the InstantPots have a slow cooking setting too, whereby you can do your pre-cooking and then set it to slow cook.

Peter Morrison (11:30)
Mm-hmm. Is that all because of the ceramic insert? You can’t do that in the old ones?

Martha McKinnon (11:35)
Yeah, it just doesn’t get hot enough to do the pre-saute. So if you have one of the original crock pots, typically if you’re having to pre-cook your onions or brown your meat or anything, then you’d need to do that in a skillet and then transfer it into the crock of the slow cooker for the most part.

Peter Morrison (11:52)
You had mentioned food safety earlier and I know we’ve had people write in because there are there’s at least one recipe on our site that uses your two ingredient Italian chicken uses frozen chicken breasts and marinara. So you had mentioned food safety and I know some people are concerned about or people have written in expressing concern about cooking from frozen. So what’s what’s your take on that?

Martha McKinnon (12:20)
Yeah, the food safety people would say you shouldn’t do it.

Peter Morrison (12:28)
Okay. Even with the modern technology of slow cookers?

Martha McKinnon (12:32)
Yeah, and again, there’s been a lot more written around, you know, food safety in these days and times. And I guess I play a little fast and loose because I’ve been fortunate enough not to get sick, but the food safety people would say that you shouldn’t start anything from frozen, where you will find old recipes where people did and do do it. So if you are concerned…

Peter Morrison (12:55)
And the reason is the reason that it takes too long?

Martha McKinnon (13:00)
Yeah, so the theory is that, you know, all protein has like bacteria and that there’s a safe zone in cooking whereby the bacteria are not, they’re getting killed, they’re not proliferating, they’re not multiplying. And so, and that range of safety is, of the food itself, I think you’re taking me back to my food safety class, which would have been a long time ago – I think it’s 40F to 140F. So there’s this moderate range. That’s why you don’t want foods sitting out like you don’t want mayonnaise-y type salads sitting out on the counter for anything over two hours. It’s not cold enough. It’s just a zone for the multiplication of the bacteria. And so if you’re really concerned about food safety, then you wouldn’t start anything from frozen.

You would make sure that it was thawed before you started.

So we should probably update our recipe.

Peter Morrison (14:06)
Or at least put that disclaimer in.

Martha McKinnon (14:10)
And put that disclaimer on it. Yeah, cause sometimes some people are willing to pay play a little faster and looser. So there should be a disclaimer just to say if that is a concern, you know, always start with your defrosted, not frozen meat.

Peter Morrison (14:25)
Mm-hmm. Now what about like, I guess this might only be an issue if you’re baking or maybe if you’re doing, I don’t know, a rice dish or something. But a lot of time, well, I think the nature of slow cooking is condensation is going to build up on the lid of it. So I mean, should you do anything to or is there anything you can do to prevent that or is it necessary to prevent that?

Martha McKinnon (14:51)
So, it’s only going to be a concern with baking or something where you don’t want it dripping back into you. So it’s part of that. Part of slow cooking is the fact that it is condensating and dripping back in to keep whatever you’re cooking moist. But if that dripping is a concern, there are things you can do. You can just some people and I think we’ve had suggestions like this. If you just if you just like some people say, put a little chopstick under the lid so that you create a way for the steam to escape and it will still cook.

So you just create a little way for it to escape or you can cover. I’ve seen some recipes that say if you’re going to be baking, then you put your bread in the slow cooker, cover it with some parchment paper or wax paper and then put the lid on. Now you’re ready and just be careful because oftentimes when you’re removing the lid so that it doesn’t drip back down in. So there are ways that you can eliminate that condensation dripping back down into a baked good that you wouldn’t want to get wet.

Peter Morrison (16:00)
Mm-hmm.

Martha McKinnon (16:02)
I think we have a lot I’m going to just… sorry.

Peter Morrison (16:06)
I was just gonna say, do you have any personal favorite things to make, I know you mentioned soups and stews, but like actual recipes, like I know you’ve made frittatas.

Martha McKinnon (16:18)
Well, from the website, some of the things that we can link out to that have been personal favorites, there’s one called Goddess Chicken. It’s four ingredients that I love. It’s basically, I think it’s made with chicken breasts, but I tend to use chicken thighs more now because I feel like they stay more tender, they’re more flavorful, but either would work. And it’s just artichoke hearts, so a can of artichoke hearts, some sun-dried tomatoes and some of Annie’s Goddess Seasoning, which has a really lemony tahini kind of, it’s a really lovely dressing. And that was a recipe that I came across for an, it was an oven recipe that I turned into a slow cooking recipe. So that’s been a long favorite.

There’s a recipe that I love personally (Chicken with Beer and Herbs de Provence). I’ve made it many times and it’s basically with Herbes de Provence, just that blend of French herbs and a bay leaf and a bottle of beer with chicken thighs. And that I make over and over again, very versatile. It’s a crowd pleaser when I do it.

You know, Salsa Chicken is just so versatile and so simple. So you just put your chicken in the crock pot and then top it with salsa. If you want real Mexican flavor, sometimes I’ll take some taco seasoning and sprinkle that on the chicken before adding the salsa. But again, now you have this shredded Mexican-like chicken that you can again use in all kinds of different ways in tacos and burritos and enchiladas and, you know, in soup, in burrito bowls, on a salad.

So those are three immediate favorites, you know, that come to mind.

I have a secret ingredient. Well, because it shows up against a lot of our recipes too. And it’s like the magic thickener in the slow cooker and it’s a minute or instant tapioca. So there it is, you can find it in the baking aisle, you know, with the puddings and so forth. And what makes this cool is that you can add it at the beginning, usually a tablespoon or two or two to three tablespoons in the, whatever you’re making. And I use it quite often as the thickener because it will, it’ll hold up to that long and slow cooking, where if you tried to add cornstarch, which is another thickener, it just wouldn’t hold up to that many hours of cooking.

If you don’t want to use tapioca, if you don’t have it and you find that your dish at the end needs thickening, the other thing you could do is make what’s called a slurry. So you just mix one or two tablespoons of cornstarch with cold water to create a thin paste. And then you pour that into your sauce in the slow cooker, stir it around and give it 10 minutes or so on high to bubble up and that’ll thicken at the end. But then again, that’s that’s where the lazy cook comes in. I love the fact that adding the tapioca in the beginning acts as this natural thickener that will just hold up to that many hours of slow cooking.

Peter Morrison (19:27)
So, it sounds like slow cookers are not just fall and winter devices, right?

Martha McKinnon (19:34)
No, I mean, we have recipes on the site where you can do corn on the cob in the slow cooker. You can do various vegetable dishes, bean dishes. And the thing about it is, it doesn’t heat up the kitchen. So a lot of people will use them, and sometimes people will plug them into like a porch or a garage, even though it’s very little heat. They don’t want any heat. So they’ll use them. People take them, you know, in their RVs camping if you’ve got electricity.

Some people, when they travel with kids, they’ll take them on vacation, even in the hotel room, to come back and have something ready so you’re not having to go out to dinner, especially when you have young kids where it can be painful to go out to dinner with them. So yeah, so they’re very versatile.

Peter Morrison (20:28)
Well, yeah, I’ve kind of gotten away from slow cooking recently. I’ve been, you know, more Air Fryer, some microwave, Instant Pot, but I want to get reacquainted. Yeah.

Martha McKinnon (20:43)
Well, just, yeah, I just encourage you. Yeah, because I think in our last discussion, we were talking about the fact that meal planning is a challenge, because you don’t always really know what you’re going to want to eat. But again, if you take that kind of just in time approach and you decide what you’re going to have tomorrow, and then you just load your slow cooker early in the day, then you know it’s figured out for you.

Dinner’s kind of figured out and it takes a lot of the pressure off. So I think for folks who struggle with that, you know end of the day, what am I going to eat? They feel overwhelmed with figuring that out. I think that’s what makes it magical because it forces you to figure it out earlier. But once you do it and you figure it out and you do the work and you load it, you know, then you’re done and you’ve got the rest of the day just to attend to your work, tend to your play and and have dinner sort of mostly ready and waiting for you.

You just have to add your, a lot of times it’s a one pot meal too in the slow cooker. So it depends, but it just minimizes that last minute rush of what am I gonna eat? It takes a lot of that pressure off. So that’s why I’m a fan because I think that that’s, it sort of plays into why we struggle with our weight often is that, we wait until we’re hungry and we don’t know what we’re going to do. So that’s when we resort to calling for pizza, calling for Uber Eats, stopping through the drive-through, picking up the fried chicken. And so the slow cooker is just such a healthier way to take the pressure off and have dinner figured out without having to resort to those quick and easy solutions that tend to be expensive and caloric.

Peter Morrison (22:33)
Well, very good. I’m excited now to pull out my slow cooker and play a little bit again.

Martha McKinnon (22:41)
I think that’s why these conversations are so cool because I think you do get re-inspired in the conversation. In fact, I signed on to Weight Watchers virtual meeting yesterday where I didn’t know what the topic was going to be, but several times a week, they’re doing what they call food favorites. And I signed in yesterday and it was all about, it was two workshop, coaches talking about tofu and there were about 60 participants. So in addition to learning from the coaches, you also got the feedback from members and that got me really excited about tofu because I don’t tend to know a lot about it and but I want to because I want to play with more plant-based. And so so I think that that’s what these conversations can really help with.

And so I’m excited, you’re going to pull out your slow cooker and I’m going to shop for an experiment with tofu in the air fryer. So cool.

Peter Morrison (23:52)
Well, excellent. Thanks everyone. If you’ve enjoyed this video, we’d love for you to share it. Like, subscribe will help us out to grow this channel and reach more people and help get them inspired too. So have a great day and we’ll see you next time.

Martha McKinnon (24:09)
Bye bye, take care.