Carrot and Parsnip Soup

What to do with some past-their-best root veg?  Make soup!  (hoorah for the StarChef :o))  I had a huge parsnip and some carrots to use up this time...

 

Carrot and Parsnip Soup (serves 4; 126kcals, 18.5g carbs, 2.6g protein, 5g fat, 5.7g fibre, 2 portions fruit & veg):-

• 1 enormous or 2 medium parsnips
• 1 fat garlic clove
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• about 250g carrots
• 15ml extra virgin olive oil
• ½ Tsp Thyme
• 1 medium onion

Roughly chop the veg, an onion and slice up the fat garlic clove.

Sweat the onion and garlic in some olive oil and add the vegetables and thyme, mixing through thoroughly.

Add made-up stock (using 1 litre of water) and cook on a low heat for an hour, minimum.  (I use the "soup" setting on my JML StarChef jobbie which uses a low and consistent heat, having used the "vegetables - fry" setting to sweat the onion and garlic - only 1 pan to wash!)

Blend everything with a hand blender.  Heat and serve or portion up and chill for later.

It's really smooth and creamy.  I'll be using this as a hot lunch with a roasted chicken breast either on the side or as a snack later in the afternoon for a protein boost as this is quite a low protein recipe for my liking.

Buffalo stew - a high protein meal in a bowl

Buffalo is becoming a lot easier to come by in the UK, thanks to farms like Laverstoke Park.  I was initially introduced to buffalo by Alternative Meats, but now there are larger home delivery grocery companies like Abel and Cole that stock and deliver it to your door.

As meats go, buffalo is extremely high protein as a percentage of the total kcal payload.  Comparing average lean beef braising steak with the Laverstoke Park buffalo braising steak:-

                           Beef    Buffalo
kcals/100g         126.3    95.0
Protein                 23.0    21.7
Fat                         3.8    0.7
Carbohydrate        0.0    0.4
% protein             68.8    91.8
% fat                    31.2    6.7
% carbohydrate     0.0    1.6

As you can see, bang for buck, buffalo gives you a heck of a lot more protein for your kcals.  There are also differences in the micronutrients, primarily B12 and iron, but they seem to vary more depending on the feed of the livestock and grass-fed seems to mostly show improved levels of desirable micronutrients than grain-fed.  Lots of research out there on the Internets...

On with the recipe!  And yet again, using the Star Chef is a win in terms of minimising washing up and attentiveness in the kitchen.  Browning and cooking all in the same pot and you can leave it to do the slow cooking thing and not worry about drying out, over-cooking or sticking to the bottom of the pot.  (if only there was a better mechanism for getting the pot out of the device... that's the only annoying bit)

Buffalo stew (serves 4;  395 kcals,  57g protein, 6g fat, 18g carbs, 3g fibre, 1 portion fruit & veg):-

• 1kg good quality cubed buffalo braising steak (beef will do fine as a substitute)
• 30g plain flour (wholemeal)
• 15ml extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 2 large carrots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp tangy jam (cherry, apricot, plum - not raspberry or strawberry)
• 200ml red wine
• 400ml beef stock (made from a good quality cube is fine)
• fresh rosemary
• fresh thyme

 
Peel and slice the carrots, onion and garlic.  And finely chop the herbs.

Add oil to a non-stick pan, heat gently and soften the onion and garlic.

Add the cubed meat and brown.

Add the flour and jam and stir to coat the meat.  Then add the stock, herbs and carrots and cook on a low heat for 2-4 hours.

Serve with root vegetables (celeriac, sweet potato and parsnips go particularly well), either in chunks or mashed/pureed.

BTW the mash here is celeriac vanilla puree.  Recipe to follow as it's -stunning-!

Tasty lunchies and chin-ups

I've been having lots of fun with the Star Chef and the wide-mouthed Thermos  since I got them and it's SO NICE to have home-made, tasty, hot, nutritious lunches!  Seriously!  The latest one was a spiced soup of parsnips and apple:-

Serves 4 for lunches (approx. 200kcals per portion, 27g carb, 4g protein, 8g fat, 3 portions F&V):-

Ingredients:

• 500-600g Parsnips
• 1 Medium English Apple
• 2 Medium Onion, Chopped
• 15ml Groundnut or other flavourless oil
• 1 Tsp Cumin Seeds
• 1 Tsp Coriander Seeds
• 1 Tsp Powdered Turmeric
• 2 Cloves Garlic, Minced
• 1 Tsp Ground Ginger
• 1.25 litres vegetable stock
• 4 Tbps half fat crème fraîche

Method:

• Toast the coriander and cumin seeds then grind them with a pestle and mortar.
• Heat the oil in a saucepan, then add the onions and soften for about 5 minutes before adding the garlic.
• Cook for another 2 minutes, then add the ground spices, along with the turmeric and ginger, stir and cook gently for a few more minutes.
• Chop the parsnips into 1 inch chunks.
• Add the parsnips to the saucepan, stir well to coat with the spices and oils, then pour in the stock.
• Season and simmer for half an hour with the lid off, then half an hour with the lid on.
• When the soup has been simmering for an hour, remove it from the heat, and use a hand blender to make it smooth - leave a few chunks if you'd like to.
• When you're ready to serve it, either now or after chilling/freezing into portions, peel the apple and grate it into the soup. Simmer the soup for 3-4 minutes/reheat in the microwave/slow cooker, decant into bowls and add a small dollop (15g) creme fraiche and grind over some black pepper to serve.

I did all of the cooking steps in my Star Chef, first on "fry" mode for the onions, garlic and spices, then on "soup/stew" mode once the stock was added.  Only one pan to dirty, that way.

I'm trying to wind things back a bit this week after last week's huge exercise haul and the end of the week with a dodgy innards.  So, I've cycled into work once and gymmed once so far (gymming and cycling home tomorrow) but the gymmage has gone a bit hybrid now, mixing two routines for a bit of variety:-

• Warm up - 500m on L7 on the rower (01:55/500m pace)
• Squats on the Smith machine - 3x10, Olympic bar plus 35kg
• Chin ups using the Smith machine for a bar - 3x4, bodyweight
• Squat and overhead swing - 3x10, 20kg dumb-bell - superset A
• Reverse crunch with leg raise - 3x15 slowly - superset A
• Walking lunges with kettlebell - 3x20, 24kg kettlebell
• Squat, one-arm clean and jerk - 3x20, 14kg dumb-bell

And today my abs and pecs are saying "HI!" quite loudly :o)

But seriously!  12 chin-ups!  OK, they were in 3 sets of 4 and apart from the first one in each set they weren't completely from hanging, but I'm still really really pleased with them!  I fully intend to get a photo of me doing some in my new "Strong is the new skinny" tank vest when it arrives :o)

Fluffy white rice

Ohyes, I have cracked the rice doohickey setting on the Star Chef!  It was tricky to get the amount of water right for a small amount of rice but the third time was the charm.  For 2 people on a lower-carb diet, 100g rice and 280ml water is -perfect-.

And I made a rose veal stroganoff with the rice:-

• 2x rose veal escalopes
• 100g half fat creme fraiche
• 1tsp smoked paprika
• 1x medium onion
• 250g chestnut mushrooms
• 10ml extra virgin olive oil
• 15ml cognac
• 1tsp freshly ground black pepper
• salt to taste

Slice the veal into strips.  Chop the onion roughly.  Slice the mushrooms.  Heat the oil in a non-stick pan and add the onions.  Cook until golden and soft, then add the veal strips and cook until the veal has turned colour on the outside.  Add the mushrooms and paprika and cook until the mushrooms are soft and juicy.  Add the cognac and creme fraiche, season with the pepper and salt and cook through until the alcohol has come off the cognac (lean over the pan and sniff, once you can do that without your eyes stinging/feeling sensitive, it's done).   Serve over fluffy, white rice.

Rose veal is particularly good as the calves are free to roam and not shut up in crates.  Also veal tends to be leaner than the usual beef cuts you get.

One of -those- weeks

Don't forget the giveaway! Comment on that post before the end of 12th November to be in the running to win.

I've been a bit quiet this week. This is mostly because it's been one of -those- weeks. Up at 6am every day, cycled in and out to work Monday and Tuesday, in on Wednesday for a full day offsite meeting on Wednesday followed by not cycling home, then cycling home Thursday and in and out on Friday. Gymmed on Monday, missed the Wednesday session due to being away, no replacement session on Thursday due to a lack of towels at the gym so took a towel on Friday to get a second session in - which was fabulous!(*) Meanwhile I've been in the office/work 8am to at least 6pm every day this week. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired and I've not had much chance to do anything except commute and work.

So, food has suffered a little in the evenings. Though we've not succumbed to a takeaway so far, Thursday night's dinner was a couple of toasted bagels with poached eggs, chorizo, cream cheese and Marmite (not all on the same bagel!) because I'm a bit sick of cooking at the moment and I'd not got anything out in the morning as we'd planned to go out and changed our minds during the day.

I did have some fun with the Star Chef again this week. This week's experiment was baked potatoes...

6 hours on the "soup/stew" setting, having cut into them, stuffed the cuts with sliced garlic, rubbed the skins with olive oil and salt, and they were soft all the way through without being mushy. I do want to see if I can find a way to get the skins a bit drier though. Maybe a different setting? It'd help if I knew what temperatures the different settings related to as I'd like to try the "bake" setting but I'm not sure how hot that gets. Worth another go next week I think.  But again, it's the convenience of being able to set the timer and actually have baked potatoes that's just brilliant.  We've not had them in ages 'cause they just take too long to cook in the evening.


* - not only did I do 3 unassisted chin-ups in a row, I did 5 in total with some rest in between.  Also, my trainer was doing his training session at the same time with some of the same exercises, so we ended up doing them pretty much together.  My 3 sets of 10 each side one-arm, squat clean and jerk with 12kg, 14kg, 14kg vs. his at 24kg, 26kg, 30kg... that one was -fun-!

Good lunches are on the way

The combination is finally here; the Star Chef along with a wide-mouthed Thermos and I'm sorted for hot lunches.  Finally!

So, the idea is to set the Star Chef to cook or re-heat something overnight to put into the thermos in the morning so I can have hot food at work through the winter.  I've got lots of stuff in the freezer ready to go and loads of ideas for soups, stews and small-bite casseroles.  Salads?  Pah!  6.45 this morning saw the decanting of the soup I put on last night (2x tins of Marrowfat peas, including the water, blended with a hand blender and a pack of sliced ham chopped into it with a bit more water to top it off - makes 2x good lunches) into the Thermos.  It was a tiny bit messy and I think I'd be better off pouring than ladling next time.  Come lunch time (after 1pm), the soup was very much warm enough to be good.  Not piping hot or mouth burny, but plenty plenty warmth enough for a good lunch.  We're not allowed a microwave at work, so this is pretty much the only way I'm happy with that I can get a hot lunch where I know what's in it (places like "pod" are good at giving an ingredients list that's clean, but...), plus I object to the prices you end up paying in The City for prepared food.

Hurrah for technology and simplicity both!

Lamb with apricots, lemon and cinnamon

This recipe was in the previous post, but now that I've tasted it I think it deserves to be properly presented.  It's really rather good:-

Lamb with apricots, lemon and cinnamon (serves 4; about 300kcals each, 25g protein, 21g carb, 13.5g fat):-

• 400-450g lamb neck fillet (cubed)
• 6-8 dried apricots (cut in half)
• 2 carrots (thickly sliced)
• 1 parsnip (thickly sliced/roughly cubed)
• 2 medium onions (chopped roughly)
• 3 large cloves garlic (sliced thickly)
• 2 stock cubes
• the peel of most of 1 lemon (use a veg peeler to get wide strips)
• 1 cinnamon stick (snapped in half)
• 1 flat tbsp plain flour
• 600ml water

Prepare the ingredients as above, dump it all into a slow cooker.  Cook for at least 3 hours.  Fish out the bits of cinnamon stick before serving with couscous.

Being tormented

...by the Star Chef!  Damned thing!

This morning, I stuck some lamb neck fillet (cubed - 400g), carrot (2x sliced), onion (2x medium, chopped roughly), garlic (3 large cloves, sliced thickly), stock cubes (x2), lemon peel (most of a lemon's peel), halved dried apricots (7), parsnip (1x sliced), cinnamon stick (snapped in half), flour (1 flat tbsp) and water (600ml) in the slow cooker and set it to be ready at 7pm so it can sit, keeping warm until we want it.  And went out to a conference for the day.

Yes, I had breakfast before heading out (Total Greek yoghurt with MP Max protein and some fruit compote) and I took a punnet of Graze "Americas Nut Mix" with me in case the snacks were bad, and ohboy was I glad of that!  The breakfast reception was tea/coffee and pastries.  I had 2x coffees.  Then the coffee break was tea/coffee and chocolate chip cookies.  I had 1x tea.  Lunch was frickin' ages away, so I had some of those nuts shortly after the tea break.  Lunch was at 1pm!  And, as the session I was in ended a few minutes after the other two on at the same time, those in the session I was in had to wait ages for any food.  And lunch was teeny tiny bowls of rice or noodles and cabbage or prawns (ha! I say prawns, I got two minuscule prawns in my bowl!), no more than a couple of flat tablespoons full of food in each bowl.  I had two bowls.  Then there was chocolate brownies and coffee/tea.  Guess what?  Yep!  I had tea.  No brownie.  Then back to the sessions at 2pm and I tucked into the rest of my nuts at 3.  Two small glasses of wine at the drinkies after the session and home by 6.30pm to be met by The Smell.

Thank you very much Star Chef!  For filling the house with the most -incredible- smell of lamb and cinnamon and general nommage!  I'm -STARVING-!  And it's too early to eat dinner, but all I can think of is the fabulous smell.  *whimper*

It's pretty much the kitchen sink

...er, without actually being a kitchen sink.  Though the removable parts are easy to clean ;o)

I'm talking about this here new toy I have - the JML Star Chef Deluxe.

As it says on the Weight World web site "The JML Star Chef is a 5-in-1 cooker that allows you to steam, boil, slow-cook, fry or bake. The large capacity, non-stick bowl gives you enough space to cook up a large meal for the whole family.".  And it really is very versatile.

The first thing I cooked in it was some salmon fillets.  I was initially worried that they'd not be crispy, given that the lid of the cooker is closed during cooking which I thought would result in a build up of steam, stopping the fillets from getting crunchy.  That just didn't happen though.  The salmon came out really nice, flavour nicely kept in and steam let out without stinking up the house and setting off the smoke alarm.  You see, I love pan fried salmon fillets, but whenever we cook them, the house reeks of smoked salmon for days afterwards and during cooking our extremely over-sensitive smoke alarms -will- go off if the kitchen door is opened even a crack during cooking.  You only have to think about using the toaster and the bloody things go nuts!  So it was a much less stressful experience pan frying this way.

The next try-out was a test of the timer and slow-cook facility - a casserole of sausages.  And I got it wrong.  I didn't read the manual and assumed the Star Chef wasn't as clever as it really is.  Wanting dinner to be cooked by about 7pm and the casserole to be cooked for 4.5 hours, I set the cooking time to 4.5 hours, the "preset" to 06:00 and pressed "start".  When I got home... it hadn't done any cooking.  The display still read "06:00".  Hm.  Checking the manual educated me that the preset is the actual clock time you want the food to be finished cooking.  Argh!  So it would finish at 6am the next day!  I got it right the next day and we had a really tasty sausage casserole.  Even better, I had mine around 8pm and left half in the Star Chef on its "keep warm" mode for Mr TOTKat when he got home.  Nicely hot sausage casserole for him two hours after I'd had mine.

So, the manual.  The manual is quite sketchy, to be honest.  I think that's maybe why I didn't bother checking it with respect to the "preset" setting.  It tells you how to set the clock and gives a few examples of how to use the menus, but isn't detailed and doesn't explain each setting at all.  I think that could result in people using it incorrectly and not getting the best out of it, but maybe I'm not crediting most people with as much common sense as I think it needs to operate it without a more comprehensive manual.  Perhaps there was a good amount of user acceptance testing, but it doesn't feel that way.  Apart from messing up with the preset once so far, I don't seem to have gone far wrong and given how versatile the menus and functions are, I'm sure that there is plenty of scope to make a right pig's ear of it.

Anyway.  I then tried rice.  And got the amount of water wrong when I scaled the recipe down from a huge amount of rice to a manageable amount for two.  So I got rice that was crunchy on the bottom, a bit dry and a layer of thin, crispy starch on the base.  Rice needs another go then.

Stew time!

Beef stew for four healthy appetities (or two and freeze some, in this case).  The handy bit on this one was that I browned the beef using the frying option and didn't have to dirty any more pans to do that part before whacking everything else in to stew.  I certainly wouldn't use the frying option to fry/sear/brown any meat without making sure that the bowl was hot -before- putting the meat in as the gradual heating up does result in the meat boiling in its own juices rather than frying as the juices start to run out before the heat has had a chance to sear the outsides.  That's the same as doing it in a pan/hot plate on the hob but it's easy to forget that when you have to set the machine to fry for a certain length of time.  Easily remedied by setting the fry option for longer than you need to allow for heating up first and then just hit "stop" when you're done.

5 hours of cooking the stew with the odd sneaky peek and noms arrived.  No splattering over the hob or oven or drying out.

And finally, I got around to trying it to steam stuff.  I've never steamed anything before, so it was a totally new experience for me.  And it wasn't hard.  I ended up with slightly al dente, tasty broccoli.  I did need to look up how long broccoli needs to steam, but that was the only "difficult" part.

The only actually annoying drawback that's cropping up so far is when you come to serve the food.  Obviously the bowl is very hot and when it comes to serving the last couple of inches of food from the bottom, having it still in the Star Chef makes it hard to do that part.  So, I have worked around that thus far by serving the majority of the food, then using a tea towel to pick up the bowl and serve the rest.  Not perfect, but perfectly fine.

As for cleaning it, most of the removable parts can go in the dishwasher or wash nicely in the sink by hand with little fuss.  I've not had anything result in food bits that I couldn't get off easily with a scrubber sponge and hot, soapy water.

Overall, had I known that one of these combination appliances existed and was as easy to use (despite the lack of detailed manual) and clean as this has been so far, I'm pretty sure that I would have bought one.  I'm pretty mean and stingey when it comes to buying things for the home (though usually prefer to buy decent quality products than something cheaper that may not be as well made, usable or last as long) and I am nothing if not honest when asked my opinion of things (which has been known to make life a bit difficult sometimes as I don't like upsetting people almost as much as I don't like giving praise where it is undeserved).  So.  It's a proper thumbs up for the JML Star Chef from me and you can be sure there will be more slow-cooking and steaming recipes to come as I try them.

Tuna Experimental

Most of the time I don't cook from recipes, just from what I think will make a nice combination.  And today was no exception.  The target today was tuna and I decided that, as curries smell so good when you put the paste into the pan, why not use that method to coat the tuna?  So I grabbed the nutmeg grater and set to, grating lime zest (one whole lime), garlic (two fat cloves), a chilli and adding soy sauce (10ml), olive oil (10ml) and lime juice (15ml) into the mush to spread over the tuna steaks.  Of course, I grated one of my knuckles and bled a bit (What do you -do- with those bits of skin that are hanging off when that sort of things happen?  Do you leave them where they are or pull them off?), so maybe I should remember to use the corncob holder to skewer things to hold them next time.  *sigh*  Annoyingly, the gorgeously strong garlic died off a bit as a flavour when the mix was cooked, but otherwise it turned out pretty tasty.  Perhaps an improvement would have been to let the tuna rest in the mix for an hour or so before cooking, instead of just smearing it on immediately before cooking.  I may well find out later as I've not yet cooked it, but I've smeared Mr TOTKat's steak with the mix for when he gets home later.

Today also saw the first go at steaming veg in the Star Chef.  Which also turned out well.  I've never steamed anything before, so I wasn't sure what the results might be like, but I've ended up with slightly al dente, flavoursome broccoli this time, so I think I've probably done it right.

All in all, a pretty nice dinner I thought.  Now I just need to stay away from the wine that's lying around... it's getting pretty tempting.

Mmmbeeeeefs

Oh man!  This is a -good- one!

Slow cooked beef casserole - serves 4 (approx 470kcals per portion):-

• 500g diced/cubed braising beef
• 2 medium potatoes - cut into 8ths or 12ths
• 2 medium/large carrots - sliced thickly
• 2 medium/large parsnips - sliced thickly to the fat bit, then quartered at the fat bit
• 2 medium onions - roughly chopped
• 8-10 cloves garlic
• 1tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 4tbsps tomato puree
• 1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• handful of fresh sage leaves - chopped
• 2x beef stock cubes or 1l beef stock
• 4 bay leaves - bruised
• 5 large plum tomatoes - chopped into 8ths
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt

Put the oil into a pan and heat.  Toss the beef chunks in the flour, add the beef chunks to the hot oil and brown.  Once the beef is browned, add the contents of the pan including any leftover dusting flour to a casserole dish/slow cooker with all of the other ingredients (add 800ml water if using stock cubes rather than stock).  Cook for 4-5 hours until the beef falls apart easily.  Season to taste with salt and pepper about 15 minutes before the end of cooking.  Remove the bay leaves and serve hot, with fresh crusty bread and a glass of fat red wine if desired, or just by itself.

It was to be expected really

So... cooking carbs for two is sometimes too small an amount to do properly.  I tried brown rice in the Star Chef this evening and, well, it didn't turn out quite right.  And the reason was pretty much that there wasn't enough to cook.  100g rice and 130ml water is barely enough to cover the base of the pot, so it was never going to work very well.  But I tried it anyway.  However, it wasn't a disaster either :o)

I think the failure was mostly in the estimation of how much water is required for 100g rice.  The recipe for rice that came with the Star Chef was for 300g rice with 400ml water.  So for 100g rice, I thought 130ishml water would be fine.  The rice turned out quite crunchy. Evidently not enough water.  But. They key point was that it was perfectly cooked for the amount of water.  Not too al dente in the way that undercooked rice can be and not a squishy mush the way overcooked rice can be.  It was perfectly cooked, but just with not enough water, so it went a bit crispy with the starch on the bottom.

The pan was easy to clean up (it's proper non-stick, so if you treat it like you treat any other non-stick pans, it does what it is supposed to) and the rice was completely fine once I added a bit more water, stirred it about a bit and then mixed it in with the re-heated chilli.

So.  Not a horrible mistake and next time I'll either add more water or I'll make more rice, but it's a hell of an improvement over cooking it in a pan - no gelatinous mush if I forget there's rice on, no icky-looking foam on top, no over-boiling pan to fiddle with.  It's just perfect for an inattentive cook like me.  Some things I really don't have the attention span to stand over; a pan of boiling/simmering rice/potatoes/pasta for example.  So the Star Chef is a bloody god-send for avoiding that.  I'm cure I'll work out what rice cook settings equivalent works for pasta and couscous (though that's far less faff anyway).

I know I was given this kitchen toy and I didn't spend any of my own money on it, but it's hugely appealing to how I like to do things in the kitchen.  I'm awful with patience around things like rice and having the oven on for hours heating up far more space than it needs to etc.  This solves those problems and more and to be brutally honest, based on what I've tried so far I'd be happy to spend the money on it if I'd known about it before now.  Can't wait for the Ocado delivery tomorrow so I can do a beef stew!

Wooo!

Sossie casserole!

 Serves 2/3:-

• 6x pork and venison sausages - whole
• 1x tin of plum tomatoes - undrained
• 2-3x medium sweet potatoes
• 2x carrots - chopped
• 1x medium onion - roughly chopped
• 6x cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 1tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 8x dried apricots - halved
• 1x stock cube - vegetable, chicken or pork
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt

Plop everything into a slow cooker and stir, then cook for 4+ hours.  Or, in a casserole dish in a warm oven for 4+ hours.  I cooked it for 4.5 hours on the "stew" setting and had it keep warm for 9.5 hours before I got home.

Ohyes.  And lo', it was good.  :o)  (photo shows 2/3rds of the ingredients as I couldn't wait to take a photo before I'd had some!)

Oops!

So I set the Star Chef to make us a lovely sausage casserole for when we got home last night.  When I came through the front door at the end of the day... hm... no smell of yumminess.  *confused*  The thing was sitting there, still saying "06:00" and not cooking or counting down.  And that should have been my clue... Not. Counting. Down.  The 6 hour preset start time I'd put in was not, in fact, a 6 hour count down to the start of cooking but the time it would -finish- cooking.  6am today!

So.  Having checked the actual manual, I re-set it to finish cooking at 10am today and keep warm (for up to 24 hours after finishing) so it should start just before I left the house this morning.  And it did.  Phew!  So.  Yummy casserole will happen tonight instead. (and we went to the local Italian for dinner last night instead - I had 1/2 a thin and crisp tomato/garlic bread, canneloni and a couple of small glasses of Prosecco)

New toy - JML Star Chef

I've been sort of wanting a slow cooker for quite a while and the opportunity to have one arose a little while ago.  Well, what I've now got isn't just a slow cooker... it can bake, steam, fry, slow-cook or boil.  Quite the little versatile appliance.

It's the JML Star Chef and it arrived at work, while I was on holiday last week.  Of course, I cycled in to work yesterday so couldn't get it home on my bike as it's a little bit big for a rucksack.  I didn't cycle today so I could get it home and play as soon as possible.  Of course, I'd not be able to do any slow cooking today as there just wouldn't be enough time so I got out some salmon fillets from the freezer this morning.

And here it is...

And out of the box...

In the box is: the appliance, the power cord, a cooking pot, a steaming basket, measuring cup, stirring paddle, spoon, drip tray and spoon holder.  Sadly, the measuring cup got cracked in transit, but... I have loads of those so I don't mind really.

Unboxed, plugged in and the time set on the clock and I got to work with a salmon fillet for my dinner.  Set the Star Chef to fry fish for 10 minutes, plopped in the salmon and left the lid open so I could watch.  2 minutes in and it wasn't getting very hot so I thought maybe it'd be happier with the lid closed.  Yep!  I left it to its own devices until it'd had the first 5 minutes and came back to a sizzling salmon fillet which I flipped over and closed the lid on again.  At 10 minutes, there was a polite beeping and the Star Chef set itself to "keep warm" mode.  Out came a really nice looking fried salmon fillet (which I then broke getting out of the pot with the wrong implement *cough*)


Pretty darned good, I think.  Plus, and here's the huuuuuuuuge bonus for me, the house doesn't reek of salmon AND the smoke alarm didn't go off!  (it's apparently impossible to cook even mediumly brown toast in our kitchen without setting off the smoke alarm in the hall as it's so bloody over-sensitive)

Anyhoo.  First impression is "woo!".  MUCH more detailed thoughts in a later post.  And many more modes and recipes to try and have fun with :o)