My new toy - a Slow Cooker

After hearing much about the benefits of using a slow cooker (e.g no need to watch the fire), I have been asking the old cat to buy one for me. As usual, he told me to "wait and see". I don't know wait for what and see what, but impulsive me went to Kong Tai last Thursday (7 Jan), bought a 4.7L Takahi slow cooker and helped myself to his online banking account afterwards, haha!

The old cat was like, ".... you better make sure you make full use of it now that you have a slow cooker and steamer...."

I love buying electrical appliances at Kong Tai. The prices are reasonable and cheaper than Harvey Norman and Courts. I saw the 3.2L Takahi slow cooker selling for $75.90 at Boon Lay while Kong Tai was selling it for only $65! Anyway, I got my 4.7L model from the boss cos she gives better discount. The 4.7L was selling for $78 and she offered it to me at $73! Wahahahhahaha the same model was retailing at about $88+ at Boon Lay! So happy with my purchase!

Most of the time, I use oyster sauce for seasoning and I am getting bored of it. Read online that chicken stock serves as a good base too and tada, thats where my new slow cooker comes in! I'm not comfy with the idea of buying packet chicken stock. They either contain MSG, or they contain too much sodium. Anyway, homemade chicken stock is the best! As usual, kiasu me went online to google "is chicken stock healthy?", "is chicken stock fattening", "calories in homemade chicken stock", "chicken stock recipe", "ways to store chicken stock", "food storage", "types of containers used to freeze foods and soups"...etc. LOL. I love the Internet!

After reading all that I should know, I went to buy freezer safe containers. I intend to bring chicken stock based soup (e.g. tomato & egg soup, cabbage soup...etc) to work twice a week in addition to my current once a week lunch box & soup, and in order to make my supply last for 2 weeks, I bought 4 650ml freezer safe containers to store my chicken stock. I'm gonna make chicken stock once a fortnight instead of making enough to last for months to ensure that my supply is fresh, lol. Must make full use of the slow cooker mah, else the old cat will say its another white elephant in the house. So each time I want to make my lunch, all I have to do is to defrost one container of stock, heat up over the stove and add in the ingredients I want. Easy huh? I also bought 3 250ml freezer safe containers to store the chicken stock so that I can use these for cooking dishes.

I read conflicting articles about the usage of the microwave. Some said that the microwave is absolutely safe and beneficial for health as shorter cooking time helps to retain more nutrients in food. Some said that the microwave is not good for health cos of radiation. Anyway, to play safe, I decided to minimize my usage of the microwave. I had initially wanted to buy a thermos lunch box, but after much consideration, decided to save money. The old cat said, "Skarli you use a few times only then put aside, waste money lor!". Ya... he has a point, so I thought of getting a single layer tingkat. He then said metal is a good conductor of heat.... So in the end, I bought a GLASS lunch box, lol. It may not be as good as a thermos in keeping food warm, but it is better than metal. Plus, its cheaper. I got my pretty glass lunch box for only $10.30 at NTUC, haha.

On Friday night, I filled the slow cooker with 3L of water and added 1kg of chicken bones. I read that this will yield about 2.5L of chicken stock. I left it on auto throughout the night for about 12hrs and the next morning, there was a nice aroma of chicken stock. I removed the chicken bones from the cooker and used a soup ladle to scoop out the oil on the surface of the stock as what I usually do when I make soup. Hmmm not very effective cos there is a lot of oil for chicken stock despite already removing the skin before cooking. Used a strainer to filter out smaller chicken bits before filling my containers with the stock. I later bought a metal skimmer from NTUC to filter out even tinier particles and it worked very well as a fat skimmer!!! Yay I can use it to skim off the fats from my soups in future instead of using the soup ladle which usually results in some soup wastage! Here comes the interesting part: I got 3.1L of chicken stock from 3L of water!!! I think its because there is no where for the water to evaporate. There ain't any hole on the glass lid.

Dinner on Sat

Steamed golden promfet (Teochew style):

Haha, I managed to find a nice oval shaped metal plate at the hardware shop at Jurong Point and it was perfect for the fish! The previous one I bought was too shallow and may not be able to contain the fish essence. Both the old cat and I feel that the silver promfet tastes better. This is the first and last time I am buying a golden promfet. The meat is slightly tougher than that of the silver promfet's. Despite adding ginger, there is still a slight fishy smell. This is why I never prepare fish the Teochew style. I prefer the Cantonese style of cooking steamed fish. The sauce is prepared separately. But since the purpose of using a steamer is to minimize hassle, I used the Teochew method, lol.

Papaya soup with white fungus and spare ribs:

I made this soup over the stove instead of using the slow cooker. Found this recipe in one of my cookbooks and decided to try it out. I had wanted to try making papaya soup with snakehead fish but don't know why, I couldn't find any snakehead fish at NTUC that day.

Steamed broccoli:



Eaten plain without any gravy. Sweet.


Dinner on Sun night

Watercress soup with spare ribs:

On Sat night, I used the slow cooker to cook Watercress soup with spare ribs. Set it on high for 1 hour before switching to low throughout the night. We had it for dinner on Sun night. I personally feel that soup cooked over the stove (3hrs) smells and tastes slightly better, but this is quite good too. For the benefit of not having to watch the fire, I'll gladly use the slow cooker, haha!

Rosemary chicken with lemon:

This is the steamed version of the Rosemary chicken recipe, haha. I used the same ingredients but steamed the chicken instead of baking it in the oven cos I don't have one anyway. I marinated the chicken with chopped garlic, rosemary, lemon juice and some salt and pepper and steamed it for 20mins. It was quite tasty! Kitty said it tasted a bit like lemon chicken, haha.

Steamed cabbage with fishballs:

Not only does broccoli tastes great when steamed, cabbage tastes very good too! The steamed cabbage was crisp and naturally sweet, very nice!!! I steamed it for 4mins and let it stand in keep warm mode for 3-4mins, and the result was great! Not too hard, not too limp and soggy - just nice! Took out one of my 250ml container of chicken stock, heat it up in the steamer together with some fishballs and poured the mixture over the cabbage. Very nice! Kitty said it has the "homemade meal taste", whatever that means, lol.

As usual on Sunday night, I packed lunch boxes for both of us. Kitty's lunch box is 4-5 times the size of mine, waahahahhahhaa! I have been trying to stuff him with food and more food, but seems like it is not working. He is still a lean old cat.