Finding New Ways To Cook
In these times of rising energy bills we have been looking at ways to reduce our energy consumption but the one area we can’t forego is cooking.
Even before the energy crisis I used my beloved slow cooker a lot rather than have things bubbling for hours on the gas hob or in the oven. However, early last year I blew the bottom out of the thing; I was sautéing on the hob and like an idiot threw some cold red wine into the hot pot to deglaze and was rewarded with a small POP and my feet covered in wine and onions; so we needed to look for a replacement.
Which is when I discovered multi cookers. After perusing the specs of all the models available we plumped for the Ninja Foodi Multi Cooker. Mainly because we got it in the Black Friday Sale at a much reduced price. Since then we have discovered the joys of pressure cooking and air frying and we have hardly used the gas hob at all, indeed, our main oven has been turned on only once to cook a huge Christmas dinner and is now used more for storing baking and roasting pans. I even made the Christmas cake and pudding in the Ninja. It is so well used that it now sits on a chopping board atop one of the gas rings. Mind you, I do have to have one of those little kiddie steps from IKEA to stand on when cooking and we have had to replace all our stainless steel utensils.
It has been a bit of a learning curve for us as there is a dearth of recipes or information out there on the internet which means there has been quite a bit of trial and error. The first meal attempted was an abject failure, the potatoes were solid, the broccoli burnt to a crisp and the meat frazzled. It was so bad I did question whether we had made the right decision.
Then I did a joint of pork and roast potatoes on the steam/bake setting. The meat came out beautifully moist with perfect crackling and the potatoes were just right. A big plus was that I can make the gravy directly into the meat juices as well. Since that first success I have made pot pies, toad in the hole, tortilla, banana bread and even soufflés.
I have also fallen in love with the pressure cooker function, I can have vegetables cooked in a fraction of the time it takes waiting for them to boil on the stove top and I have mastered pasta to perfection. I still have to perfect my rice though. I have also discovered pot in pot cooking which means, by using the racks and a cake tin, I can pressure cook my potatoes at the same time as a casserole. How cool is that?
The only real problem I have come across is having to wash the pot out when I need to cook two things on different settings so when Kate asked if we wanted to buy a dual air fryer one of her friends was selling for £50 we jumped at it. It is an absolute boon when providing the kids with nuggets and chips or pizza for lunch on the three days we have them for school. I have even made peach cobbler for six, in individual ramekins, in half the time it took to make the big one I used to make in the oven. They also tasted better. Oh, and it also makes the best jacket potatoes ever.
Long ignored, other than to reheat my coffee or blitz some baked beans to go with my jacket potato is the microwave. We have recently downsized to a smaller one as it was so underused, which is sad considering that many years ago I bought many a microwave cookbook, one of which contained a recipe for microwaved Christmas pudding which I made every Christmas for many years. No longer will it be underused. In my determination to cut down on energy costs I have started to use it more often for cooking vegetables since, providing I don’t overcook them I have discovered that it steams them excellently well. It even does potatoes for mashing whilst steam roasting a joint in the Ninja. And I’m now a dab hand at microwaved puddings, especially treacle sponge, now a firm family favourite. Although I did manage to blow up two poached eggs the other day!
I’m not sure what effect all these gadgets are having on our energy bills but, with steamed veg in less than 10 minutes rather than 20 minutes of gas on the hob, the fact that the air fryer doesn’t take 20 minutes to get to temperature and then the cooking time and I can roast a joint in half the time in the Ninja, they must be making a dent in our consumption however small.