FOOD FOR GEEKS: Slow Cooked Meat and Veg Dinner, Set it & Forget it! :)

one of the very first things i did when i got the caravan was to go into how i was gonna best prepare food. i didn’t want to hook up the usual 4 ring hob because that meant extra faff and expense with canisters and gas system checks and if i’m honest i just wasn’t interested in making it a home, just a base camp where i could bring my food and cooker to it, it was simple a roof over the head in the short term.

of course things progressed and i ended up with a gas burner and recently an induction cooker plate which is awesome, but one of the best things i ever bought aside from the burner (@dayleeo bought the induction cooker because she’s a sweetheart) was a slow cooker. trust me when i say this, their aint nothing like a hearty bowl of slow cooked dinner at the end of a working day or day out, especially when it’s raining it’s perfect.

it’s super straight forward as well — in this one i went with garlic, carrots, potatoes, brocolli, cauliflower, cheap ass mince, stock pot and later on when it’s nearly done ladle out some of the water to use to mix up the gravy. if your a vegan you can replace the mince with some quorn or similar and i’m not sure what you do about the stock pots, these were gluten free but i guess you’ll have to work your vegan machine for the rest.

so i always boil up my veg first so they are soft, kinda defeats the purpose of just having one pot but i often want to eat like in the next 4-8hrs rather than leave it on for 12 hours or something for the veg to be soft, now i have the induction plate i don’t feel as bad as running the butane tins just to boil the veg off which means i’ll probably have more slow cooked food in the short term because i’m not worrying about using all the gas up and running out — think range anxiety on an electric car and you understand.

once the veg are boiled i transfer those to the slow cooker and drop in the stock pot and put the unit on either warm or low, because i’m still in the transferring stage i kinda don’t wanna be cooking just yet until everything is in there, i do however use the warm water i boiled the veg in so i keep all the love nutrients from the veg which makes the gravy extra tasty later on. also means i don’t just put warm veg into cold water of a slow cooker, you could just have the slow cooker on low with cold water and transfer veg across if you want to as well — whatever way works for you.

and this stage i go back to my pan and i fry off my mince on it’s own in the pan until it’s ready to go, you could go really posh meat or meatless quorn substitute here if you want to be awesome to the environment and i suggest you do, this was fairly local uk meat for me and even thou it’s got additional rubbish in their once it’s been through the slow cooker it’s pretty darn decent, normally i would not buy mince at all on it’s own for anything but only for slow cooking, meat falls apart after 8hrs of slow cooking and is tender and wonderful. i heartily suggest you try this with chicken too, chicken is amazing slow cooked or even steamed. get a steamer. amazing things too, wish i had one again!

after the mince is done i just straight transfer that to the pot with the veg, at this pot after a bit of stirring the stock pot has melted and started to give it a nice kinda light gravy watery look and i make sure i push all the meat under the surface of the water instead of sitting on top of the veg, i put the lid on and at this stage double check it’s on low — if i want it in the next four hours i put it on high, personally i like to run it on low, it’s cheap on electricity draw (perfect for vans with solar i think) and i always like the slow and low approach to most things in life — food, beer drinking and the obvious ;)

next up is some mushrooms and garlic, effectively garlic mushrooms, trust me at this stage i could have just eaten the whole pan, i love garlic mushrooms, especially on even more garlic bread, it’s the perfect snack for watching a movie from the hammock, especially if you have some nice cheese to melt on the top. although to be fair i don’t purchase cheese anymore regularly, i’ve done reasonably well at removing dairy from my diet but boy do i miss cheese. like, you have no idea. cheeseboards and italian meats is like my favourite thing.

once the mushrooms are smelly amazing drop those into the pan as well, i find that mushrooms on their own are ‘ok’ but the garlic really lifts the meal for me, i absolutely love garlic and it rather have that tone in their, when i make my special mash and sausage i always have garlic, red onions, mushrooms into my gravy which you drizzle over the top of my broccoli mash, trust me when i say this. it’s really damn nice. it’s got all the things i love about cooking in there and i love me some potato mash! :)

so as you can see by now it’s looking pretty damn lush and it was really easy to do, i often prepare all my veg the night before so i have pots of the things ready to go in the morning, you could make it over night and wake up to the lovely smells of food but i often don’t want to go straight to meat and stew for breakfast, i guess if your doing an overnight filming project or fishing then i guess anything works when ya hungry.

i leave this on now for 8 hrs and go about my day with it behind me bubbling away smelling incredible, occasionally i’ll get up and stir it and release all the smells into the van. it’s great to be working and having a full 8 hour sprint, 4 x 2 hrs knowing that i don’t have to focus on making dinner at the end of it. it’s the perfect geek/nerd food in that you can really focus on your work knowing you have that treat at the end.

hope you liked it and will give it a go, get a slow cooker. it will change your life if your a work at home freelancer! :)

lots of love,
teamhumble xx

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