Corned Beef and Cabbage

One night my wife handed me three cookbooks and told me to pick one meal from each that I would eat. Not that I'm a picky eater, she just wanted something different. Being a husband is still a rather new thing for me and being a house husband is something that few of you men out there will be able to relate to. Yes, my wife earns the money and I take care of the house. She has the degree, after all, so she decided that if she got a better paying job, she would work.

I had been craving corned beef and cabbage for some time (she hates cabbage) and since that was in one of the books, I picked it. One small problem: it needed a slow cooker to prepare and we didn't have one. I found a nice selection of slow cookers at the local Wal Mart and decided on the Hamilton Beach 5 Quart Portable Slow Cooker as the one we should get. It had everything I needed and looked as if taking care of it would be easy enough.

As it turns out, I was correct. It's a good thing, too or Mrs Black Bear would have accused me of buying it because it was black, like the rest of my kitchen appliances. Granted, this was a deciding factor because I wanted it to match, but I do tend to be a bit more picky than color alone.

The cooker is an oval shape, which means that the heating surface is larger than the deep, round cookers. I have had those round ones before and they would often burn or dry out the food at the edge of the pot and sides. I didn't want that again. The oval design allows the heat to spread more evenly, so there was no dried out portions of the meal.

Five quarts is huge, let me tell you. I was able to fit an entire head of cabbage, a 5 pound brisket corned beef roast and about two pounds of carrots in it and still had plenty of room for the water. The lid has a rubber gasket that prevents the liquid from being able to boil out as I have seen some slow cookers do. There is also a relief valve in the lid to allow excess steam to escape. The clear glass lid is great because it allows you to monitor the cooking process without having to uncover the food.

Moving the thing around is a bit of a chore, but it has easy lift handles on the side, so the only thing that you are dealing with at that point is the physical weight of a full crock pot. These handles also have a nice little feature built into them. Two little grooves in the side of each handle allow a rubber band like strap to be attached and that holds the lid firmly in place when on the move.

The device has three heat settings, keep warm, low and high. The high setting is mainly used only to get things started, if at all. It is possible to bring something to a boil if you leave it on high long enough and some recipes call for that. Low heat is the one taht is generally used to cook. Just put the food in and turn it to low and then walk away for a few hours. Once the meal is ready and you have served as much as you care to eat, the keep warm setting will keep the food at a good serving temperature without fear of drying it out or burning it. We kept the corned beef on the keep warm setting overnight and had more for dinner the next day.

Clean up is really easy. There was very little spill over from the removable stoneware bowl and I suspect that was from serving. Just take a damp cloth to the interior and it wiped right out. The stoneware bowl went right into the dishwasher with the lid and that was it for cleaning. Some of the little extras that this came with was a booklet that has directions for several different types of meals to make with the cooker. Some look really good and I plan to try them out. Sad to say, cabbage will not be made again for a long time. My wife still hates the stuff, so this will have to hold me for a year or so.

The only real problem I have with the cooker is where to put it when I'm not using it. Our apartment is very roomy, but has no cabinet or counter space to speak of. The cooker is nice enough looking that I can feel good about leaving it sitting on the table for now. I'm going to eventually have to get a cabinet of some kind to use as a pantry and storage for our other small appliances. Until then, it's fine where it is.