I love to eat meat but it is so expensive! The cheapest cuts are often full of fat and grisly bits which make them tough and chewy. Recently I picked up a cheap secondhand slow cooker and I have found it saves me a fortune on meat as I can buy all the cheapest cuts and they turn out delicious and tender. Probably not the healthiest cuts of meat, as they're full of fat, but very tasty and I never get any complaints from my fussy eaters at home
The fat is not necessarily a bad thing at all. In fact, I believe pig lard is actually better for you (slightly) than vegetable shortening. When you are slow cooking or slow roasting the meats you are rendering out a majority of it, but along the way it self-bastes the meat keeping it moist and tender, and on the exterior of the meat it creates a nice golden crust. Slow cookers are definitely convenient, especially during the week when you need to head off to work. But if you can, I would also suggest just slow roasting the meat in your oven instead, like on weekend when you don't need to be anywhere. I think it produces much better results than the slow cooker personally. The slow cookers trap a little too much moisture in them, and you wind up with meat that looks more like it's been boiled, whereas slow roasting in an oven seems to let a little more of the dry hot air in during the cooking process (depending on how tight your lid fits in your baking pan), or you can just loosen the lid towards the last hour or two to get a dark crust on the exterior of the meat. Any sauces or gravies you want to go with your meat, you can either make with the pan drippings left over while the meat rests. Or prepare them in advance on the stove with pantry ingredients.
I agree that slow cooking does steam the meat a little. I usually finish my roasted meats on 240C in the oven to for 15 mins dry them out. I tried this with chicken, started in the slow cooker and finished in the oven. It was falling to pieces but tasted amazing. The skin was nice an crispy and the meat infused with flavours.
Agreed! The crock pot is a life saver and I use mine at least 2 days a week. I'm one of those people who most of the time despises cooking after a long day, so I just take an extra 10 minutes in the morning to throw everything in the crock pot and have a nice meal ready when I get home. The meal itself tastes a lot better most of the time when slow cooking it as well, so it's a great option that I take advantage of a lot of the time. What's also nice is that I can make several meals at once and won't have to cook again for my next dinner.
This is what I do, too. While the fat and drippings may not be the healthiest on their own, realistically, if I'm going to be making a gravy, I might as well use what the meat produced instead of adding a separate fat.
If the fat is bothering you, then either cut it off or render it down in a frying pan before adding to the slow cooker. You are right though, you can use the cheaper cuts of meat and when cooked in the slow cooker for hours they will be melt in the mouth soft. You can use it for vegetables, fish and curries as well as stews and casseroles. I have heard bad reviews about using them for soup, though I have never tried this personally.
I've made some amazing soups, especially pea and ham soup. Most soups I've made benefit from setting it to high to get a good simmer happening first. You can then drop back to lower settings and let the flavours full develop. This works well for me with pumpkin, laksa, pea and ham, fish and miso, and minestrone soup.
