Slow Cooking

I had a first go at slow cooking this weekend, using my shiny new Crock Pot. Using a recommendation from a web page I had a go at Pork and Cider Hotpot. While the flavour was great, the recipe wasn't a complete success: I underestimated just how slowly the food cooks.

I was looking forward to meat basically falling apart in my mouth, but it didn't happen. I didn't want to have lunch too late, so I "only" cooked the food for four hours, and while it was definitely done it was still a little tougher than I'd hoped. After lunch there was still a fair amount left over, so I stuck the cooker on again for another three hours, and bingo! Lesson learned: for lumps of pork you need to cook (on low) for at least 7 hours.