Steam canner?

[wyoDreamer]

Sometimes I feel like the USDA doesn't want us to be self-sufficient at all - and wants us to rely on the Industrial Food supply. I saw on the news this morning that there is a recall on Avacodos due to possible Listeria contamination.
Crockpots were wonderful and cooked great meals for many years, until the USDA decided that the LOW temp was too low and was a danger of allowing the food to spoil. Now they require manufacturers to up the temp of the low setting. I no longer use a crockpot because my old one broke and the new one burns food when set on high and overcooks things set on low...

 

[sumi]

I cooked a whole duck in mine a few days ago. I started it on the high setting and to speed things up, I covered the bird in boiling water. It took nearly 4 hours to come to boil. I phoned my brother at some point and mentioned that the pot is taking forever to get going and I'm starting to consider sticking the bird in the oven instead. He suggested putting it in the sun, that may be quicker (than the slow cooker) When it finally got going it did a great job though!

 

[Britesea]

The pioneers used to use something called a "Hay Box" which was exactly what it sounds like- a box filled with hay. In the morning they would put beans and whatever into the kettle and bring it to a full rolling boil for several minutes, then put the covered kettle into the box and nestle it into the hay so it was completely covered and insulated. The box sat on the wagon all day until they set camp, at which point it was pulled out of the box and dinner was ready!. The other thing they did was that if there were still leftovers in the pot, they just added new beans etc to the pot on top of the cooked ones, rather than start a new pot. I think it's a little like the everlasting soup pot where you just kept the pot at the side of the hearth all winter long, just adding new water and goodies and bringing to a rolling boil for a few minutes each day.

There's a new product that is pretty much a modern version of the old Hay Box called the Wonderbag:
https://www.amazon.com/Wonderbag-Non-Electric-Portable-Cooker-Cookbook/dp/B00ESI97YU?th=1

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I used to keep a corningware casserole dish in the fridge. Every night, when there were a few left overs, but not enough for a full serving, I'd put the left overs into that container. A few green beans, a bit of mac & cheese, half a pork chop, some stewed tomatoes, half a potato... it all went into that casserole dish. After a few days, I'd pull it out, add some broth and a few other ingredients, then heat it up. I called it "garbage soup". It was different every week, and always very tasty!

 

[Marianne]

Wonder if one of those hot/cold bags would be good for such as that?

I don't know that they'd be insulated enough..? You know, to hold the temp all day?
I suppose if your pot fit inside a cooler, that might work. You'd still have to wrap a towel around the pot so it didn't melt the inside of the cooler.

 

[Marianne]

Wow! I wished I would have known about them back in the day.
My neighbor has a mentally challenged adult daughter that gets into anything, especially sweet stuff in the frig with her hands. So, they have small jars of everything in there.

 

[Marianne]

You can ever flip it over and it turns into a pot you can cook in if you have to. It's so very light wt that it's a joy to work with, easier to store, etc.

Do you still can? It's never too late to get one.

I don't can much at all these days, a few jars of tomatoes, some salsa. Last season I was pretty puny at the wrong time, so I just froze quartered and froze my tomatoes.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

On this one, I think I will side with the complaint about low setting being too low. I have 2 crock pots, and both of them take FOREVER to bring food to a simmer on the low setting. I always have to crank them up to high for a few hours, then I can turn them to low. Case in point: Last night, I put a minestrone soup in my 5 qt crock pot at around 8 PM. I went to bed and left it on low. When I got up at 2 AM, the soup was hot, but no sign of a simmer. B/C it was quite hot, I left it alone. Hubby turned it up to high at 5:30 AM. It finally came to a boil after that. BUT, I have also burned stuff when crock pot left on high. I consider a crock pot safe to leave it on all day if I'm not home, but can't trust them to hold the correct temp.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I used my crockpot 2 days ago to convert a frozen chicken and rice casserole into hot chicken-n-rice soup. It worked great for this duty. I needed to simmer the cooked thighs and legs to defrost them and cook them enough to pick all the meat off the bones.
I recently bought an Instant Pot. That one is going to take a little time to learn how to use.

 

[Hinotori]

The big issue with crock pots and low temps was actually because of beans. Kidney beans very specifically. They may soften and look fully cooked, but if they don't reach a certain temp it doesn't deactivate the toxins in dried beans. After soaking they have to reach 212° (boiling) for 10 minutes.