Just when you thought it was safe to relax

[Dormouse]

I will consult the Blue Book this weekend and get a variety of events together with explanations - it will still be in my Scrutineer's Bag covered in dust.

[Dormouse]

Chez Dormouse has a new addition to it's culinary arsenal - a Crock Pot Slow Cooker.

It follows in the footsteps of our original Slow Cooker which lasted 3 decades and survived 4 House moves only to crack the bowl one day while washing it.

After it cracked, we replaced it with this type of Slow Cooker which, on the face of it, was a better modern upgrade.

Only to discover that the Teflon on the Aluminium Bowl flaked off and ended up in your food.

After finding out what Teflon can do to your health, every Teflon pot, pan and dish has been junked in favour of Stainless Steel or Ceramic, as with our new Crock Pot and soon to be replaced, decades old stainless 8" pot bought at Fine Fare, because the welded on handle has finally given up the ghost.
You try walking into a shop and finding Stainless Steel cooking pans.
That is my mission for this weekend.

[myglaren]

Most of mine are stainless steel, most donkeys years old and brought from Sweden.

Before slow cookers were a thing, my wife insisted that our first cooker should have an 'S' setting for the oven.
She used to bulk-cook lots of things overnight, a large part of it being baby food, she wouldn't buy baby food but made her own from raw ingredients so she knew exactly what was in them.
The house was an open plan thing with the dining room at the bottom of the stairs, three story house so a bit of a problem to heat but the oven on all night helped keep the place warm so two birds etc.

I continued her tradition and have an 'S' cooker still, sadly nowhere near as proficient in the cookery and baking department as she was so rather under-used currently.

[Dormouse]

We wholeheartedly agree about the knowing what's in it bit. Much as LOML Wife bemoans my lack of activity in the culinary department nowadays, she will agree that I can cook and not too badly either. Our house is open plan so cooking in the kitchen also adds heat and aromas to the house. She hates the smell of cooking Lamb so anything with Lamb is my domain and only when she is not in. Eating it is fine enough but she much prefers chicken, pork and beef in that order. Until fairly recently I was the only one to cook Pork steaks properly but she has learned from the master and I leave her to practice now. I can cook a very good Cauliflower Steak with sauce and trimmings - maybe not quite Vegan but tasty none the less. She shows no interest in learning that recipe. Maybe she has finally twigged my grand plan for Lazyitis.

[CitroJim]

That's given me a prompt to dig mine out and and see if it still works... Been a few years now... Back in those far-off days when I ate a little meat occasionally it would do a cracking casserole...

I'm sure I can concoct a good vegetarian/vegan one in it... I'll report back if/when I do...

I also used it to prepare the stock for a ramen using a chicken carcass and leaving it to fester in the slow cooker for 24 hours or more with the other ingredients being added at the appropriate times... The result was quite delicious and the longer the better

[Dormouse]

While exploring these threads this evening I have also been doing another dish that only I get to do. Triple Cheese Omelettes. Cheese in the Omelette mix, cheese on the top of the finished Omelette while still in the pan and briefly flipped, melted and served, then cheese over the omelette and French Fries before serving up. A treat for LOML after her foray to Tickety Boos for Pinot sandwiches with friends.

[CitroJim]

Yum All that cheese... Lovely!

[MattBLancs]

You try walking into a shop and finding Stainless Steel cooking pans.
That is my mission for this weekend.

IKEA has loads of not-non-stick an options, and quite a few are induction compatible too. We've a set of 3 or 4 saucepans (about 8 years old) and a more recent "saute pan" they've tolerated burnt on cheese sauce a good few times (or rather tolerated the violent removal of the aftermath) without writing them off.

Top tip= angle grinder wire wheel very effective but leads to (mild steel wire fragments inbedded in the stainless surface and then) rust spots. Wetted then sanded back with wet and dry paper, repeated till no more rust spots appearing, pans fine again a couple of years since then. All part of the learning curve! (Yes, I'm sure most normal folks would have scrapped the pans at first hint of rust spots! Didn't use them for food until sure I'd cleared the "contamination")

Kitchen "cream cleaner" is the best for medium violence cleaning and cheap too

[myglaren]

You try walking into a shop and finding Stainless Steel cooking pans.
That is my mission for this weekend.

Just remembered that I bought a full set of copper-bottomed stainless steel pans for my daughter last year, or maybe the year before, as she ruined teflon pans using metal spoons etc. to stir the food she is making in them.

Can't remember where I bought them though.

[Gibbo2286]

My daughter bought me a slow cooker from Amazon, two arrived, one with a note saying Best wishes to Ron and Mary, I told Amazon it was a mistaken delivery they said it wasn't, so Ron and Mary never got their gift.
I've only used one of them and only once to make plum jam, gave the other one to a neighbour.

[Gibbo2286]

My late wife bought a set of these in about 1980 still in use here now.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364060301069 ... jQQAvD_BwE

[Dormouse]

Today's Slow Cooker Recipe is Liver, Onion and Bacon with Potatoes, Swede and Carrots.

Picture later, after the Rugby.

[Dormouse]

Well, Blue Books et al are out.

This is the kind of letters of approval (or not) we had to seek.

This is the Definitions Section in the 1987 edition which is way easier to find and understand than the 1997 one. I had to read AND understand every edition. God help the average competitor.

Yes, the print is that small and difficult to read.

[Dormouse]

The key to having an event and how it is controlled is whether it falls foul of some basic tenets. Is it on Publicly Accessible Roads or Grounds? Is it likely to cause any Nuisance or Noise? Is it likely to require Third Party Liability Insurance? Are the use of vehicles an Integral Part of the Event?
To help organisers there is a Rule of Twelve Clause - 12 or less vehicles, less bureaucracy, less interest from Authorities. The word is Less not None.

[Dormouse]

However, all is not doom and gloom, especially if the main aim is not the use of vehicles in any competitive form.

Gymkhanas are easily the most common non competitive event. They involve the use of vehicles but are at a low pace and involve skills like Parking, following instructions blindfolded, judging distances and gaps, parking in a garage sized space, carrying bowls of water without spilling and the like. No competitive timing is required other than you only get one attempt at a task in a fixed maximum time limit (usually 1 minute ). You can award stars for the bands of timings - say gold for upto 2/3 of time allowed, silver for the remainder. The most gold stars wins in the event of a tie on sections completed. Nothing stops you from awarding a carrot for not completing the task - the most carrots is placed last and stars are counted if a tie should occur. This star and carrot "scoring" might seem trivial but it is a get out of jail card when you get into other events - more later on.

Scatter Treasure Hunts follow no fixed route and have no set start or finish timings. They involve the use of a vehicle but it is incidental. It may be that you have to photograph yourself at a monument or some prominent location and return to a start point in a time that is not rigidly fixed but, say, before the next event of the day. Being a Scatter event it does not have a fixed route or an order of sites to visit.

Regularity Trial. If attendees are made to follow one route in one direction only, they could be required to cover all or some of that route at a fixed average speed. Two or more points along the road are manned and times of passing are recorded to the minute (no less ) and the vehicles are not required to stop.

Treasure Hunts could include a Regularity trial as well ( and vice versa ) but it should be optional otherwise it becomes an Organised Event. However, stars and carrots can be awarded in the Trials and Hunts to aid tie breaking.