Would anyone know if it’s cheaper to have the slow cooker on for 4hrs or boil on the gas bob for 30 minutes?
We are talking about it in our budget food group because Poundland have these gammon joints in for £2
We were thinking it would be cheaper to cook and slice these than to buy cheap packet sliced ham, and it would probably taste better too
But you’d have add in the cost of cooking it
Here you go, Maree.
Seems the slow cookers use about as much as a light bulb.
" Sarah Broomfield, energy expert at Uswitch said: “Slow cookers are an energy-efficient cooking appliance. “They use just a little more energy than a traditional light bulb, and you can leave your food to cook slowly throughout the day while you’re at work or when you need to get on with other things.”
Thank you 
popping it in the slow cooker sounds as if it wouldn’t add much to the cost then 
Our slow cooker is 300w but it is fairly old. Maybe newer ones are lower wattage.
I suppose if we wanted to split hairs, it could also depend on the wattage of a light bulb. 40W or 100W, etc?
Who cares, slow cookers don’t cost much to run, and you can go out, or go to bed even, and it’s all done for you. 
Boiling meat in a pressure cooker over a gas hob is bar far the most economical. I boil my salt beef in a pressure cooker 
I’ve looked into this quite a bit and have two slow cookers, a multicooker and also an air fryer. All to use instead of the gas cooker. Slow cookers and air fryers are very energy efficient vs traditional cookers. In terms of slow cooking if you put it on low for say 7 hours it’s even cheaper.
The air fryer is great for popping something in to bake for half the time that a conventional oven takes, you need v little fat and it uses far less energy. You can also bake a cake in it or make chips etc. I picked one up for under £60 in a sale. You just have to mentally guess how much time/temp to give each item. Takes a bit of experience at first because if you use the recommended temperature / times you end up with burnt to a crisp. Takes about 1/2 or 1/3.
The other really energy efficient cooking option is a three tier steamer. Obviously not for a gammon joint, but you can cook lunch veggies for the family or chicken/fish too all at the same time using v little power.
But out of all of them the air fryer is super convenient. You could easily roast that gammon joint in one.
But is it permanently on or does it switch on and off ? That’s what ours does.
Yes I suppose it does Besoeker. It takes a while to heat up. I generally turn it down to low after about an hour.
The ‘country of origin’ of that gammon is a bit too nebulous for me.
Got rid of my slow cooker
Not keen on slow cooking
It makes the house smell of cooking
It takes to long
I don’t like the texture slow cooking gives
I have been considering getting one of these, and I’m still on the fence about it. I like the idea of them - especially the energy saving, and the soup/stews I intend to make in the coming months.
Any more opinions on this? Also which brand is best? Amazon has mixed reviews, as do Argos.
I am with Ripple on this one!
I have a soup maker for soups and stews. I haven’t tried making meaty stews in them, don’t think the programme is long enough really to cook meat through. But it makes fabulous vegetable soups and stews. I imagine chicken would be fine in it, but haven’t tried it. And it’s so simple - just pop all the ingredients in, cover with stock up to the fill line, then select smooth or chunky and off you go. 22 minutes later you’ve got about 6 portions of lovely home cooked soup.
If I’ve got a glut of veggies and want to make more than the soup maker can take, then I do it in my Instant Pot on pressure cook, then whizz up with a hand held blender when done.
I used to have a slow cooker, but gave it away because quite honestly, I really didn’t like the house smelling of cooking all day long - and yeah, I could put it on overnight, but I certainly don’t want to get up to the smell of dinner, yuck! It was great when I was working, because I wasn’t in the house while it was filling it with the aroma of dinner, and coming home with dinner all ready to eat was lovely.
Is this a separate thing altogether then? I didn’t know. I don’t eat meat, so cooking a roast isn’t necessary. I’m going to look into soup makers then 
Thanks!
My dear wife has got a new Instant Pot. It is amazingly quick for anything she has used so far. And requires much less energy.
I have one that cost £20 from Tesco. They are all the same sort of thing. No diff with soup makers etc Just a marketing con.
£20?! I can do that And yes they probably are all one and the same I suppose…I just want something I can bung on (at low cost) and leave until dinner time really.
I’ll have a look at that too Besoeker, ta much! 
actually it’s only £17.50. I’ve had this for over two years and it works fine for soups and stews. You may need to pan fry before you bung veg in. I do this with cabbage, leeks or onions when making a veg soup. But this is pretty much a standard classic no frills model that comes up with results.
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/298468981
nb I have a smaller one from Asda (for overflow) but it’s not as good.
