Slow cookers: Fast forward to dinner

Slow cookers enjoy renewed popularity among next generation of time-pressed cooks

This story was originally published in the Wednesday, February 15, 2006 edition of The Kansas City Star

If your slow cooker has been gathering dust in a dark cupboard, it's time to drag it out and get reacquainted. In 2007, slow cooking is hip and happening.

Need proof? Turn on the television, where celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagasse and Alton Brown share slow-cooker recipes. Stroll through the supermarket, where you'll find new products made specifically for slow cookers. Visit the bookstore, where the new releases include a slew of slow-cooker titles. And check out the newest generation of slow cookers, which have been updated to maximize their convenience and good looks.

"The appeal to slow cookers is the same as it's always been: Set it and forget it," says Victoria Matranga, design programs coordinator for the International Housewares Association in Rosemont, Ill. But the hands-off cooking style has gained even more fans as family time becomes ever more fractured.

"In suburbia, people are starving for what's for dinner and to not have to go through the drive-through," says Roxanne Wyss, a home economist and food consultant in Lenexa.

When Rival introduced the electric Crock-Pot in 1971, it turned the appliance into a kitchen staple by marketing it as a helpmate for the new legions of working women. The Crock-Pot allowed busy families to come home to the enticing aroma of a simmering meal made from fresh ingredients.

For years slow cookers were the steady Eddie of kitchen appliances. Although nearly 80 percent of households had slow cookers and they were the No. 2 item on bridal registries, interest in them kind of died, says Julie Kay, who writes a weekly column on slow cooking for The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge, La.

Slow cookers were perceived as perfect for making pot roast, stew and chili but not much else. As the appliance spotlight turned to more glamorous food processors, stand mixers and espresso machines, many fuddy-duddy harvest-gold slow cookers were shoved into cabinets and forgotten.

But times have changed. At Rival, sales of slow cookers have jumped about 20 percent the last four years, says Diane Coffey, a communications coordinator at the Holmes Group, which owns Rival. The resurgence, she says, is all about comfort food and getting dinner on the table.

"We saw a spike in sales after 9/11," Coffey says. "People were afraid to go out. They wanted to nest and spend time with their families at the dinner table."

In addition, the explosion of cooking and decorating shows on television has given a new cachet to homemaking skills, Matranga says. Instead of being just another chore to check off the list, cooking now is perceived as hip and entertaining.

Part of the fun is experimenting with ingredients and recipes. In the beginning, slow cooker recipes were seasoned mostly with onion soup mix and condensed soups, Wyss says.

But today's cooks are experimenting with a world of bolder flavors. Most ethnic cuisines include slow-simmered soups and stews, such as Moroccan tagine, that are easily adapted to electric slow cookers. And recipes abound in books and on the Web for nontraditional slow-cooker fare such as chutneys, cakes, risottos, roasted vegetables, oatmeal and cereal snack mixes.

Manufacturers of slow cookers have responded to renewed consumer interest with smart new features. The Versaware Crock-Pot from Rival, for example, is made from patented stoneware that endures temperature extremes. Cooks can use the stoneware to brown meat on the stove, store leftovers in the freezer and then reheat them in the microwave - true one-pot cooking. Versaware and most other stoneware inserts also are dishwasher-safe.

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