The wonders of modern technology

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Icemaiden

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As someone who battles with technology, I'm thoroughly enjoying it this evening. Sitting at home in Kent, watching two hours of Runrig in concert in Sterling, c/o FreeSat. Fantastic ? ? ?
 
So, I meant to ask, what's your favourite aspect of modern technology, & why?
 
The Slow Cooker - cheap to buy, cheap to use and turns the toughest bit of meat tender. The only question I ask myself is why it wasn’t invented 50 years ago.
But more high tech I would say TV with all its modern functions.
 
Hen-Gen said:
The Slow Cooker - cheap to buy, cheap to use and turns the toughest bit of meat tender. The only question I ask myself is why it wasn’t invented 50 years ago.
But more high tech I would say TV with all its modern functions.
Click to expand...

I think the slow cooker's predecessor was the haybox.

https://www.woodland-ways.co.uk/blog/outdoor-cooking/making-and-using-a-hay-box-to-cook-in/
 
I remember an old cook book of my father's from the 1920s, all steamed fish for invalids and insipid puddings, had haybox recipes in it. I was fascinated. Would the inbetween thing be the pressure cooker?

My favourite bit of tech has to be the computer (very generic I know). If I was younger no doubt it would be the mobile phone.
 
Central heating and video/computer games. Years ago, I would have said the airplane.
 
The cordless drill - and my open back headphones.
The drill because it has done so much work in 10 years and is still going. The battery has lost a bit of oomph but I still cant justify getting a new one.
The headphones because they are just so accurate its ridiculous! I got them shortly after getting the album 'Shousou Strip' and couldn't work if the noise was supposed to be there or not - it was, every delightful bit of it!. They just do justice to anything and you can hear through them when drumming or playing the guitar.
 
I’d never heard of a haybox so Wiki’d it. Sounds like a recipe for food poisoning to me.
Just last night I had mutton curry. Took three hours in the slow cooker for a fraction it would have cost in the oven. Frozen Peshwari Nans thawed and warmed in the toaster. Green or what?
 
Hen-Gen said:
I’d never heard of a haybox so Wiki’d it. Sounds like a recipe for food poisoning to me.
Just last night I had mutton curry. Took three hours in the slow cooker for a fraction it would have cost in the oven. Frozen Peshwari Nans thawed and warmed in the toaster. Green or what?
Click to expand...

I wasn't suggesting you tried it, Hen-Gen! :D

We have a Morphy Richards slow cooker, you can put the bowl on the stove to brown the ingredients but it's massive. Far too big for two unless you want to eat the same thing for a week.
 
I might have to add the breadmaker to the list. I made a black olive loaf yesterday. Wonderful with butter, spreadable British goats' cheese & cucumber. Mum.
 
I wonder if you can do the same as with a haybox by putting your stew in a stew vac flask. Much smaller quantity than a casserole dish though. Its a great way of saving energy, even if you heat it up again later. When it was very cold recently I stopped the water freezing over in the day by putting a small stainless steel flask in a water dish and was surprised that it was still pretty hot after 5 hours but must have been leaking heat into the drinking water.
 
I love my slow cookers too. Fabulous to have a lovely pot of soup waiting in the evenings. And great for roasts, stews meatballs - and Christmas puddings!
I used to have three but one broke. And my large one really needs replacing, but I keep putting it off, as now that I'm on my own, I don't often need the large one.

However, my favourite bit of technology has to be the ability to make video calls to my family overseas, for free! This morning, I called my brother i Singapore so mum and he could see each other and have a chat. Mum was so delighted. And with travel restrictions not looking like they will be completely lifted in the foreseeable future, and mum being very elderly and frail, being able to see family who can't come home to visit is so precious.

Sent from my SM-A415F using Tapatalk

 
dianefairhall said:
Yes, Lady A, I must use my slow cooker next time I do Scotch Broth. I never think about it but it would be so much easier. Scotch Broth for a week, though!
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That tends to be what I do. Enough vegetable & bean soup for several days!

Sent from my SM-A415F using Tapatalk

 
dianefairhall said:
Yes, Lady A, I must use my slow cooker next time I do Scotch Broth. I never think about it but it would be so much easier. Scotch Broth for a week, though!
Click to expand...

Is a freezer on your list of indispensable gadgets?
 
Looking around our kitchen, I’m amazed by the number of appliances that make life so much easier than what it was like when I was growing up in the 1940s. Most of them weren’t even invented, or only rich people possessed relatively undeveloped versions of what they’re like today. Touring our kitchen, we have the central heating boiler, fridge freezer, electric kettle, toaster, dishwasher, water softener, washing machine, bread maker, and my indispensable combined microwave, grill and electric oven. I do have a slow cooker but seldom use it, so given a choice, that could go, as could the oven part of the electric cooker, below the hob, as I almost never use that unless cooking for the whole family, in the ‘olden days!’ . Then in the rest of the house, garage and garden shed, there are multiple tools and appliances, from the garden shredder to hedge cutter, the electric drill to my electric sewing machine, which not only make life easier but on the whole do jobs to a better standard, that weren’t possible before, and of course the TV. We had our first TV in 1956, all grey and grainy, all two programmes, or was it three by then?
Most of all, I wonder now how I managed before broadband and my trusty iPad, without which we wouldn’t be talking to each other now, learning about the world and its news, and above all keeping in touch with our families during the many months when we can’t see them.
 
Slow cooker for us, nice to go out all day and come home to the dinner cooked.

Mobile Phones are great for being out somewhere and being able to call for help if a breakdown occurs. or you are running late. But I hate the fact that people are glued to them 24/7
 
bigyetiman said:
Slow cooker for us, nice to go out all day and come home to the dinner cooked.

Mobile Phones are great for being out somewhere and being able to call for help if a breakdown occurs. or you are running late. But I hate the fact that people are glued to them 24/7
Click to expand...

That's what I was looking forward o when I bought a slow cooker but there seems to be a lot of fiddling about and changing of heat settings. So I've stuck with my pressure cooker but that makes stew rather than a casserole. Any one got any tips or can recommend a good slow cooker book? The instructions with it are pretty well useless.

Quite agree about mobile phones BYM. People can't understand that I just want to make the occasional call (when all I have is a mobile number) and send a few texts. I don't want to look at emails, internet banking or any of the other things people try and persuade me to do. It's very much a device for my convenience not other people's. I'm about to go out to post some letters ad I won't be taking it with me.
 
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