‘We’re looking at buying a slow cooker, what do you recommend?’
The lady behind the counter shook her head and leaned in to speak in a low voice.
‘You don’t want a slow cooker. You want a pressure cooker. They’re like slow cookers, only fast. Seriously I don’t know why anyone buys slow cookers anymore. ‘
Mr Smaggle being Mr Smaggle, thanked her and then went home and spent the next hour researching pressure cookers vs slow cookers.
The lady behind the counter was dead right. Pressure cookers are basically the same as slow cookers they’re just faster. We had a slow cooker for years and loved it so when it stopped working we felt weird replacing it with something completely different. We researched the shit out of it and took the plunge.
The result? It’s just about the best thing we’ve ever bought. For real. We use it at least 5 nights a week, if not every night.
In the Smaggle house, we don’t make decisions lightly. If we need to buy something, Mr Smaggle will sit down for at least a few hours and research the crap out of whatever we’re buying. He’ll read all the Amazon reviews, check Choice magazine, find online forums. He loves it. As a result we rarely make poor buying decisions. This is why I love writing recommendation posts because everything we buy is so awesome because we research it like a mofos.
Here are a few recommendations from me to you…
1. Pressure cooker
As I mentioned previously, we had a slow cooker for years and have had zero regrets replacing it with a pressure cooker. What a slow cooker does in 6 hours, a pressure cooker can do in 12 minutes. We make soups, curries, meatballs, taco meat, savoury mince, tofu and fish and vegetables in it. We even made tender, crispy sausages in it the other day. I’m just about brave enough to try making yogurt in it soon. Most we nights we throw a bag of frozen vegetables and some kind of protein in it and dinner is ready in ten minutes. It’s unreal. It makes all meat unbelievably tender and delicious. As a massive slow cooker lover I have to be honest; The pressure cooker kicks its ass. We have the Tefal Minut Cook and bought it on sale for $100. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
2. Enos
I’ve been randomly been having some digestion issues recently (a lot of bloating and burping) and my doctor suggested trying Enos. It’s been a god damn miracle. I don’t know what it’s doing or how it’s doing it but I’m totally sorted now. Bloody love a good old-fashioned remedy you can grab at the supermarket.
3. Electric blanket
Our new house is gorgeous but it’s insulated terribly which means it’s hot in summer and freezing in winter. I don’t love sleeping in a hot room so I wasn’t too keen on getting a heater for our bedroom so we had the genius idea of getting electric blankets. We just pop it on an hour or two before bed and then it’s timed to turn off around midnight once we’re already warm and toasty. They’re better for the environment as well. We bought ours from Aldi and it’s great. It has good security settings and lots of different temperature levels. Bloody love an electric blanket.
4. Sunday afternoon river walks
Winter is pretty brutal in Melbourne right now so getting people to leave their houses at night is almost impossible. I’ve started inviting my mates on Sunday afternoon walks and you know what? It’s really fucking pleasant. We rug up, grab a takeaway coffee and go for a walk around the Tan or along Merri Creek. It’s also a lovely way to combat the Sunday blues. I’m not a huge fan of Sundays for some reason but making the effort to leave the house and move a bit makes such a big difference. Highly recommend it.
5. The Incredibles 2
Okay, so I need to preface this with a disclaimer. The Incredibles is just about my favourite Pixar film ever. Most people love it but it rarely beats Nemo or Toy Story for the number spot in any given top Pixar film list. For me, it totally does. It’s always been a solid favourite of mine. So I’ve been waiting a REALLY long time for this movie. Over a decade. I purposefully didn’t watch any trailors and I didn’t read any reviews before I saw it. I also really lowered my expectations. We went saw it last weekend and it was everything I wanted it to be and more. It was just perfection. I won’t go into details but it’s a bloody good romp and defnitely the type of movie I’ll watch again and again.
What recommendations do you have for me? What are you loving right now?
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