Slow Cooker Witchery #177 - 19th October 2025

Ancestral Perpetual Stew

As many of you know I am married to a chef and so far after 30 years of being together, I’m not aware that he has given me food poisoning once!

As we get closer to Samhain and the days and nights have started to cool and draw in, I was thinking about started a pot of perpetual stew.

When I used to go camping as a child with the Brownies/Guides, we often had a pot of stew on the fire for 3 or 4 days and the leaders just kept adding to it, it was lovely and I’m sure that is were I got my distaste for ‘brand new’ stew. Mr Wiccan Lady knows that if he makes stew on a Monday, I aren’t eating it till Tuesday, it some how tastes so much better the following day when it is reheated and cooked again.

So I’m thinking to myself, when our ancestors were alive, they had wood fires in the lounge and used to have a constant flow of boiling water and food on the go.

We now have the joy of the slow cooker (a cauldron by any other name) and I’m wondering how long I could keep a stew going before my level 3 Food Hygiene husband calls me out!

9 out of 10 days we eat totally fresh, made from scratch and probably 4 of those days are meat and veg of some description, so if I through the left over meat from our Sunday roast in the pan tonight, a couple of onions, the leftover carrots, swede and cabbage and the gravy and just left it on, what might happen. The following day I may add some herbs, a bit of barley, a day later, more carrot, fennel, celery, the day after a bit of left over ham and the half tin of mushy peas I find in the back of the fridge. Then the day after that the half used tomato, the bit of pasta left over from lunch, some chilli, more stock, split peas, the ideas are endless and the meal evolves on its own, tasting different every single time.

As long as the slow cooker isn’t switched off it remains at temperature and therefor the food remains safe. If nothing else I am putting a cauldron to good use and eating in the way of my ancestors this Samhain.

Mr Wiccan Lady will keep me straight, but I’m going to count the days until he can’t bear it anymore and pulls the plug.

How many days gone do you think that will be?

What different foods would you add to the pot?