Slow cooker newbee

Annieb

I posted this cry for help earlier today in a different spot, not sure now if it was in the right place. Hope this is ok to post again as I still need some help please.
I have just bought my first slow cooker:j Tesco SC356 £8.00 what a bargain I am trying a beef stew, I have had it on high, but looking thru the threads it seems better to cook on a lower setting but the manual!! said low is for heating up cooked food. No recipe book with the cooker so I am just chucking in what I would with my pressure cooker, just a bit concerned about which setting to use, can any one advise me
Also I bought a nice piece of pork shoulder would this work with a small bottle of cider in the slow cooker. Thanks for any advise offered:T

Generali

When I cook beef stew in mine I do it for about 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.

Use the same ingredients as you would in a pressure cooker.

The pork sounds lovely. I make a pork stew with celery, onion, cider, apple, onion and sage or parsley (depending which I have available). For extra yumminess, stir in some double cream at the end of cooking. It's really very good even if I do say so myself!

Mrs_Thrify

Congratulations on your SC buying.
When cooking a casserole type meal I set the temp. on high for the first hour and then turn it down to low to cook slowly for about 8 hrs.

Annieb

Thanks for your replies. Gave up waiting for the stew last night, so we had some thing with oven chips out of the freezer well I am learning:rotfl:couple of mistakes I made in case there are other newbees
1. too much veg. didn't breakdown as much as it does in the pressure cooker.
2. Too much cornflour
Solution - fished out the meat,sorted out some of the veggies and thick gravy, blended to make a nice veggie soup with extra water and seasoning, in bags in the freezer - bonus:rotfl:
Now I'm ready to try a rice pud, looked at the other threads so got an idea on quantity and times, but do I start off by heating the milk or put it in the cooker cold?
The pork you done sounds loverly, but should I leave it as a whole joint? about 2.1/2lbs and should the outside fat and rind come off and times hours and hours 8 or more on high or low
I have absolutely no idea. It would have been nice to have some cooking times with the slow cooker but maybe at £8.00 I shouldn't grumble.

Mrs_Thrify

For rice pud I put the milk in cold.
The pork joint sounds like a good meal too. not to sure on this but would sit the joint on a trivet of 2 carrots so the juices run off.

peasantboy

I want to get myself a slow cooker after discovering about them on MSE. Steam cooking just isn't doing it for me in this cold weather, I'm looking forward to doing some stews!! £8 is a bargain, I might grab myself one later.

funkymonkey

i cheat a little and use a beef bourginon mix from a popular brand of packet mixes!

couple of carrots
onion
celery
slices of potato - around 1cm thick
frozen diced beef from a cheap supermarket - which i brown first in a frying pan

pop it in on low for 8 hours and its done! the trick is to use as little water as possible in the mix as so much liquid comes out of the veg.