slow cooker quick questions thread

Skint_Catt

My SC repetoire (sp?) exists of one thing - casseroles - which are 'ok' but nothing wonderful (can't seem to get much taste into them.

Can someone suggest from their experience another receipe or two to try - very easy, fairly cheap and tasty please?

Many thanks

Pink.

Hi Skint_Catt,

This is one my family love...sorry for lack of proper quantities, but I sort of guess the amounts as I go along. This sounds more complicated than it is.:o

Pork chops or steaks
1 level tsp English mustard (or 1/2 tsp English mustard powder).
1 medium onion (can be fried or added to the SC uncooked).
1 garlic clove crushed
Black pepper
Homemade stock or 1 pork stock cube dissolved in a little water.
Double/whipping/single cream.......whatever you have, although single is more likely to curdle.
Cornflour...aprox 1 tsp mixed with water.
You can play about with this recipe....sometimes I add grated cheese or white wine.

Dry fry pork chops to colour them.
Pop into the SC
Add mustard, onion, garlic, black pepper and stock.
Add grated cheese or white wine if using.
Add cream.
And finally a little cornflour dissolved in water to thicken.

Cook for approx 6 hours. If the sauce is too thin remove the pork and keep warm and use more cornflour dissolved in white wine/water/or milk to thicken.

This is really good served with mashed potatoes and brocolli or another green veg.


Another good one is a whole chicken with onions, leeks, mushrooms, red and yellow peppers all chopped and added to the crock. Season with black pepper, and mixed herbs. Add in a tin of chopped tomatoes, a little chicken stock and a good glug of white wine. Leave to cook on high for about six hours, although you could probably adust the time to leave it for longer if you lowered the setting.

There are lots more tried and tested recipes on this thread:

The Complete Slow Cooker Collection

Pink

Skint_Catt

Thanks PW - I will try the pork - I can never get pork to taste of anything whether its grilled or baked (I think I tried it in the SC once, but it was blander than bland). The white sauce sounds nice!

I'm nervous about doing whole joints or chickens so I'll try some others first. I did look at the SC Collection but was a bit bamboozeled hence me asking for just one or two to try first!

dora37

Doing a Gammon joint an wanted to do it in slow cooker -I am boiling it at the moment to take some of the saltiness off - do I then just put it in slow cooker or will it need liquid?

Thanks.

sarahsarah

Hello, I have just ordered the Morphy Richards 3.5l from Amazon WOOHOO

I have been looking at recipes, but my plan was just to put meat, veg and potatoes in, as my husband is well picky and just likes plainish things!

So, say if I do 4 chicken thighs, potatoes and veg, how much liquid should I put in? Should it be stock or gravy granules or something to give it some flavour?

Gingham_Ribbon

spendaholic wrote: »

Is it worth me getting one?

I had a slow cooker years and years ago and you plugged it in and left it on for hours and hours, but it didn't seem very energy efficient and so I got rid of it.

These days slow cookers seem to have taken off again, but how is it money saving?

(No doubt this has been asked before, so apologies for any duplication, just don't have time to wade through them all right now.)

Just a quick reply while I muster up the energy to do some cleaning!

The slow cooker basically frees up a lot of time. Instead of having to be at or near the cooker to stir etc, I can just plop everything in at once and go off and do whatever else needs doing. And it's big enough to make extra in to reheat.

So on days when I know I'm going to be in a hurry at dinner time, I can set it off in the morning (even add everything except any meat the night before) and I'll have dinner ready in seconds, or I'll just reheat something I made in it the week before.

Cheaper, tastier, healthier and quicker than 'convenience' food.

sarahsarah

sarahsarah wrote: »

Hello, I have just ordered the Morphy Richards 3.5l from Amazon WOOHOO

I have been looking at recipes, but my plan was just to put meat, veg and potatoes in, as my husband is well picky and just likes plainish things!

So, say if I do 4 chicken thighs, potatoes and veg, how much liquid should I put in? Should i put stock or gravy granules or something to give it some flavour?

AND, I will be taking the skin off the chicken thighs, so that means the meat will all fall off the bone, right?

Pink.

Hi sarah,

You can put in as much liquid as you want. Saying that, I think less is more with the slow cooker as there is no means for the steam to escape, so if anything you end up with more liquid than you started with. I normally add stock and/or wine to chicken dishes in the slow cooker and add just enough to cover the vegetables and then thicken it up with cornflour towards the end of cooking. Whether or not you skin the chicken, if it's cooked for long enough it will fall off the bone. I hope you enjoy using your new slow cooker.

Pink

lauzjp

my slow cooker instructions say to use boiling water only? does it really matter if it's cooking away for hours? or is it so that it doesn't produce too much steam or something?

it's the cheapy cookworks model.

Scubabe

I haven't read this whole thread BUT I did just search it, and I got no results, so I was hoping someone is online now (or v. soon) who might know the answer...

Got a MR SC for Xmas yay! About to cook my very first ever SC meal yay!

Am planning on doing Lamb Shanks in some stock with some mint sauce & a few veg. Just going to brown the shanks then whack it all in the SC on Medium for 6 hours and hope for the best. Wondering if I could add pearl barley to this... I have never ever used pearl barley but have just bought some, and also some red lentils.

QUESTION: Do you need to soak the pearl barley first, or do you just chuck it into the SC raw with everything else?

Sorry, never used any kind of pulses in my cooking ever, so no idea how they work!

Many many thanks in advance for any/all replies!