slow cookers

rej-c

I know some veggies don't see much point in SCs, but as a vegan who's out long hours for work, with a meat-eating Him Indoors, I find mine really useful. I tend to do vegan stuff in it [all the gloopy kind of stuff previously mentioned - curries, stews, ratatouille, sausage casserole - maybe stuffed peppers; not spectacularly imaginative, but all good]. Currently use it once or twice a week, but plan to use it more when the nights close in again.

I may chuck in veggie mince, sliced veg sausages or something, but if [as happens occasionally] he wants meaty additions, I'll keep a portion of 'fake meats' separate for me, and it's quick and easy, for instance, to fry up a handful of diced chicken bits on the hob to add to his portion of curry. At most, one extra frying pan to wash up. So the SC supplies the core of the meal, but it's easy to do vegan AND meaty variants from that basic 'building block'.

So, OP, I hope you find it works as well for you as mine does for me

Doom_and_Gloom

rej-c wrote: »

I know some veggies don't see much point in SCs, but as a vegan who's out long hours for work, with a meat-eating Him Indoors, I find mine really useful. I tend to do vegan stuff in it [all the gloopy kind of stuff previously mentioned - curries, stews, ratatouille, sausage casserole - maybe stuffed peppers; not spectacularly imaginative, but all good]. Currently use it once or twice a week, but plan to use it more when the nights close in again.

I've never done a vegan sausage casserole in my slowcooker. Can I ask what vegan sausages you use? What exactly do you use in the casserole? How big is your slow cooker (as I've said I have a 6.5L) and how many portions do you get from what you put in? I would be really interested in this as a fellow vegan .

rej-c

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

I've never done a vegan sausage casserole in my slowcooker. Can I ask what vegan sausages you use? What exactly do you use in the casserole? How big is your slow cooker (as I've said I have a 6.5L) and how many portions do you get from what you put in? I would be really interested in this as a fellow vegan .

No probs

The SC I've used for this is 3.2l [I have a 6l one but haven't plucked up the nerve to use it yet - I live in a shared house, and it would take up most of our kitchen worktop!] so I guess you could just double my quantities.

I usually usually do a tomatoey/beany one, and use the frozen Linda McCartney sausages, as I tend to stock up on them when they're on offer [and they're usually on offer somewhere ] - although the ready-to-eat Redwoods Lincolnshire-style ones would probably work fine too [and are gorgeous; just put them in a bit nearer end of cooking]. I put all the ingredients below in, then pop the sausages on top and push them down so they're half-submerged.

Other than that, for the basic version I chuck in a couple of tins of baked beans; lots of chopped onion; a tin/carton chopped tomatoes; mushrooms [halved or quartered, depending on size]; a tin or two of cheap new potatoes [again, if they're big, I cut 'em in half]; garlic and herbs; a good squidge of tomato puree.

I've also put in other veg, including lentils, chunky slices of courgette, cubes of sweet potato, peas, cauli, leeks and broccoli, all raw or frozen - I often adopt a veg curry-style 'if it needs using up, chuck it in' mindset with the SC - and have been known to pop in some veg-friendly gravy granules to add a bit of depth.

Oh, I should mention that this 3.2l SC is a bit of an odd one, in that it's a multifunction thing with a click-shut lid that doesn't have 'high' or 'low' settings - I think it's basically equivalent to an 'auto' setting, so I just stick everything in in the morning, then email or text Him Indoors [who works from home] when I remember, usually around lunchtime, and he sets it going for anything from about 5hrs up to 9hrs, depending on the time available, and it's always been fine.

In terms of proper, healthy, realistic portions, this probably yields about 6 - in reality, in our house it feeds the two of us with greedy-guts platefuls :eek: and leaves one or two of leftovers, but has fed us and two of his friends [one with a heroic appetite], with some leftovers too. If having smaller portions, I'd just add a good chunk of bread

Sorry if that's TMI - I do go on a bit when it comes to grub :rotfl:

foxgloves

Depending on the make of slow cooker, it doesn't have to mean extra washing-up from doing the pre-browning, etc. I've got the Crock-pot, which is the black heavy pot cauldron-looking thing. It's hob-proof so I brown the onions, meat, whatever it is, first just as I would if cooking normally, then the liquid goes in & it goes on to slow-cook. I agree that there'd be an extra pan to wash if the slowcooker isn't hob-proof.

gillypkk

ive just dug out the slow cooker cookbook i "borrowed" off my mum hehe and noted down a few soup recipes. ive never done soup in there i always use my pressure cooker but this thread has reminded me of how useful the SC is!

im gonna chuck the stuff in and do it overnight so i have soup ready for lunchtime.

puddy

foxgloves wrote: »

Depending on the make of slow cooker, it doesn't have to mean extra washing-up from doing the pre-browning, etc. I've got the Crock-pot, which is the black heavy pot cauldron-looking thing. It's hob-proof so I brown the onions, meat, whatever it is, first just as I would if cooking normally, then the liquid goes in & it goes on to slow-cook. I agree that there'd be an extra pan to wash if the slowcooker isn't hob-proof.

i mentioned extra washing up when browning and i have the crock pot too. i found the shape a bit inconvenient for browning because of the smaller bottom, however, i am cooking an oven casserole today (beef bourginon) and browned the meat off in that, so i think i struggled before with larger size chicken pieces.

it did occur to me whilst i was cooking, that i wondered if i should do it as a slow cooker dish but stuck with the oven (using the crock pot) and may do it as a slow cooker version the next time to see how i get on.

the one thing i would say was a success was a beef joint. just a cheaper beef joint so i have no idea whether it would have been any good in the oven but in the slow cooker with a bottle of wine over it, it was unbelievable

Jariya

I wouldn't want to be without mine!

I only got it a few months ago and I use it to batch cook and stick it on on a Saturday morning.
It cooks meat beautifully and I wasn't much of a meat fan but it comes out beautifully tender and moist. Even just the difference between a beef chilli in a pan and in teh slowe cooker is amazing.

Some of the cook books tell you to hold back on spices but I find just the same as I would normally use is perfect.
I fill mine to three quarters full and get about 6-8 meals out of one batch.

The only thing I don't like is stewed up veggies - which is why I do my batch cooking on a weekend so that I can add teh veggies in the last couple of hours - some veggies can go in right at the start but some can become unidentifiable if you throw them in at the start of cooking! Haha!