In my slow cooker today...

hayley11

I'm using my slow cooker for the first time today I just threw in a load of potatoes and veg and some diced beef. I put in a bit of stock but I didn't know whether I should have or not?

It's been on for 5 hours now on medium, the book said things on med can take between 6 - 8 hours. I should have put it on a lot earlier to be honest but I completely forgot about it! Must be more organised!!

Is it okay to take the lid of now and see how things are? Or should I wait another hour?

tiny_courageous

Hi, I've been following this thread for ages, got a slow cooker for Christmas and have been really looking forward to trying out new things (got to use up all the Christmas food first though). I've just cooked off some sausages and thrown them in the slow cooker with some tinned tomatoes, onions, peppers, and loads of herbs. No idea how it'll taste but I was thinking I'd cook some pasta and mix it with it for work tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to doing some chicken thighs or something like that soon, I'm sure I'll create some culinary disasters (I'm a 'ignore recipes and bung in whatever I've got' kind of girl) but it's all fun experimenting.

hopefulshell07

Today I put in some browned lamb mince - reduced in Mr T to half price £1.75, some carrots, onion, swede turnip mushroom, some vegetable stock and a pinch of dried mixed herbs and some rosemary from the garden, after about 3 hours gave a good stir and added in some worcestshire sauce and the rest of the mix I had made for canneloni and had far too much. Had it tonight with some fresh crusty bread and butter, it was lovely and have enough for another dinner and some for lunch tomorrow as well!

katycocoa

Veg soup - 5 carrots, 2 red onions, 1 potato, very bendy parsnip, old sprouts, frozen peas, frozen spinach, chicken stock, oregano, parsley...and splash of milk. Just whizzed it up with my hand blender and had some with crusty bread. Lovely, and healthy too.

sb44

hayley11 wrote: »

Is it okay to take the lid of now and see how things are? Or should I wait another hour?

I know it's too late now :rolleyes: as I have only just started reading the thread but I was told that each time you take the lid off before the end it sets the cooking time back by 20mins.

HomeSpun

I had Vegetable and Lentil soup in my sc this morning - it was delicious and I'll never be able to make it again as I just threw things in from the cupboard at mid-night last night!

I think it consisted of about 3 potatoes, about 4 carrots, two large handful of frozen diced onions, a packet of unsmoked lardons, 3 chicken stock cubes in 2 1/2 pints of water, tin of tomatoes, packet of onion and garlic passata, as many frozen peas as fall out when you tip up a newly opened bag for about 2 seconds, same quantity of red lentils as peas and a pinch of salt, all veg and bacon browned first with the obvious exception of the peas.

I think that was everything. Left it on low until about 9am then reheated it at lunchtime with Sainsburys BOGOF part-bake baguettes (couldn't be bothered putting the BM on!):)

hayley11

sb44 wrote: »

I know it's too late now :rolleyes: as I have only just started reading the thread but I was told that each time you take the lid off before the end it sets the cooking time back by 20mins.

Thanks, that's good to know It didn't work out all that well the beef casserole, spuds and parsnips were really hard so I took two portions out and put them in the freezer then left the rest and reheated it yesterday. Perfect :j

I've made a huge batch of chilli con carne today, just threw in two packs of value mince (not the bagged frozen stuff, don't like that) two tins of tomatoes, onion, 2 peppers, 2 big mushrooms, tomato puree, chilli powder, paprika....erm think that's it. So we'll have some of that soon and the rest will be frozen. I'll probably end up freezing most of it though to be honest because i've just been munching on cheese and crackers so i'm not hungry now :rotfl:

I need to start putting things in earlier, because OH is off work, we stay up really late, til about 2am/3am so we don't get up til about 11am (be back to normal next week!) so I'm not putting the food in til gone 12 :rolleyes:

lauzjp

hayley11 wrote: »

I need to start putting things in earlier, because OH is off work, we stay up really late, til about 2am/3am so we don't get up til about 11am (be back to normal next week!) so I'm not putting the food in til gone 12 :rolleyes:

why don't you just put stuff in before you go to bed?


my first forray into my slow cooker involved a tin of new potatoes on the bottom, a tin of carrots, a tin of those brilliant chopped onions in olive oil (drained), some basil & coarse black pepper, and lightly cooked strips of stir fry beef, oh and a packet of that colemans beef casserole. oh and I made some dumpings (successfully) for the first time - albeit from a packet!

hubby approved!

Teapartymum

Im doing a chicken stew for tonights dinner.

piggeh

I got a slow cooker for chrimbo so thought I'd make a stew. Left it on medium overnight (10 hours or so) but still doesnt seem to be cooked right. It's still quite liquidy and not very 'stew-like'. Any ideas on how to rescue it please?!