I have a slow cooker but I just can't work it out...

[Gleek]

Most recipes I have seen say 5-7 hours etc. We leave the house at 8am and return at 6pm, is the slow cooker going to work for us?

If yes, could someone post a REALLY basic recipe to get me started, is it really as simple as chucking everything in?

TIA

You just put it on the low setting if you're out that long.
It should have a basic recipe book with it.
I like skinned chicken on the bone eg pack of thighs cos its horrid if off the bone -you just fish out bones at the end.
cover that with glass of cheap white wine/stock cube/one of those teabags full of herbs and some veg chopped eg onion, mushrooms, carrot

or stewing steak, tinned tomatoes, onion,red wine, stock cube, squirt of tomato sauce, mushrooms/whatever

or casserole lamb/barley/veg/wine/stock

if you're really worried use one of those packets you find in the herbs section-they do slow cooker ones now and it tastes fine.

I don't brown meat first or anything cos I leave it for hours and so the meat is very trender and full of flavour.

Also, if it's a bit watery when you come home just mix up some cornflour and add that to thicken the gravy. Or cream is nice stirred into the chicken one.

You will find you need less liquid as nothing evaporates or reduces in a slow cooker (or very little compared to conventional cooking) - but a bit too much gravy is not really a problem, and like Defineme says drop of cornflour mixed at the end is easy to do.

I use ours at least once a week and this is the scrummiest so far!

Left it from 7.30 until 5.30, and it was lovely

That looks amazing Feenie!

Slow cooker pack things sound perfect for my first try, I want to limit what can go wrong. I might give it a try this weekend when I am in just to keep an eye on it, had heard the watery thing too, guess it's just trial and error?

Thank you for all the advice ladies, feel a lot more confident.

just don't open the lid too often as that adds to cooking time. You will be fine - a nice beef stew or something simple like a bolognese or chili are good to start with.

They just do a gently simmer/bubble so all perfectly safe :)