Two meals slow-cooked so far. Two piles of inedible slop

[Bibulus]

I don't know how this is so difficult!

one chicken stew with chicken legs that completely disintegrated into individual fibres

one pearl barley stew (Hugh F-W's) which turned into lumpy glue

and both of them tasted of nothing! all the lovely veg etc I put in was totally annihilated

Each time I have left it on low all day and gone to work. That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?

oldsilver me babs (or indeed anyone else who can advise); did you literally just plonk the gammon in the slow cooker with the Coke? Did use a liquid to make the mustard powder and the sugar into a paste?

I've done the Nigella boiling a gammon joint on the stove in Coke (2 litres iirc) thing, which you finish off in a hot oven having coated in breadcrumbs, mustard and 2 tbsps of coke reserved from the bottle, and it went down a storm. If I can do the boiling in the slow cooker rather than on the stove, that'd be just super. I still want to finish it off in the oven though, for the crust.

Hiding can you divulge further details of your layered potato bake?

I just plonk it in the slow cooker with an onion and the full fat coke. I don't use the liquid - Nigella makes some sort of corn fritter thing with it I think? - and then do the mustard/treacle/clove thing after and finish off in the oven.

I tried the shoulder of pork in coke with Newmans BBQ sauce, and it didn't turn out well. Pork was bland in taste and quite dry, although shredded well. What did I do wrong?

Am off to scan thread for other recipes that promise non-bland no-mush

Jenai me babbers I used THIS recipe for ham read gammon yep a couple of drops of cola to make a paste ... you don't need much. Slathered that on the skin and the sides (we'd already cut a couple of gammon steaks off it - think it was about 2 lb of meat) but did it on high for the whole time.

Nigella's looked one hell of a faff

Cheers me dears. Is cooking now :)

Hi midnight, i basically made it up out of stuff i had about but here is the outline from what i remember.

Oil inside of cooker and switch to high.
Put in the following layers:
layer chopped onion and 3 sliced garlic cloves
layer of slice potato
layer of grated carrot, spinich (i used a couple of blocks of frozen spinich that i defrosted in a pan first) and portion of pancetta
layer of sliced potato

I then made a tomato sauce with some passata, tom puree, veg stock, cyenne pepper and paprika (though you could just use a jar of sauce) and poured this over the top.

Then cook on high for about 4 hours or until potatos are soft.

As i said this was rather made up on the spot with stuff i had in the cupboards so i take no responsibility if I have forgotten something and it turns out a mess :o

I made my firs ever spaghetti bolognaise in slow cooker over the weekend. I went for the throw everything in method (didn't brown mince first) and it was brilliant.

NO MORE LUMPY MINCE!! Such a lovely texture to the Spag Bol. DP said it was a little bland, but I didn't season it, so baby & 4 year old could eat it too. We then seasoned our plates individually and I have 3 portions in freezer for lunches.

Dish by dish I will master this slow cooker.

Soooo, I've read lots of positive things about the pulled pork recipe - my question is this: would it work with Diet Coke/Coke zero?! I'm diabetic and try to avoid added sugar where possible.

(might just have asked a silly question!)

Kate when Nigella does coke ham, she specifies it MUST be full 'fat' coke. I suspect this will be the same.

After a lot of sloppy meals I have come to the conclusion that the slow cooker is best used for 4 hours max, any longer and it's mush.

Stews are good, but the BEST use is for stock. All the Sunday roast bones go into the slow cooker on Sunday night and blip and burp away all night, fantastic stock for soups or freezer.

I use a timer from Ikea with my slow cooker, I get everything ready and set it to come on at about 11am instead of 7am when I leave for work. This works really well and I can adjust the seasoning, herbs, etc when I get home.

I find beef or lamb works much better in mine than chicken which always goes a bit dry and tastless IMO.

zanz1bar, how do you manage to tip the crockpot to sieve the stock. Mine is too heavy to do something like that.

I ladle out most of the stock and then dump the mush into a bin bag.

Ah use a ladle, of course, silly me.

Someone asked last(?) week about doing stock in the slow cooker, and I couldn't think how to manage it.

Thanks.

I did chicken chasseur recently. Used a packet mix from schwartz, it turned out ok and went down well.

I did it for 5 hours. I had to take the lid off, add a bit of cornflour and put on high for a while at the end.

If I was doing it again, I'd fry off the onion first, add less water and test after 4 hours.

Try this and this I use frozen chicken so it takes a bit longer to cook and can be left all day without being over done.

Also this is lovely.

The pictures on here show why you don't really need to add any liquid when cooking chicken as it creates it's own liquid whilst cooking. http://thehappyhousewife.com/cooking/whole-chicken-in-a-crock-pot/

When trying to be healthy I have also thawed and skinned a whole chicken to put in the slow cooker. I got the idea from this blog and it was yummy. She's got loads of fab recipes that are worth trying. This spicy, seasoned chicken works well with whole chickens, thighs, legs, quarters and even breasts (if using breasts I wrap them in foil to prevent them from drying out.) Some people recommend using frozen chicken breasts to keep them even moister. These sticky drumsticks are also done skinned so a healthy option.

If you don't like the idea of your meat cooking in it's own fat one idea is to buy a cheap tin, poke holes into it, turn it upside down in the slow cooker and place your meat on it. The fat falls though the holes and away from your meat. Or you can wrap in foil and poke holes in the foil, but if you leave the skin on it won't brown. Another idea is to either wrap potatoes in foil and line the slow cooker with them and place your meat on top or use potato sized balls of foil to achieve the same thing.

I make stews, soups and baked apples, rice pudding and loads of others in mine never tried soup though

Sausage in onion gravy

Honey and garlic chicken

I replaced ketchup with passata and added 1 teaspoon chilli powder.

I have never had a slow cooker meal I enjoyed yet.

I don't think many things benefit from being kept hot for hours and hours, except very slow roasts.

Glad it works for some though. Mine went to the charity shop.

Sausage and guinness casserole

Bacon, cheese and potato casserole

The recipe says to use belly bacon (streaky bacon) but I used back bacon.

Meatballs