It's the annual "I got a slow cooker for Christmas, please come and share your best recipes/recipe book suggestions" thread

[BlatherskitedaboutChristmas]

MIL has bought be an enormous Crock Pot slow cooker. It looks lovely but I have no clue what to make in it. It's 5.7 litres but there's only me, DH, 5 yo DS and a very, very picky 3 yo DD.

Suggestions would be very welcome otherwise it's probably going to end up stashed in a cupboard and forgotten about and that would be sad.

[JamNan]

Blatherscape, that's a lovely website. Can't wait to try the pulled pork in a sandwich with coleslaw. Yummmmm.

[WingDefence]

Well we actually had the beef casserole tonight. The gravy/juicy was watery but delicious - almost like a consommé. Lots of flavour although I actually think some parsnips would have helped more than slices of potato and I would have preferred it thicker.

It's all about trial and error and tweaking, isn't it? :)

[dreamingofsun]

wing - my guess is that if you used a packet mix you added loads of water. i sometimes do a beef stew with tin of toms and just the stock cube. if its too watery you can add cornflour mixed in cold water or gravy granules to thicken. or can you add less water to the packet mix?

[WingDefence]

Thanks dreaming. Yes, I can't remember how much the packet mix said originally (a pint perhaps) but I half-followed the recipe in my book for the amount of water needed and didn't add any more corn flour or a stock cube.

I'll definitely add some gravy granules when we have it next (I froze two big portions!) :)

[Jayne266]

Right just making the filling for a beef pie
Beef
Onion
Mushroom
Thyme
Water
Stock cube
And few tablespoons of veg purée (DH is a nightmare and won't eat veg so I hide it so he gets some in him without him knowing this purée consists of carrot, celery and peas)
And we will see tonight.

[BluelightsAndSirens]

The pulled pork recipe I did was a 6lb shoulder with fat trimmed off and a mug of ginger beer, I put the pork on a sliced onion and then cooked on med for 8 hours.

I threw away he liquid and onion and shredded the pork (there was loads) I put it back in the sc with a bottle of bull bbq sauce for another hour.

And it was lovely cold!

[Waitingforastartofall]

does the shredded pork need anything else in the sc other than the pork shoulder , easily confused by a million different recipes

[dreamingofsun]

waiting - if you read through past threads on here people have different ways of doing it. blue above seems to do it with ginger beer, some people do it with the BBq sauce from the start (I think this would make it fatty), i do with stock and an onion. my guess is that you could also do it with nothing since pork is quite fatty.

[Waitingforastartofall]

have done with water and onion then i can drain most of it away before the sauce goes in . the casserole we made in it yesterday was beyond awful. trial and error continues!

[dreamingofsun]

waiting - why was it awful? if something doesn't work out i try and disguise it by adding more garlic,herbs, mustard, or making it into curry by adding curry paste.

[Waitingforastartofall]

Too much rice, not enough liquid was massively stodgy. I ate the sausages then gave up. dogs liked it though!

[Blatherskite]

I still need to try mine again. I'm being a wimp after the disaster that was the beef.

We've got friends coming round for dinner in a couple of weeks and I fancy doing lamb shanks but not sure I dare. We'll all be eating pizza if it's another disaster

[WingDefence]

Try it this week then Blather in case you don't want to take the chance?

Otherwise, I'm sure here are lots of other lovely recipes out there which you could practise with this week until you get some more confidence?

I reckon most people with a SC make mistakes like us at first before they discover the best way to use them for themselves, IYKWIM? :)

[louisianablue2000]

Marking place, I got one for Christmas but haven't tried it yet. Like the idea of doing stock in it so the house doesn't smell all day. Will find a recipe I like the look of and test it out this week, lots of lovely ideas on here.

[WingDefence]

Right, bought a gammon joint this morning (but should have bought pork?) and a 6-pack of Old Jamaican ginger beer as they didn't have Fentimans.

Do you think 1 can or 2...?

Will try it out later this week...

[Blatherskite]

I might try gammon in cola this week. I've done it before in pan so I can't get it too hideously wrong...right?

[WingDefence]

I think I'm going to do my gammon on Saturday as we'll hopefully be out sledging then taking DS to a birthday party and I will just stick it on and forget about it until the evening.

Blathers have you done your gammon in coke yet? How much coke did you use?

[justtired]

I'm gonna do a whole chicken in mine today, any tips for me?

[wrenster]

No tips really it is literally just so simple. Put the chicken in, little stock at the bottom (I use 150ml) and pop to on! If I have half a lemon or orange I tend to put it inside the chicken to keep it moist and that's it! Good luck

[WingDefence]

Right, I stuck my unsmoked gammon joint in the SC with a can of Old Jamaica ginger beer on HIGH at 10:20 this morning so hopefully it'll be done by 6:30 tonight as otherwise DS will be too tired to eat it!

I should have put it on two hours earlier but I forgot

[justtired]

Let me know how it goes wingdefence I have a pork joint in the freezer ready to try!

[Blatherskite]

I bought a gammon joint yesterday too. I was going to do it with the sugar.

[WingDefence]

Will let you know how it goes. I went to a friend's house today and she was doing beef rolls: she had put her beef joint into her SC which just a bit of water at the bottom and it sliced and tasted beautiful. I'm definitely doing that next week!

I've never really cooked roasts so if I can do the meat like this in the SC (probably not for lunch though as I'd have to be up bloomin early) and then just do the veg I shall be very happy.

[WingDefence]

Well the gammon joint just fell apart when I took it out. I didn't want to do pulled pork (will use it like that tomorrow night in rolls) so I sort of cut it into big chunks and we had it with sweet potato mash and broccoli.

TBH, it didn't taste gingery at all but did have a slightly 'different' (not unpleasant) flavour.

I'll definitely cook gammon like this again but may try another type of ginger ale (there was no Fentimans in my Sainsburys) or on top of brown sugar which is meant to be delicious too (is that how you're going to do it Blathers?).

So I'd say a hit overall :)

[Sickandsad]

The pulled pork in ginger we was my recipe. I use a pork shoulder joint for this, not gammon and serve it with bourbon (Jack Daniels) sauce. Not sue ginger ale would work that well with saltiness of gammon?