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.

[MrsJLS85]

Have really enjoyed reading through this thread. Will definitely try the gammon and brown sugar recipe. We have done the pulled pork/ginger ale one a few times and its always a hit!

I have a little something different to add into the mix. Its a slow cooker recipe for Refried Beans. This will make you a batch of at least 4-6 meals, so freeze what you don't use into individual freezer bags for other meals. We use these in quesidillas, enchiladas, burritos, etc, and its so much cheaper (and tastier) then the tinned stuff you'll find in the Mexican aisle at the supermarket

Refried Beans:
1 onion, chopped
3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed (I buy these as Sainsbos)
1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (I have also used jarred instead and thats fine too)
2 tablespoons minced garlic
3 teaspoons salt
1-3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
9 cups water

Place the onion, rinsed beans, jalapeno, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin into a slow cooker. Pour in the water and stir to combine. Cook on low for 8 hours (sometimes I do high for 2 hours, then low for the rest), adding more water if needed. Once finished, mash the whole thing up to your desired consistency!

[outinthesticksmummy]

just marking my place to try the gammon and chicken chorizo

[WingDefence]

If we ate more mexican food I'm sure I'd try your recipe Mrs :)

I 'like' the Crock Pot page on facebook and they post recipes quite a lot. This is today's - a chicken in white wine dish for Valentine's Day. Looks really nice, although I would have to translate the quantities.

[HollyBollyBooBoo]

I've just done a gammon joint in the slow cooker and it was utterly amazing.

1 x 1kg unsmoked gammon joint, few peppercorns, few cloves, some english mustard, couple of bay leaves, a bit of cider and some muscavado sugar.

Low for 5 hours and the most delicious meat ever!

[WingDefence]

That sounds lovely Holly - did you rub the other ingredients all over the gammon?

There is a free slow cooker recipe book on Amazon for kindle today: download here

If you don't have a kindle you can read it on the free app or the free PC software. I've not looked through it yet so can't comment on the quality but it's free!

[HollyBollyBooBoo]

No I must admit I just shoved it all in, gave it a mix, put the gammon in and that was it!

[MelRobCallum]

Have just ordered www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0716022214/?hvadid=9550952949&ref=asc_df_0716022214&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 so hopefully this will give me lots of great ideas. I actually bought my slow cooker from Tesco, it was on offer at £8.00, and is fantastic :-)

[soontobedivorced]

question: do you have to heat up the meat and contents first or do you just bung it in cold and switch it on?

[dreamingofsun]

bung it in cold and switch it on. i brown sausages but nothing else. if you are using mince you have to bash it up a bit.

[determinedma]

Got a beef and ale casserole on the go as we speak. Dinner is sorted

[WingDefence]

Determined do you have a recipe for that? Sounds delicious.

I cheated today in Sainsburys and bought two sachets of Colman's (I think, could be wrong) Slow Cooker spices/herbs. One is chicken curry and one is some sort of casserole. The instructions are basic - chuck the meat & veg in, mix the packet with water, stick in the SC on Low (8hrs) or High (4hrs).

I just want to see how they turn out as a good standby...

[WingDefence]

And Mel that's the book I bought on Boxing Day i.e. one day after I got my SC! It's really interesting to read but bizarrely I've only done recipes suggested on here or by friends so far!

[RibenaFiend]

I use mine for mulling wine for winter parties too!

I am absolutely stealing some of these recipes however!!!

[determinedma]

No recipe wing. Have chucked in beef with chopped onion, garlic, carrots, leftover green beans, handful cherry toms and half a red pepper and a few shrooms. Add a can of guiness or dark ale, dollop of coarse grain mustard, dash of Lee and Perrins, oregano, salt and pepper and a beef stock blob. Sometimes add dollop of cranberry sauce nor anything else which comes to hand. Oh, I added chunks of potato today to make it one pot, but sometimes leave the pots out and serve them as mash separately.

[dreamingofsun]

curry is the other no brainer. tin of toms, onion, meat, curry paste, maybe saultanas, chopped apple, stock pot, chutney, old veg. dollop in and stir a couple of times

[WingDefence]

Did anyone see that this thread was posted on the MN FB page the other day? Not sure we've got much more traffic/recipes because of it though

[Blatherskite]

Did it? Blimey, I'm not sure I've ever started a thread that's been "famous" before!!

[louisianablue2000]

WingDefence Re Tanfastic's carrot soup. I reckon you'd be fine just slicing the carrots as long as you lengthened the cooking time, another hour maybe at high or an 8h job at low I reckon.

Getting into this slow cooked soup malarkey, cooked a celeriac and apple soup in the slow cooker, and baked some multigrain bread in the breadmaker (30 mins prep for both in the morning then set it off), went out to a friend's house in the afternoon and arrived home 15 minutes before DH to a gorgeous smelling house.

[WingDefence]

Thanks louis - that might be next week's project i.e. to do a soup in the SC.

I'm trying out my 'cheat' this morning - the SC sachet I bought. It's a curry one so I dumped a lb of chunky potatoes (which isn't as much as it sounds...), a diced red pepper, diced onion, some chicken thighs and drumsticks I had using up freezer space and the sachet mixed not with water but a tin of chopped toms. On Low for 8 hours and it should be ready by 5pm.

Trouble is, the house smells of curry already so goodness knows how I'm going to cope for the rest of the day (I work from home)!

[WingDefence]

Massive success with the curry! The bones fell out of the meat - I hate cooking with drumsticks and thighs normally because of the bones but I'll definitely buy them in future for SC recipes because the chicken wasn't dry and of course they are cheaper.

DH and DS loved the recipe and it really was lovely. I have made curry from scratch with spices etc before but for 60p or whatever the cost of the sachet was, I think I'm converted

[WingDefence]

Hi all - not sure if this thread has died a death or not. I hope it means everyone else is using their SCs too? :)

I've got a sausage casserole going today. Browned the sausages then stuck in a tin of chopped toms, tin of baked beans, yellow pepper and large onion, both chopped not too finely, two sliced carrots as I seem to have loads, and a sachet of sausage casserole mix I had kicking around in the cupboard (that is normally made up with water and done on the hob) and 8 sausages. Smells lovely. I want to eat it now!

[Blatherskite]

Ooh, tell me if it's good Wing, that sounds lovely

[DerbyNottsLeicsNightNanny]

Just marking place

[WingDefence]

Well it went down very well but there was only one thing slightly wrong - the cumberland sausages (not posh, just Sainsbury's) must have absorbed the tomatoey flavour and both DH and I thought they tasted exactly like the mini 'hot dog' style sausage you get in a tin of beans & sausages! (Which I am not that keen on tbh.)

So I think although it cooked beautifully, I'll either use bog standard sausages next time or, if I have nice sausages to use, I'll do the casserole in a more traditional way on the hob to keep the flavour of the sausages.

Oh and there was a fair bit of sauce/onions/peppers/beans left over so DH and I are are going to have that as soup :)

[smoothieooo]

I made a Thai green curry in the slow cooker this morning so that DSs will have a hot meal after school.

Did the prep last night - diced the chicken and marinaded in Thai green paste, chopped a red pepper and trimmed some green beans and baby sweetcorn and this morning, all I had to do was brown the chicken, sauté the veg for a couple of mins, add a tin of coconut milk and set the slow cooker to low. Second time I've made it and the boys loved it, plus there was enough for lunch next day.

I only bought it 3 weeks ago but have used it a lot