Slow cooker / one pot meals good enough for entertaining

[idontlikealdi]

Help, parents coming for lunch on Sunday, its a thank you for a lot of help so needs to be special. We have to go to an event at 11am and won't be back until 1.30pm so want to do something one pot or in the slow cooker so I can leave it on while We're out.

We had a family event last week and I made a pork & chorizo stew and beef stifado so don't want to do those again. No lamb, fish or chicken thighs.

Any ideas please?

what about slow cooked beef brisket? you could put a bed of vegetables on the bottom of the slow cooker with red wine.....
or this?

How traditional are your parents?

My best slowcooker entertaining dishes are things like chilli with lots of trimmings.

Anything 'british' will probably look a bit odd without boiled veggies and stuff on the side.

If it must be British - how about a pie? Slow cook the filling, prebake the lid and then just give it 5 mins in the oven to refresh it when you get in. But it will need boiled veggies.

I know it's pork again but what about pulled pork? Serve with homemade coleslaw, salads etc on warmed baps or wholemeal rolls.

this recipe is good and I cooked it for 10 hours on low setting You don't have to grill or BBQ it either.

Thanks for the ideas, unfortunatley I have done pulled pork / beef brisket to death over the BBQ season and the DTs wont eat chili.

Pie though, that could be a goer, I'm thinking beef and ale.

I make a one-pot Pork Apple & Prune Hot Pot. Think it's a Delia one

1 boned shoulder of pork about 1.3 kg, cut into a large dice
1 large cooking apple, peeled and sliced
1 large onion
200g pitted prunes
Garlic
Cider
Sage leaves
Seasoning
Enough peeled and thinly sliced potatoes to cover - preferably King Edward

• Use your nicest-looking large oven proof dish
• Fry off the pork pieces and place in the dish
• Add the garlic and onion to the pork juices and colour that a little. Place around the pork
• Dot the prunes around, season, add the sage leaves and enough cider to just cover everything
• Place a layer of thinly sliced apple on top and then a layer of potato over the whole thing.
• Dot with butter, more seasoning, cover with foil and bake for 1.5 hours Gas 3 (170C) then for a further 50 minutes with the foil removed so that the potatoes crisp up

How about

Beef in Beer
tyne-teas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/beef-in-beer.html

or

Chicken and Bacon casserole
tyne-teas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/chicken-and-bacon-casserole.html

For traditional what about steak and kidney pudding? I do it in the slow cooker.

Grease a pyrex bowl and line with suet pastry - keep 1/3 of pastry back for the lid.

Pack in floured beef chunks and chopped kidney (can use mushroom instead of kidney if you prefer), season then mix an oxo cube with boiling water.

put the lid on the pudding, make a hole in the lid and our the oxo/water in until it fills then close the hole.

Put 2-3 ins of water in the sc, place the pyrex bowl with the pudding in the water - it doesn't matter if it is sitting on the base of the sc.

Turn it on and come home to a good old fashioned pud.

How about Oxtail stew with heaps of mustardy mash, and maybe another veg on the side? The stew will be better if cooked the day before and reheated on the day. (And now that's what I want be be eating this weekend)

This beef and orange daube is my staple posh slow cooker recipe.