My first ever attempt with a slowcooker today... and worrying its going to be awful

[listsandbudgets]

Racing around this morning I threw some chunked up gammon, some apple juice, some ginger ale, some potatoes, carrots and onions plus a couple of table spoons of flour to thicken it up in the slow cooker shoved it on low and went away.

Is the flour going to go all lumpy? Will the sauce be vile (never tried ginger and apple before saw it in a recipie book somewhere).

Please tell me your favourite cheap and easy slow cooker recipies.. (off to read some of the other threads on the subject)

Sounds good to me. A few things to remember:

The meat gets VERY VERY tender after a few hours cooking so might start to fall apart.
The meat doesn't need much liquid if you're doing it as a "roast". We've put a whole chicken in with no additional liquid and ended up with loads of chicken stock to use in other recipes later in the week.
For stews/casseroles we usually leave out any flour and just throw in a little cornflour near the end if it does need thickening.
Chilli con carne works really well as you can just keep adding different spices throughout the day and end up figuring out your own trademark special blend.

thank you so much subhuman. We walked through the door about half an hour ago and the whole house smells delicious.

Supper in an hour or so :)

I think its ready do I just set it to warm now please?

Irritatingly it was the last one left in Aldi and there were no instructions as the box was broken so sorry for all the novice quesitons.

The biggest mistake people make is adding too much water. If it's sloppy, bland, tasteless, that's likely the error. Also, look for cuts of meat that suit a longer style of cooking. Beef skirt is fabulous, for example. Sounds like it's going to be delicious though!

Yes, put it on warm - if it looks too watery, leave the lid off for the last hour

Thanks Catkisser.

that was the only thing I knew. Normally I would cover the whole dish in liquid but today I left it a bit below the level of the food and glad I did seems to be plenty there.

I've put it on warm and tried a spoon full of the sauce. Its fairly thick, does not seem to be lumpy and tastes warm and gingery.

Feeling rather proud of myself though the proof will be in the children liking it!

I think another big mistake is the 'chuck' approach. Flour has to be blended in or it'll stay in lumps.

Well no lumps, children loved it.

I'm a slow cooker convert.

Cogito i did take about 30 seconds to stir in the flour to the dry ingrediants before adding liquid