Just bought a slow cooker - anyone willing to share receipes/advice

[MrsPuddleduck]

Particularly as I didn't realise you had to warm things up/brown meat first.

Can you just skip this stage and bung it all in?

Buy the cook book from Lakeland, It is fab, or look in Smiths.

You can also do searches on here and google as there are loads of recipes.

Browning meat is more for colour than anything I think.

Browning meat is only for colour (and a bit of extra flavour). Provided you leave it in long enough, it will cook. You just need to be prepared that the 'normal' cooked colour will not be what you get - it will be pale. I find this offputting in chicken, but everything else is fine.

I don't warm stuff, but I do try and leave veg out of the fridge. At such a low temperature it takes ages to take the 'chill' off it if it's fridge cold (again, just leave the power on longer if not).

I just lob some meat and veg in, top up with water or stock, season and turn on. Remember that water won't evaporate, so you sometimes need to thicken with corn flour at the end.

Vary with pulses, different veg, etc. Buy dirt cheap cuts of meat to get the best benefit...

So if I don't warm/brown do I just give it an extra hour do you think or is that too long?

an extra hour will prob get it up to temp. If i am putting all the ingredients in cold I do at least use hot stock (well oxo in boiling water!)

longer the better in general for cooking times.

Today I am making chilli con carne. I browned the onion, garlic and mince, then chucked it in the slow cooker with a tin of chopped tomatoes, some chilli powder, some chopped peppers and a bit of stock for extra liquid.

Soup is lovely - chuck everything in, cook for ages, then blend for a smooth soup, or leave chunky.

roast chicken - rinse it and chuck it in in the morning, ready by the evening. Mine goes in around 7.30am and we eat around 5/6pm, cooks on low. No liquid, just the chicken. Then do veg and potatoes or whatever to be ready for when you want it.

Are slow cookers cheap to run? Or do they use tons of electricity?

I think they use about the same as a lightbulb

Meat(any cheap cuts of meat), jar of passata, some root veg (onions, leeks, carrots, swede), some herbs. Stick it on low and it'll be cooked by the evening.

should have said re chilli - add the canned kidney beans about 1 -2 hrs before the end.

I don't mean to crash your thread, willmouse, just wondering what sort of slow cooker you'd bought, and what made you choose the one you did? Am thinking about getting one, but don't know what sort to go for (so long as it's big, I think!)

2happy - basically walked into Argos this morning on a mission to buy one. The Morphy Richards 6.5 ltr one is on offer at £22.00 - decision made. I am impulsive like that.

Looking around on past threads it seems quite popular.

I intend to cook in batches and freeze half and then get some sort of rotation system to make my life easier

Another question, if it says cook for 5-7 hours can I cook something for 5 hours, take lid of and decant some out for the children's tea and then put the lid back on for another 2 hours when we eat?

2happy - think about who you normally cook for in terms of shape. If it's always a large group, go for as big as possible. If numbers differ, a deep bowl helps more than a wide one (because with stews and things you need to get everything under the liquid and if the base is very wide its takes a lot of liquid to cover even two people's meat and veg, so you get a watery stew).

Not sure what mine is. It's a cheap one. I'm sure timers are v useful. Mine does not have one so I just use a timer plug.

Thank you very much, very helpful

Iv got that one willmouse and its brill for chickens and beef brisket etc,but I do find it a little to big if im making a small sausage casserole for me,dp and ds. Going to get a smaller one for smaller meals. ENJOY

P.S. I got a receipe book with mine,went to asda the same week i got it with the book in tow to get some ingredients and lost the book in the middle of asda somewhere!

willmouse - it will be fine to take some out and leave the rest to cook a bit longer. DH gets this most days he is working late. DC and I take ours out and leave his portion in.

Can someone tell me how to do joints in it?

I have found the free receipe booklet now but it only has casseroles etc.

I would like to know more about doing joints of meat in it too...
2happy - I have the 3.5 litre morphy richards and I made chilli the other week and got 8 good-sized servings out of it!

i did a beef brisket joint a few months ago. all i did was put carrots and swede in the bottom and put the joint on top. added some water and cooked it from 9am til 5pm. It made a superb succulent melt in the mouth joint out of it. The only downside was it was really hard to carve as it was soooo tender and just literally fell apart.

I cooked a boneless thing (joint is not the right word is it?) of gammon in slow cooker and it was lovely. Really tender. Just put it in on low overnight. Nothing else.
BBQ ribs are really nice and beef stew (cawl style).

My advice is not to use a creamy style sauce as it tends to split because of the long cooking time. Just cook the meat and add the creamy sauce towards the end.

Thanks - so presumably it doesn'm matter too much how big the joint is as long as it fits in and you give it at least 5 hours?

Also my instructions say to cover meat with water? Is that right?

willmouse - I was under the impression that if you sat it on veg, steam could get alround it to cook it. I deffo didn't cover it with water only used enough to cover halfway up the veg.