slow cooker recipes - nice and easy to start off with pls

[morocco]

just bought my first slow cooker and am hoping to come home from work to lovely soups and stews but don't actually have a clue what to do

any ideas? all gratefully received

unwrapping cooker now and eagerly awaiting exciting recipes!!

I have a slo-cooker the mother in law gave me, and as much as i hate to admit that anything from her is actually useful - this is awesome. The main thing to remember is that any meat you put in it should be browned in a frying pan first, and ideally everything else is hot when it goes in too. Brilliant for cooking cheaper cuts of meat, like shin of beef and neck of lamb fillet. My current favourite is some skinless (& bonless) chicken thighs, browned off in a frying pan with a bit of oil and butter, put them in the cooker, then put some chopped veg - celery, onion, peppers, carrot etc inthe frying pan, give it a quick flick round then add that to the cooker, put in some tins of chopped tomatoes, black olives, and some stock made with a stock cube and boiling water, mix round abit, put lid on, leave on low for the whole day and come tea time you have perfect supper to go with either mash or pasta or rice or whatever! Sorry for the ramble, but I basically just bastardise other receipes. Tried cooking herb dumplings in my beef stew the other day in it and they worked perfectly, just had to push them under the liquid so they were totally submerged to make sure they cooked!
Good Luck!

Do a search... I promise you'll find LOADS!

I too bought a slow cooker today!

Why do you have to brown off the meat first? Does it really matter?

When you say all day do you mean 8 hours?

Sorry for all the questions!

Think browning meat keeps juices in better, but it isn't absolutely vital.

Most recipes cook 8 -10 hours on slow (esp beef ones). TBH it's hard to spoil stuff in it.

Stew is fab - meat, veg and potatoes so all done ready and waiting (and dumplings last 1/2 hour...mmmm)

I never brown anything first. Just bung it in. The meat cooks in its own juices in the slow cooker for so long that you don't need to 'keep them in'.
Yesterday I put half a shoulder of lamb in, piled up carrots and onions on top, everything raw, switched it on at 10am and we had it for tea at 6. No water, no nothing apart from the meat and veg. The veg gives off a lot of liquid and the meat has a lot of juices.

Gosh if you 'had' to fry everything inc veg before putting it in, my slow cooker would have been at the back of a cupboard for a very long time! Bunging it all in raw makes it a very fine labour saving device

For new year I put a full shoulder on at midnight and we all ate it at 2pm the next afternoon.... mmmmmmmmmmmm

Today I browned off two chicken legs in oil. (If you don't do this they look a bit pale and sort of flabby).

Set them aside, then fried a couple of onions, a few carrots and a stick of celery, all chopped large. Poured over 1/3 bottle white wine (water would do) and sprinkled over 1tsp veg bouillon (chicken stock cube would do), a little salt and some pepper.

Tipped the veg into slow cooker, liquid was just to the level of the top of the veg. Put a few sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf on top of veg, then sat chicken legs on top.

Cooked on high for 4hrs, had it with rice, twas bloody lovely.

Agree with flibberty about keeping juices in, I just brown for appearances sake.

I bought one too! Eagerly reading recipes too

Does everything go in for the standard 8 hours, unless it's on high? I mean, there's none of this 20 mins per pound rubbish?

Yesterday I did some pork loin chops in cider with mushrooms, onions and garlic. Salt and pepper.

Browned the chops, fried the onions and mushrooms briefly with the garlic, poured over the dry cider. When it's all bubbling I poured it into the slow cooker, put it on high for an hour then turned it down to low once it starts simmering. Cooked from 9am until about 4pm.

Eyeballs - no, no need to weigh really. Your slow cooker should have come with a recipe/instruction book which gives basic guidelines. As I said, it's hard to ruin anything.

BTW, make sure you leave the lid on during cooking - no need to stir!

I never had one and since joining the mn i have the urge to get one.

But does it cost more in energy? (sorry if it is silly question but i cant work it out)

sounds yummy

ooh, yes, tiramissu, i was just wondering about the energy part as well.

right then, have unpacked and washed it and am going to try one of the stews tomorrow

how does it cook the food if there is no liquid in it? duh, no doubt stupid question

Costs less in energy because it's only heating a small space rather than a big oven IYSWIM.

The heat cooks the food (ie a joint) Morocco!

Don't forget to use water (with or without stock cube) for your stew though!

Mine has an auto setting so it goes on high until it reaches a certain temp and then cuts down to low and so on.

I use mine for all sorts including chilli, curry, bolognaise and stews.

I often do all the prep and have it in a tupperware container in the fridge the night before and then whilst I'm doing breakfast I get the slow cooker out, tip the contents of the tub into it and switch it on.

Then I get to come home 9 hours later to a yummy dinner.