I got a slow cooker for Christmas.

A few weeks before Christmas I decided that having a slow cooker would probably change my life. It was a bit of a whim, but I work shifts, and the thought of being able to shove a load of stuff in the slow cooker then go to bed really appealed to me. And I thought it might help break the endless stir fry/pasta/ risotto cycle that makes up weeknight meals.

So far, so good. Since I got the slow cooker on Christmas morning I have used it three times, and it’s brilliant. I made chicken stock, which is the tastiest stock I’ve ever made. Here are two other recipes that I made up, but that seemed to work reasonably well.

There are two things I have learned so far… 

1. Brown the meat first – it seems like an annoying step but will really add to the flavour and colour of the meal.
2. It doesn’t reduce or thicken the sauce in the same way as doing something on the hob/in the oven, so you will have to thicken it in some way. But you can’t abandon things on the hob for 7 hours while you go to sleep unless you want to wake up in a house fire, so it’s a small price to pay.

Beef Casserole

After working overnight on Hogmanay, I came home and browned off the beef, added lots of other stuff then went to bed. I finally celebrated the new year with a bottle of prosecco and this casserole that night. It was brilliant. 

Ingredients

-          1.5 lbs of beef shin, in reasonably big chunks

-          A dessertspoon of flour

-          An onion, chopped

-          A stick of celery, chopped

-          A couple of carrots, peeled and roughly chopped into big chunks

-          Two cloves of garlic, chopped

-          A load of mushrooms, halved

-          A third of a bottle of red wine

-          Some water

-          A bay leaf

-          Salt and pepper

-          A heaped teaspoon of cornflour to thicken

Put the flour and some salt and pepper in a bowl, then add the beef and give it all a good mix round until it’s thoroughly coated. In a big frying pan, heat up some oil or fat and add the beef a bit at a time. Do it in batches so you don’t overcrowd the pan. Leave it sitting and frying until it goes nicely brown, then turn it over to do the same on the other side. When it’s brown, shove it in the slow cooker. 

Once all the beef is done, add the red wine to the pan and whack up the heat to boil off some of the alcohol, scraping up any meaty bits off the pan with a wooden spoon.

Add all the veg, bay leaf etc. to the slow cooker, then the wine. Top up with some water until all the meat and veg is nearly covered. 

Put on low for about 8 hours. Go to bed and get some sleep. Go for a walk, whatever.

When it’s nearly ready, it’ll look quite different. 

Take a ladleful of the sauce and mix it with the cornflour, before adding it back to the casserole. Make some mash and some token green veg. 

If you were to do this in the oven, you could put it on at 150 degrees for about two and a half hours. You could probably skip the cornflour step, as it would reduce itself!

Chicken and Chorizo stew.

Ingredients

-          6 pieces of chicken – thighs and drumsticks

-          Two normal sausage sized cooking chorizo/half a chorizo ring (as much as you 

like really)cut into chunks

-          An onion, peeled and sliced

-          A pepper, sliced

-          Two cloves of garlic, chopped

-          A courgette, sliced

-          Some leftover white wine

-          A tin of tomatoes

-          Salt and pepper

Season, then brown the chicken in a big frying pan in a little bit of oil. Put it in the slow cooker. Put the chorizo in the pan so it releases some of its lovely oil and starts to go a bit crispy. Chuck that in the slow cooker (oil and all) along with all the veg and tinned tomatoes. 

Put the wine in the pan and let it bubble for a few minutes, before adding it to the slow cooker. 

Add a little drop of water if you think it needs some more liquid. Put it on high for 4 hours (a long afternoon nap) then serve with rice. I think I added some spinach towards the end of cooking. (We also added a dollop of sour cream, because our chorizo was quite spicy)

I didn’t thicken this one, Joe had a big bowl of the sauce as a chorizo-y soup. It made him very happy.

Are you sensing the theme? Brown things, chuck them in, go to bed, sorted. Today before my night shift I’m making a sausage and bean casserole. 

Any other suggestions for recipes I can do? Particularly veggie ones – they’ve all been a bit meaty so far.