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Slow cooker stews.

Chris Hobson

Chris Hobson

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Like Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt, my wife and I have slightly differing tastes. I don't eat meat, she doesn't like curry. Recently we have been experimenting with making stews in our slow cooker and freezing them in batches, each to our own tastes and dietary requirements. No recipes involved here, basically we just wing it. With a veggie stew being a bit bland, I experimented by throwing in a jar of Rogan Josh curry sauce into mine. I made up the liquid level with a batch of onion gravy. It came out quite well. With just a few tatoes in it the carb level is pretty low, although we would normally eat it with a couple of slices of bread. Because the curry sauce was diluted somewhat, I found it not quite spicy enough so I'm making today's batch with a Madrass curry sauce instead to hopefully hot it up a bit. I put mushrooms in it so this time I made it up with a can of mushroom soup and a little water. It is bubbling away in the kitchen as I type and it smells divine.
 
Chris Hobson said:
Like Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt, my wife and I have slightly differing tastes. I don't eat meat, she doesn't like curry. Recently we have been experimenting with making stews in our slow cooker and freezing them in batches, each to our own tastes and dietary requirements. No recipes involved here, basically we just wing it. With a veggie stew being a bit bland, I experimented by throwing in a jar of Rogan Josh curry sauce into mine. I made up the liquid level with a batch of onion gravy. It came out quite well. With just a few tatoes in it the carb level is pretty low, although we would normally eat it with a couple of slices of bread. Because the curry sauce was diluted somewhat, I found it not quite spicy enough so I'm making today's batch with a Madrass curry sauce instead to hopefully hot it up a bit. I put mushrooms in it so this time I made it up with a can of mushroom soup and a little water. It is bubbling away in the kitchen as I type and it smells divine.
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I always found slow cooker made things too liquid unless you put a lot less in than you think you need to.
I tend to use the Pataks curry pastes rather than a sauce as they are lower carb.
 
Leadinglights said:
I always found slow cooker made things too liquid unless you put a lot less in than you think you need to.
I tend to use the Pataks curry pastes rather than a sauce as they are lower carb.
Click to expand...
I always put less liquid in a slow cooker (it's easy to add more later if needed)
I still got caught out tho - I used it to make a mushroom stroganoff sauce. Used a LOT of mushrooms, and damn, never saw so much liquid 😳. Next time I do that I need to start with a teeny tiny amount of water.
 
This lot was excessive, I'd have needed a loaf 😱
I was a reminder not to get ambushed by mushrooms again o_O
 
I am a fan of the Patak's curry pastes too. My hubby likes more chilli in his food than I do. I will normally add a heaped tablespoon of full fat yoghurt just before serving mine. If it's not hot enough for him a liberal splash of encona Caroline reaper sauce sorts that out.
We are fans of currys, chilli's and beef stew. Great after a cold day working in the garden.
 
silver minion said:
I am a fan of the Patak's curry pastes too. My hubby likes more chilli in his food than I do. I will normally add a heaped tablespoon of full fat yoghurt just before serving mine. If it's not hot enough for him a liberal splash of encona Caroline reaper sauce sorts that out.
We are fans of currys, chilli's and beef stew. Great after a cold day working in the garden.
Click to expand...
Their range of pickles are good as well, we like the aubergine one particularly but they are all good.
 
I've recently got a Ninja Foodi which is an air fryer, slower cooker and pressure cooker all in one unit and I have to say, making a stew using the pressure cooker is far tastier than when I've made one in a slow cooker. 30 minutes in the pressure cooker is tastier (in my opinion) than 8 hours in the slow cooker. Food for thought (pun intended).
 
I have now defrosted and sampled one of my Madrass Mushroom stews and it was really good. The Madrass sauce made it much more spicy and it came out just about right.

Talking of spicy, I'm growing some chilli peppers, including some Scotch Bonnets, on a windowsill just now. I start them off in the house so that I can do them nice and early as they tend to take forever to start producing a crop.
 
Chris Hobson said:
I have now defrosted and sampled one of my Madrass Mushroom stews and it was really good. The Madrass sauce made it much more spicy and it came out just about right.

Talking of spicy, I'm growing some chilli peppers, including some Scotch Bonnets, on a windowsill just now. I start them off in the house so that I can do them nice and early as they tend to take forever to start producing a crop.
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My hubby grows chillies each year. As you say they need starting early. He likes to make a 15 bean chilli. No meat but it includes 2 or 3 different chillies and Chipotle smoked ones. Two of the beans are cocoa and coffee (fresh brewed). The recipe came from an old lady in a little Mexican village close to Belize,where he was working at the time.
 
I have never been tempted by a slow cooker because, I find long slow cooked vegetables are rather too mushy. Likewise, many frozen cooked vegetables become mushy so I do little batch cooking apart from baking. Luckily, I find cooking to be a relaxing way to end a day so I don't mind.
However, I do occasionally find I am too tired to follow recipes. In those times, my go to is a curry made from a Spice Tailor mix. There are different heats and different flavours available and I find them fresher than jars. We chuck any vegetables in but most common is broccoli as there is a larger surface area for the sauce to coat.
@Chris Hobson as you like spice, maybe, you could add a vegetable tagine to your repertoire?
 
They look great @Chris Hobson - and I love that you were able to add some of your home-grown stuff in them!

Slow cooker meals are a bit of a staple for us in the winter. I know what you mean about texture @helli - sometimes we’ll phase the adding of different veggies so that some which are better with a little bite only get added in the last 30-60 minutes.

Having said that I do have a particular love for the sort of smooth softness of root chunks of veggies that have been cooked slowly until all their edges smooth off and they really melt in the mouth.

Probably helps that I’ll have mine with crusty bread. In our house the ‘crunch to smush’ ratio is a crucial component in the design of a dish.
 
+1 for Spice Tailor.

Whole spices to dry-fry in a pan for a few seconds, then a starter spice paste, followed by a final finishing sauce.

So quick to make and so tasty!

We also used to batch-make our own Thai green and Thai red curry spice-paste mixes (fresh chillis, ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves coriander blah blah blah) and freeze them in ice-cube trays for future use, but someone in the house went off them so we don’t make them any more.
 
And a +1 for ice cubed Thai curry pastes.
We tried buying them from the local Thai Supermarket but they were too HOTTTTT. Then I found recipes in the RosaThai cookbook and not looked back.
Although I batch make the curry pastes, I still have some ingredients left over so my freezer also contains lemon grass, chilli and ginger. Actually, the chillies come from last year's chilli plant and get used straight from the freezer in all sorts of dishes.
 
Not everything works in a slow cooker but we like to add veg in phases to stop the sogginess.

Onions and carrots (if using) go in at the beginning, usually with some sort of meat on the bone eg gammon shank or chicken thighs. Celery and mushrooms are added later, and things like cabbage or spinach about 30 minutes before serving.

Oddly, the carrots stay recognisable but the onions disintegrate - they're not mushy, they're completely undetectable!
 
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