Mid Week Roast

Today I tried a lamb roast recipe from one of my favourite food websites - www.bestrecipes.com.au This was an easy recipe to cook a delicious melt–in-your-mouth lamb roast with potatoes. I served this dish with blanched green beans, roasted pumpkin and  gravy made with meat juices. This is an effortless mid week roast!

Ingredients

1.5 kg lamb roast


4-6 cloves garlic


Sprig of rosemary, woody stems removed


1 potato per person, peeled


1⁄2 cup stock, or 1⁄4 cup beef stock and 1⁄4 cup white wine 4 bayleaves

Method

1. Halve potatoes if they are large, and place in slow cooker pot.

2. Make incisions in roast and press in garlic and rosemary. Place any loose rosemary leaves in 
pot.

3. Place roast on top of potatoes.

4. Add stock and bay leaves to bottom of pot. Roast should sit just above the liquids.

5. Cook on high for 4-6 hours until meat is cooked. Wrap roast in foil to rest for 10 minutes 
before carving.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/slow-cooker-lamb-roast-L9589.html

Classic meets hipster: Corned beef with sweet potato salad

Think Sinatra meets Mumford & Sons. Or Hepburn meets Alexa Chung. Interesting, huh?!

Well, so is the combination of an old school, slow cooker classic - corned beef - and a reinvented sweet potato salad.

To make the corned beef all you need is a nice piece of silverside (it may be labelled corned beef in the supermarket - and the piece I bought was about 1.3kg), some white wine vinegar, bay leaves and black peppercorns.

First, preheat your slow cooker and pop in the silverside and pour in water from a just-boiled kettle, not quite covering the meat. Next, pour in about half a cup of the vinegar, about four bay leaves and about 10 peppercorns. Keep it on low overnight or for 7-9 hours.

To make the sweet potato salad, I boiled a large, peeled sweet potato and a medium, peeled potato and then chopped them into chunks. I also made two hard-boiled eggs. For the dressing, in a food processor I blitzed some olive oil, honey, mint leaves, parsley, cracked pepper, salt and Dijon mustard. I added the roughly chopped egg to the potato and then thinned the dressing with a little more olive oil and then mixed it through until well combined.

I also severed the corned beef with some greens and whole grain mustard.

So there you have it - a fresh twist on classic corned beef!

The leftovers are great in sandwiches for lunch.

Spicy pumpkin soup

Making soup is easy. Making soup in a slow cooker is ridiculously easy.

It's great mid-week to put on the slow cooker in the morning and come home to a meal that's ready to go. Slow cooker soup takes up minimal time in the morning, particularly if you've chopped up everything the night before. I have also found it handy to make soup in the slow cooker overnight and then have it ready to take to work for lunch the next day. Like I said ... ridiculously easy. As a friend would say, it's a BMW meal - bear minimum work. That's not to say at all, however, that the end result isn't tasty and healthy. In fact, it's delicious!

One of my favourites is a pumpkin soup. I'll chop up an onion, a piece of pumpkin, a few carrots and, if they're in season, sometimes some parsnips. I'll add some dried cumin and coriander (and/or fresh coriander if I have it), and a little bit of chilli and ginger too. To this, I'll add some chicken or vegetable stock and enough water to just cover the ingredients and then set the slow cooker on low overnight or while I'm at work. Once it's done, I'll use a stick blender or Bamix until it is a nice consistency and that's the soup done!

Tonight, I've tried a variation using some beetroot, which seem to be in season at the moment and which look lovely, so I'll see how that goes!

Pots on Fire

This is a classic French dish called Pot au-feu, which translates as ‘Pot on the Fire’. Historically, this dish was used by people in the lower socio-economic classes. They used more mature pieces of meat which require longer cooking periods. The pots would often sit on the fire place permanently as vegetables and pieces of meat were thrown into it throughout the day. A lovely stock or soup is produced from this dish, as a result of the stewing. Another signature feature of the dish is the inclusion of a bouquet garni. This is simply, a few bay leaves, parsley springs and thyme sprigs tied together with some kitchen string. This lovely recipe comes from the ABC Delicious Quick, Smart, Cook recipe book. The vegetables you find here are now in season, so it’s a great spring dish. I struggled to find baby leeks so just used one large leek and it worked just as well.

Ingredients- Serves 4

1.6 kg free-range chicken

1 large onion, chopped

1 bouquet garni

1 cup (250ml) white wine

1 cup chicken stock

4 baby leeks, trimmed

1 bunch baby (Dutch) carrots, ends trimmed

4 potatoes, peeled, chopped

100g thin green beans, ends trimmed

Chopped flat-leaf parsley, to sprinkle

Toasted baguette and low fat ricotta to spread

Season the chicken and truss with string. Place the chicken and onion in slow a cooker. Add the bouquet garni, wine, stock and enough water to cover. Season with salt and pepper and cover with the lid. Cook on a low heat for 6-8 hours until the chicken is tender and cooked.

Add the leeks, carrots and potato and cook for a further hour, adding the green beans for the final 10 minutes of cooking.

Remove the chicken and slice. Divide the chicken, vegetables and some of the poaching liquid among serving bowls. Season well with salt, pepper and sprinkle with parsley.

Serve with toasted baguette and ricotta. Bon Appetit!

Source: Delicious. Quick Smart Cook/ Valli Little, November 2009.

Super easy caramelised onions!

So, I thought I'd give making caramelised onions in the slow cooker a go. It was so easy I hardly even noticed I'd had to do anything at all!

First, preheat and spray your slow cooker. Secondly, in go the sliced brown onions (for an even easier ride, use a kilo of frozen onions from the supermarket, but factor in the extra liquid from the ice). Next, in goes a splash of balsamic vinegar - but not too much - and then stir in about a tablespoon of brown sugar and some salt and pepper. Turn the slow cooker on low overnight, or for about 8 hours. You may wish to cook the onions for a final hour on high with the lid off to reduce any excess liquids.

Done! And delicious!

You can jar and / or freeze extra portions, and enjoy this tasty condiment in savoury tarts, salads and more! I used mine in the olive, onion and thyme filo tarts served at our launch party.

This is an easy and no fuss way to make a great pantry staple! Enjoy!

Vive le vichyssoise!

A recent conversation with my Mum prompted my first ever eBay purchase. Mum was wanting to give me her copy of Margaret Fulton's 1970s 'Crockpot Cookbook', but it was sadly misplaced over the years of moving and Spring cleaning. So, a few clicks later, my very own copy was on its way in the post!

This year, Margaret Fulton released an updated 'Slow Cooking' version of this classic, which looks wonderful, but I'm happy to have the original. Food - like fashion - is a product of its time, and a vintage recipe book is nicely nostalgic!

The first recipe I have been able to try out is, like the recipe book itself, a classic: vichyssoise. It is a French soup, made from leeks and potatoes and is served chilled.

Here is Mrs Fulton's recipe:

2 leeks
30gm butter
1/2 onion
Salt and pepper
2 medium potatoes, diced
3 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of cream

This recipe taught me a new way of preparing leeks. Slice them lengthways first to wash out any dirt, then slice them finely. Add the sliced leeks to your pre-heated slow cooker in which you have placed your dobb of butter, which should be melting. Next, add your diced potatoes, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Add your chicken stock (or vegetable stock for a vegetarian version) and then set your slow cooker on overnight on low for 10-12 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours, depending on what is more convenient for you.

Once the cooking time has ended, use a stick blender, or a normal blender to purée the soup. Once puréed, I then pushed the soup in about four portions through a sieve. This was a little time consuming, but was worth it to produce a silky finish to the soup. Finally, I added the cup of cream and popped the soup in the fridge to chill.

I served the soup in tiny glasses, topped with finely chopped parsley, as it was one of the courses at our launch cocktail party. It would also look great in larger tumblers, or in martini glasses at a summer dinner party. (And it can be served hot, too!) Thanks Mrs Fulton, and thanks for the great tip Mum!

Three slow cookers: The launch!

Here we are, resting our feet, at the end of a very successful evening! Tonight we had a cocktail party at Cardamon's house to launch the blog. What a blast! The party, starting in the afternoon, went long into the evening and a good time was had by all.

The menu featured olive and onion tartlets (with slow-cooked caramelised onions), glasses of chilled summer soup, little boxes of tasty massaman curry and rice, bite-sized toasts topped with warm ratatouille and, for a sweet finish, chocolate-dipped strawberries and marshmallows and handmade peanut salted chocolate drops!

Guests mingled among the jazz, candlelight and conversations seasoned with stories about slow-cooking and more.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, everyone who has sent us your well-wishes and to all of our friends who are checking out the blog. Stay tuned for the next slow-cooking adventure!

Dahl Curry

This recipe was given to me from a friend of a friend. It an easy one as all you have to do is combine the spices and put the rest of the ingredients together. Unconventionally I like to add about 600g lamb to the dish. I know all you purists out there will probably be having a heart attack but if you are a meat eater it is amazing and you should absolutely try it!

Dahl recipe:

2 cups dried red lentils

2 cans drained chick peas

2 cans diced tomatoes

3 cups vegetable stock

2 tsp garlic

2 tsp chilli

2-3 tbs garam masala

1 bunch fresh coriander

1 tub greek yogurt

Put all ingredients in the slow cooker except coriander leaves (yep chop up stems and chuck 'em in). Cook for 4hrs on high or 6-8hrs on low. You can vary the amount of liquid by adjusting the tomatoes and stock to suit the time in the slow cooker. Serve on a bed of rice with a dollop of greek yogurt and garnish with coriander. Enjoy!

Martha Stewart's Slow Cooker Pot Roast

·         1 tablespoon cornstarch

·         8 medium carrots, cut into thirds

·         2 medium onions, each cut into 8 wedges

·         Coarse salt and ground pepper

·         1 beef chuck roast (3 pounds), trimmed of excess fat

·         2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions

1.      In slow cooker, stir together cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water until smooth. Add carrots and onions; season with salt and pepper, and toss.

2.      Sprinkle roast with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; place on top of vegetables, and drizzle with Worcestershire. Cover; cook on high, 6 hours (or on low, 10 hours).

3.      Transfer roast to a cutting board; thinly slice against the grain. Place vegetables in a serving dish; pour pan juices through a fine-mesh sieve, if desired. Serve roast with vegetables and pan juices.

http://www.marthastewart.com/313619/slow-cooker-pot-roast

Happy Birthday Spring Chicken!

For a birthday lunch today, I used my slow cooker to cook a whole chicken flavoured with lemon, sage, thyme and garlic. While I finished cooking the chicken in the oven together with some roast veggies to brown and crisp it, using the slow cooker made the chicken very tender and juicy. I also served the chicken with some char grilled spring vegetables - asparagus, zucchini and baby eggplants - as well as some vegetarian stuffed tomatoes. It felt like a spring banquet! Here's how I made the chicken ...

I used a free range chicken and, after washing and preparing it, I stuffed it with a generous bunch of sage from my herb pot, some thyme, a clove of garlic and a whole lemon that I had pricked with a fork. I had partially cooked some potatoes and sliced one of the larger potatoes and layered that in the bottom of the pre-heated slow cooker. I seasoned the potatoes and then put in the whole chicken that I had lightly browned in a pan with just a little butter and some more sage. The chicken and potatoes were in the slow cooker on low for five hours.

When the chicken was about an hour from being finished, I put a baking tray of veggies in the oven. I roasted the rest of the potatoes I'd prepared (if you have a bigger slow cooker you might be able to fit them all in), some carrots, chunks of Spanish onion and some purple carrots (purple is actually the original colour of carrots!). I seasoned the vegetables with some lemon infused olive oil, garlic cloves, salt, pepper and thyme.

When the chicken was ready to remove from the slow cooker, I put the chicken and potatoes in the baking tray with the roasted and vegetables for about half an hour and the chicken became beautifully golden.

The slow cooked chicken produced some beautiful juices as well, which I used to make a sauce to serve with lunch.

To serve the meal, I carved the chicken and placed it on a platter with the roasted vegetables and some fresh sprigs of thyme.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and I think it's best to finish the chicken in the oven to give it some nice colour. I will definitely be doing this again. Enjoy!

Spicy Beetroot Soup

Well, the beetroot soup turned out quite nicely.

I chopped up two large beetroot, four medium carrots and one large Spanish onion (you could use a brown onion instead) and popped them all in the slow cooker. I added a generous shake of dried cumin and dried coriander and also a pinch of salt and a generous pinch of dried chilli flakes (you could leave the chilli out if you prefer). I also added some chicken stock and then just covered the ingredients with water and put the slow cooker on low overnight. I then blended the ingredients with a Bamix.

This soup could also be served chilled in summer as an entree or light lunch.