What are some good things to make in a slow cooker?

Look for some recipes for bean stews, herbed lentil and rice dishes, etc. There are some very nice dishes along these lines.

beans. stuff like great northerns, blackeyed peas, beans mix, oxtail stew, sauces, chicken cacciatore

I use mine for a lot of very different things. It’s great for soup, also great for brisket, corned beef, stew, chicken, Louisiana Red Beans and Rice, smoked picnic hams. chile verde, pork ribs, I could go on. I got the 7 quart Kitchen Aide, and I’m glad I spent the money. My old crockpot was a bore.

I like to toss in a whole chicken with a cup or so of chicken broth and new potatos, carrots, celery stalks ( with the leaves on ) & onions. Mmmmm

The leftovers make a great soup too!

A whole chicken, pork chops, pot roast and homemade vegetable soup tops my wifes list for her crockpot(slow cooker). she makes her own recipes and there are no comlpaints here.

He or she is a vegetarian, people.

@janbb thanks for the heads up, I changed my answer
What I like about it is you can put the so called hard vegetables, like Jimica and squash, along with beans and liquid and they all come out soft and edible.

He or she is a vegetarian, people.

lol, I was about to give Great Answers to everybody with a recipe lol

Here’s what I fixed today. When I first got up, I put these things in the pot; sliced tomatoes, cut up broccoli, sliced yellow onion, minced garlic cloves, sliced sweet peppers, chopped celery, a can of garbanzo beans, including liquid, a cup of dry rice, and two cups of apple juice. When Hubby got home from work, dinner was ready, and I’m eating it as we speak.

I hate my 3.5 qt. slow cooker; so much for research on the internet. I use it only to cook 4–5 days worth of steel-cut oats and would never leave it unattended. It took me several weeks of fiddling to get the right proportions and time. 5½ C. cold water to ¾ C. steel-cut oats on low for 3.5 hours.

@YARNLADY: How long did you let it cook and at what temperature? I have the choice of high and low.

@gailcalled Since I got up around noon, I used High, but around 4, I turned it down to low, since Hubby went shopping and came home late.

i saw an Alton Brown show where he put oatmeal in the crock pot before bed, with some half and half and regular milk, and cut up dried fruit (like apricots, whatever you like) raisins, nuts if you want to, whatever, and went to bed with it on low, woke up and it was all done. i didn’t do that because when i first wake up i am not hungry, but i did it on high and in about an hour it was done and great.

a crock pot/slow cooker is also great for a party, to keep the food warm, like chicken wings or something like that.

i would imagine you could make rice pudding in it, too.

This isn’t a slow cooker recipe, but I love making vegetarian curry. I usually just make it “a dash of this, a pinch of that” and use yogurt instead of coconut milk. You can tweak a recipe like this a lot.

4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1½ teaspoons cayenne pepper
4 teaspoons curry powder
4 teaspoons garam masala
1 (1 inch) piece fresh ginger root, peeled and minced
2 teaspoons salt
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), rinsed and drained
1 (15 ounce) can peas, drained
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
Directions

Place potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until just tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for a minute or two.
Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, curry powder, garam masala, ginger, and salt; cook for 2 minutes more. Add the tomatoes, garbanzo beans, peas, and potatoes. Pour in the coconut milk, and bring to a simmer. Simmer 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

The important part is to start by frying the onions until they are soft. Eventually, everything cooks down and they form the base of the sauce. You can also use things like pumpkin, cauliflower, carrots, or sweet potato.

Slow-cook oatmeal? 3 minutes 30 seconds in the microwave for me. Throw in whatever fruit is on hand.

@jaytkay: Not with steel-cut oats you don’t. (Or do you?)

No, fancy oats are not my style.

I’ve had really good bread made in a slow cooker. They didn’t have yeast—they were more of the banana bread style breads. Very tasty. Also had some good cider too.

Here is a website for vegan crock pot recipes if you like.

http://www.fatfreevegan.com/crockpot/crockpot.shtml

“Fancy” oats? Oh, you mean the ones that taste good, have a nice texture and are good for you are not your style. Your style is the mushy, deracinated, tasteless, chemically altered oats. Chacun a son gout.

Ah @dpworkin – but tell us how you really feel, for once.

too shy

Excuse me while I piss myself laughing.

Well, I’m not a food-ponce with fragile self-esteem that can be upset by my choice of oatmeal. And rolled oats (which are not chemically altered) are a fraction of the cost of steel cut.

@jaytkay: What makes the oats that grow in the fields turn into symmetrical, flaky things? The God of Good Food?

Don’t forget that you are paying for convenience, packing and let’s not forget processing. I buy loose steel-cut oats in a paper bag. ½ lb takes me thru several months.

@keobooks: Thanks for the very interesting link; unfortunately the recipes do not include the size of slow cooker. Mine is 3.5 quarts and hard to figure out proportions for.

Ah, the politics of oatmeal. I can see Michael Pollan’s next book now.

@dpworkin Reading again what I wrote up there, it looks like a mean-spirited jab at you. It was not meant to be and I apologize for that.

I should have simply written that I like rolled oats just fine, Chacun a son gout indeed, and at approx $0.05/serving they fit my budget

@gailcalled: “Rolled oats are traditionally oat groats that have been rolled into flat flakes under heavy rollers and then steamed and lightly toasted…Oat flakes that are simply rolled whole oats without further processing can be cooked and eaten as “old-fashioned” oatmeal”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolled_oats

Oh, I rather liked being a food ponce, even for just a short time.

Edit: Quick cooking oats, as opposed to rolled oats, are chemically altered.

@jaytkay; Check out steel-cut oats. They are less processed and have more oat bran than rolled oats.

A lb. of loose steel-cut oats at my health food store costs $1.79. I was just there.

OMG – I sprinkle Apple and Cinnamon instant oatmeal on top of my yogurt in the morning. Am I going to be drummed out of the corps? No longer allowed to be a “food ponce”? The horror, the horror….

@gailcalled I will give that a try. I assumed the little $6.00 tins were typically priced steel-cut. $1.79/lb is good, I’m paying $1.15/lb for store-brand rolled oats.

i would like to try the Irish oatmeal. has anybody had it and is it any different? i think the brand name is McCann’s.

It’s just an expensive brand for steel cut oats. Get them for under $2.00 a pound at the health food store instead.

Okay people, back to the slow-cooker vegetarian recipes…any other ideas?

Sorry for the thread-jacking. Who knew that eating oatmeal made us so hot-blooded and fiery?!!

I think Jellies can fight about anything. (sigh)

Ok, I got a slow cooker, thanks all! the first thing I did was caramelize onions in it by chopping up 5 or 6 onions and throwing them in the slow cooker with butter, cooked on low for 12 hours. They came out amazing. Then I used the caramelized onions to make ratatouille in the slow cooker and that also came out really well. Yeah! To make the ratatouille I just threw in two chopped skinny eggplants, two chopped small zucchinis, a cup of the caramelized onions, and a 16 oz jar of canned chopped tomatoes, with some white wine and some salt. Cooked on low for about 6 hours. At the end I added some capers too. It came out delicious!

I found a recipe online for making your own yogurt in a slow cooker. I’m trying it tonight. Will keep you all posted if it turns out well.

Thanks for the update, it sounds delicious. I think I’ll try it.

@occ: What brand and what capacity? Did it come with recipes?

Sounds delicious.

There are some great answers here. Beans is what first came to mind. In all forms. Try some of the incredible heirloom beans. Like “Yellow Indian Woman” or “Good Mother Stallard.” They make some great pot liquor all on their own. And they really excellent and easy when made with just made with a “mierpoix” (minced onions, celery and carrots.)

On your own later you can add potatoes, or boiling onions later, or larger pieces of carrots or other vegetables to make a heartier main dish.

Another great idea is to make lentils, particularly the little green French kind and later make them into a cold lentil salad with chopped vegetables and a little olive oil and lemon juice and spices. I love slow cookers when paired with the right dishes. Good luck!