All posts filed under: Slow Cooker

Mulled Rich Fruit Tea, 31p [Jack Monroe’s Advent Recipes]

Published by Jack

I have tried many times to recreate a decent mulled ‘wine’ that is alcohol-free – because despite what legend may otherwise tell you, boiling alcohol doesn’t eliminate it completely, it just reduces it – and by how much is so comprehensively variable that I dare not even try to tackle it. Mulling alcohol-free red wine would seem like the obvious choice, but I’m yet to find one that stands up to the challenge. If you know of a good, jammy Shiraz in the alcohol-free section, do let me know! Until then, this experiment with my slow cooker has proved to be the favourite; the deep smoke from the slow-brewed Lapsang and the dark, juicy fruit flavours combine with the traditional mulling spices to make a hot, rich, grown-up drink, without the headache. Some of the ingredients may seem a little odd – so let me explain. The ginger and sultanas are to replace the traditional ginger wine that forms the base of mulled wine. Ginger wine is made from raisins and ginger, so I simply …

Beef, Black Bean & Mandarin Stew, 66p [Tin Can Cook]

Published by Jack

This is a brand new recipe from Tin Can Cook – 75 store cupboard recipes by Jack Monroe – which is available here, and there is a fundraiser to donate it to foodbanks here. I based this recipe very, very loosely on a Brazilian feijoada. Very loosely. More a nod to it than any attempt at an authentic rendition. Feijoada is traditionally made with pork, beef and black beans. Some versions are served with caramelised orange slices on top and stirred through, so I have used mandarins here; their bright citrus flavour helps to lift the heady, heavy black beans and beef. This may sound an odd combination but it is truly delicious. My apologies to my Brazilian friends – if you do get the chance to make an authentic feijoada, seize it, it knocks absolute spots off this one, but I’ve done the best I could with what I had! This improves with a day’s rest, as do most of us, so keep leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge and enjoy them …

Three Tin Tender, 94p [Tin Can Cook]

Published by Jack

This is a brand new recipe from Tin Can Cook – 75 store cupboard recipes by Jack Monroe – which is available here, and there is a fundraiser to donate it to foodbanks here. I originally titled this recipe ‘sticky barbecue beef’, but describing this as barbecue-anything feels wildly disingenuous, not least because it hasn’t been anywhere near one! The quantities given here will serve one or two people, depending on appetite, and can be easily scaled up to serve more, though it will need a longer cooking time. To make it go further, pack the sauce out with onions (100g per person) or kidney beans (1 tin per same-sized tin of steak). You can make this fancy by adding paprika or mustard for heat, or a dash of vinegar to offset the sweetness, but it works perfectly well just as it is. A large pot of this makes an excellent dinner, served atop a pile of mash. I use cheap full-sugar cola in mine, because I care not for preachery, but the diet version …

Pearl Barley, Mushroom & Lentil Risotto, 44p

Published by Jack

I have a feeling I should be calling this a ‘barlotto’ rather than a risotto, as the ‘ris’ in risotto refers specifically to rice, and I take enough liberties with that particular medium as it is, with my use of long grain rice in place of arborio to keep the costs down. But risotto, barlotto, whateverotto, this combination of pearl barley and brown lentils is fast becoming my new favourite, having had it in various guises for dinner for the last three nights running. I was once quite intimidated by pearl barley, not being entirely sure what to do with it, how to cook it, if it needed soaking beforehand, and thinking it was more of a ‘waitrose type’ ingredient than something for me, but my Mum, who is a Northern Irish lass, scolded me for my preconceptions, telling me that it was one of the main ingredients in her Irish Soup that she would make for herself, her eight brothers and sisters, and her Mum and Dad. Chastened, I decided to investigate it for …

Ratatouille, 69p

Published by Jack

For the last two years of our courtship, Mrs J has been asking me very nicely to make her a ratatouille. Some childhood memory of a baked potato hot from a food van, piled high with soft, veg-laden ratatouille, stirs within her a bone-deep blissful comfort. Oblivious to the emotional sentiment, I would simply mutter something about ‘not being a frigging cafe’, and make something else. The truth is, I had never made a ratatouille before. My knowledge of it stemmed entirely from a Pixar movie starring a small excitable animated rat, and an indeterminable can of mush I was given at the food bank once that was so inexorably unappetising, I never wanted to see it or its ilk again. And then one day a few weeks ago, with the holy triumvirate of courgette, aubergine and pepper in the fridge, I decided to surprise her. I dug out my French cookery books – French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David, The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo, and Elisabeth Luard’s Classic French Cooking, all liberated …

Butter Bean, Veg & Stuffing Stew, 42p

Published by Jack

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of cheap packet stuffing for all manner of culinary surprises – from a crispy coating for chicken nuggets (vegan or otherwise), to a topping for mac n cheese, to folding it into a bread dough for little herby surprises, the uses I have found for it over the years are so numerous that I constantly have a ready supply of it, decanted into a 1l airtight jar on the kitchen shelf, with instructions written on the side in black marker as to how many grams per ml of water to make up standard stuffing. I buy the cheap boxes half a dozen at a time and upend them, nestling the jar between the Salt and Turmeric, and with equal gravitas to both. Its latest incarnation is as a thickener to soups and stews that need a little bit of a lift, like this one, rustled together from frozen veg, a couple of tins, and whatever was rolling around at the bottom of the fridge. You could add greens …

Chickpea and Aubergine Curry, 66p

Published by Jack

I love a rendang curry – the first time I ever made it, it was with slow roasted pork belly, finely sliced and slowly cooked in the sweet, sour, spicy sauce. It was so rich, so flavoursome, so fulsome and delightful, that I dared not attempt to recreate it again for many years. And then, moving my office (sounds fancy, it is also my dining room and general crap storage area), I came across a pile of old recipe notebooks, and started to pore through them in that classic way of procrastinating my any means possible. I found my pork belly rendang recipe, and scribbled down the component ingredients for the paste and sauce. I contemplated making it with jackfruit instead, but I decided to save that can for another day, and opted for slow-cooked creamy chickpeas and thinly sliced, meaty aubergine instead. Mrs J declared it one of the finest meals I had ever cooked – she says that a lot, so either my cookery improves on a daily basis, or she knows how …

Slow Cooker Bread, 2p

Published by Jack

I have been asked for this recipe incessantly on my social media since I started to make it a few days ago, so I made time today to sit down and type it up for my lovely, loyal readers. I hope you enjoy it – I am really loving my slow cooker adventures so far! Many of you have asked me if there is a slow cooker book in the pipeline; I am busy finalising Tin Can Cook at the moment and have started writing the Vegan one, but I always have my feelers out for what my next project is going to be, so if a slow cooker book would be of interest, do leave a comment below and let me know! Each compartment of my triple slow cooker is 1.3l, so to make matters simple, and after a little trial and error, I worked out that the optimum amount of flour to make a really good bread in it, is 260g. I started at 350g, and upon seeing how splendidly it rose, reduced …