SLOW COOKING...slow, baby, that's how I like it!

10 AMAZING THINGS YOU CAN COOK IN A SLOW COOKER



1 Oatmeal: We love steel cut oats, and this recipe makes magic out of them. A perfect way to wake up in the morning!

• 2 Soufflé : this is definitely unusual, and not our favorite way to make a soufflé, but it's definitely doable!

• 3 Baked Potato:  just set it and forget it, and make a whole bunch at once!

• 4 Cheesecake: make a cheesecake, pan and all, inside your crock pot. Yes, it's possible!

• 5 Dulce de Leche: a more hands-off way to cook sweetened condensed milk.

• 6 Fruit Butters: our very favorite shortcut for making fruit butters. Cut them up, peel them, and pop them into the slow cooker!

• 7 Artichokes: it really doesn't take long to just boil an artichoke, but making them in a slow cooker is all about "the psychological pleasure of coming home after a long day to a fresh-steamed artichoke all ready to eat," as we wrote earlier.

• 8 Baked Apples, from No Monsters In My Bed: a perfect, easy, and delicious use for all those seasonal apples.

• 9 Brownies, from Martha Stewart: Who knew? Yes, sweet, sticky brownies can turn out wonderfully when baked in a slow cooker.

• 10 Bread, from Food.com: this is perhaps better for summertime baking, when you don't want the heat of your oven to overwhelm your home.




Oatmeal...

Spiced Porridge for a Crowd

Makes about eight 1-cup servings; recipe can be doubled

2 cups steel-cut oats
8 cups water
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped apricots
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped figs or raisins
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of 1 orange

Toppings: chopped roasted nuts, jam, fresh fruit, more dried fruit, milk, yogurt, leftover eggnog

Combine everything except the orange zest and toppings in the bowl of a 3-quart or larger slow-cooker. Set the cooker on its lowest cook setting ("LOW" or 8-10 hours), and leave overnight.
If you happen to get up in the night, give the porridge a stir as you pass by. If not, no worries.
In the morning, break up the thin film that forms over the top of the porridge and stir it in. Scrape the sides and bottom. Stir in the orange zest.
Serve with toppings. Leftover porridge will keep refrigerated for at least a week. Reheat with a little milk or water to make creamy again.



Souffle

crockpot souffle

Orange Grand Marnier® Soufflé

2/3 cup sugar plus extra sugar, to coat slow stoneware and sprinkle on top of soufflé
1 orange, zest only
6 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup milk
8 egg yolks
4 tablespoons soft butter
6 tablespoons Grand Marnier® liqueur
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
10 egg whites
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons sugar

1. Rub the interior of Crock-Pot® slow cooker stoneware with unsalted butter and sprinkle with extra fine sugar. Shake out excess sugar.
2. Mix 2/3 cup sugar and orange zest in a food processor.
3. Whisk the flour and milk in a saucepan to blend. Beat in the orange scented sugar. Stir over medium heat until sauce thickens, then whisk as sauce comes to a boil. Continue whisking for 30 seconds and then remove from the heat.
4. Let cool for a moment before beating in the egg yolks one at a time.
5. Add butter, Grand Marnier® and vanilla extract to the mixture and let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes to cool.
6. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add salt and beat to soft peaks. Sprinkle in sugar and beat to stiff peaks. Add in 1/4 of whipped egg whites to base and fold in. Fold in remaining whites and then scrape the mixture into the sugar coated slow cooker.
7. Turn on High and cook for about 1 hour.
8. If desired, sprinkle the top of the soufflé with sugar and brulée with a torch. Spoon out and serve with chocolate sauce or crème Anglaise. Serves 8-10.


Baked Potato

Like other methods, this one involves wrapping your potatoes in foil. (You could add butter or a bit of salt for some kick, but this trick isn't about the seasonings.) Next, put your slow cooker on low and let the potatoes cook for roughly eight hours. When you're ready, so are they!


Cheesecake

crockpot cheesecake

Crust

- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
- 2 TBSP brown sugar
- 3 TBSP melted butter

Filling

- 16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp real vanilla
- 1 TBSP flour

Directions.

Find a heat-resistant dish that will fit into your crockpot for the cheesecake. You are going to create a bain marie, or water bath. I used a 1.5 qt Corning Ware dish and it fit nicely into 6qt oval. I tried a round cake pan in a 4 qt round, and that fit too. But I opted for my 6qt, because I'm more comfortable with how it heats.

In a plastic zipper bag, beat the crackers into crumbs with a rolling pin. Put a cup of the crumbs into a medium bowl, and add melted butter and brown sugar. Stir until it's wet and crumby. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the dish you are going to use.

In a separate bowl, cream the cheese, sugar, eggs, flour, cream, and vanilla with a hand-mixer. Unless you have one of those fancy Kitchen Aids. Then use that. Pour the cheese mixture on top of the crust. Lick the bowl.

Add 1/2 to 1 cup of water to the bottom of your crockpot. Lower the dish inside, being careful to not slosh water into your cheesecake.

Cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours. Check after 1 hour, just in case. The cheesecake is done when the edges are no longer shiny and have set. Touch lightly to see that you don't get cheesecake filling on your finger---then you know it's done.

Cook it for exactly 2 hours. Let the cheesecake sit in the cooling crockpot for an hour, before removing and transferring to the refrigerator. Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours before cutting and serving.




Dulce le Leche

Dulce le Leche in a crock pot

• 2 14 oz. cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 3 half pint size jars
• crock pot
• water

1. Open cans of sweetened condensed milk and pour into three half pint jars, dividing evenly. Put on lids and rings.
2. Place jars into a crock pot.
3. Fill crock pot with water so that it covers the top of the jars.
4. Turn crock pot onto low and set timer for 10 hours.
5. After 10 hours and remove jars from crock pot.
6. Open the lid and grab a spoon!

Fruit Butter

fruit butter in a crock pot

To make apple or peach butter in the CrockPot, all you need to do is cut them up and peel them, if you wish, and pop them into the slow cooker. No need for water or other liquids. Add a little sugar, if you wish; we added about 1/4 cup of brown sugar to our five pounds of peaches — more for flavor than for sweetness. We added a lemon's worth of juice, just because these peaches were so low in acidity, and we added a few teaspoons of cinnamon and cloves.
We turned the slow cooker on low and cooked the peaches for about 14 hours. They were still a little watery after this, so we reduced the sauce on the stovetop for about a half hour after it finished cooking.
Ta-da! Easy peasy fruit butter.



Artichokes

So we turned to our favorite slow cooker book Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook, an excellent and fresh compendium of recipes for just about everything you could think to cook (and a lot you wouldn't, too) in your slow cooker.


Here's how you cook artichokes in your slow cooker.

1. Clean and prep the artichokes.
Baby Artichokes
Snap off the dark-green outer leaves of the artichoke until only the pale, tender inner leaves remain.  Cut off the top 1/4 inch of the artichoke. Trim the stem end and any dark parts around the bottom. Rub the reserved lemon half over all the cut ends.
Whole Artichokes
Cut off the bottom of the sCut off the top 1/2 inch of the artichoke.tem, leaving about 1/2 inch. Pull off any small fibrous dark leaves around the base.  Using scissors, trim off the sharp, pointed tips of the remaining leaves. 

(NB..Acidulated water is a culinary term that refers to a mixture of water and an acid, such as vinegar, lemon, or lime juice. It’s used to prevent certain fruits and vegetables from browning, or oxidizing, when cut and exposed to air. Artichokes are especially prone to oxidation, and that’s why we recommend immediately rubbing their cut surfaces with extra lemon juice before submerging them in acidulated water.


2. Put the artichokes in the slow cooker with liquid. I put the artichokes stem-side down in my big slow cooker and sprinkled them with a little salt, pepper, and fresh-squeezed lemon. Then I poured over about 2 cups of water (adjust to the size of your slow cooker; you may need a little less) and a drizzle of olive oil. Oh, and three smashed cloves of garlic went in too. You could add herbs; rosemary and thyme would be lovely.

3. Cook on low for 6 hours or until the leaves can be easily pulled away. The final cooking time will depend on the actual heat of your slow cooker and the size of the artichokes. The large ones took nearly 7 hours, which may have been because I didn't pull out the choke. But the small one I put in was actually done in about 4 hours.

When the artichokes are finished you can use the heart for all kinds of good things, or just eat it straight. Scrape the flesh off the leaves with your teeth, dipping each one into garlic butter sauce or something else yummy.



Baked Apples

SLOW COOKER BAKED APPLES

*6 large baking apples
*2/3 cup brown sugar
*1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
*2 tablespoons butter, cut into 6 small pieces
*1/2 cup apple juice

Grease the crock pot with butter. Remove apple cores leaving 1/2 inch of flesh at the bottom. Mix cinnamon and brown sugar and pack into the apple cores. Arrange apples in cooker, right side up. If necessary, stack apples on top of each other, offset the stack apples so they aren't squarely on top of each other. Place butter on each apple and sprinkle with left over cinnamon and brown sugar mix. Cook on HIGH for 2.5 to 3.5 hours, until apples are slightly soft but not mushy.

Brownies

Slow-Cooker Triple Chocolate Brownies

Martha Stewart Recipe

 

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup walnut halves, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (6 ounces)

1. Lightly coat a 5-quart slow-cooker insert with cooking spray. Line bottom with parchment paper and lightly coat with spray. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
2. Place butter and chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, until chocolate is melted. Add sugar; stir to combine. Stir in eggs. Add flour mixture, walnuts, and chocolate chips and stir just until moistened (do not overmix). Transfer to slow cooker and smooth top.
3. Cover and cook on low, 3 1/2 hours. Uncover and cook 30 minutes. Remove insert from slow cooker and run a knife around edge to loosen brownies. Let cool completely in insert on a wire rack, about 2 hours. Turn out onto a work surface and cut into 14 brownies.

The center may look undercooked when time is up, but it will be perfect once cooled.

Bread

Couldn't Be Easier Slow Cooker Bread

A fluffy, moist wheat and oat bread with a crisp crust. Perfect for baking bread without an oven.

• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 cup warm skim milk or 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 whole eggs
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

Grease a deep metal or glass bowl or 1 lb coffee can (we use a glass 18 cm Pyrex soufflé dish); turn slow-cooker on high to preheat.Dissolve yeast in water; combine with milk, oats, salt, oil, honey, egg, and wheat germ.

Add flour and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Turn dough immediately into bowl or can; cover LOOSELY with foil.

In bottom of slow-cooker, place 1/2 cup of water and a trivet or some crumpled foil.

Place can or bowl on this; cover and bake on High for 3 hours.

Note: sides of bread brown and crisp beautifully, top will slightly brown and be soft to touch.

Yield: 1 medium sized loaf of bread.

Slow Cooker Herb Bread

This bread recipe gets baked in your slow cooker. The recipe comes from Salton Multipot Slow Cooker and was found on www.canada.com.

2 cups lukewarm water, divided

1 (8 g) package active dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons cornmeal

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour approximately

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried basil leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon milk, approximately

Preheat slow cooker unit, without the crock, on high.

Grease slow crock very well and line the bottom with a greased round of parchment paper.

Sprinkle interior of crock with cornmeal.

Stir yeast and sugar into 1/2 cup of the water, set in a warm place and let stand for 10 minutes or until very foamy.

Place flour in large bowl and mix in the herbs and salt.

Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture, remaining water and oil.

Mix by hand until a ragged dough forms.

Knead the dough on a well-floured surface for 8 to 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic (add up to 3/4 cup additional flour as needed to prevent sticking).

Place dough in the crock and brush the top with the milk.

Let stand in warm place for 5 minutes.

Place crock in slow cooker unit, cover and bake on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the dough springs back when lightly pressed on top and the sides of the loaf are browned.

Carefully remove crock and place on dry surface (otherwise crock may crack), allow to stand for 5 minutes, turn crock upside down and give it a sharp, quick shake to release loaf.

Cool completely before slicing.

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