Month: November 2017

Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Chicken Sliders

Looking for something a little bit different??? this is it! is was so tasty and so easy to make always a winner in my book!

I made this up as part of a batch cooking session as the recipe will serve 4 but it will also freeze well saves a job for another day!

This would make a fab weekend family meal or #fakeaway it really was good we really enjoyed it Graeme even had seconds!

  If your sauce does end up slightly too watery take the lid off the slow cooker and let it cook for a little longer or take the sauce out and pop it in a pan to reduce it down that way. I have to say i didn’t need to do any of that.

Another top tip is taste i tasted my sauce at the beginning before cooking and decided to add a couple of more splashes of Worcestershire sauce, however after cooking it was still a little tart so i added a teaspoon of BBQ sauce to to take out the sharpness. All tomato based recipes vary so much and its down to the ripeness of the tomatoes used even in passata, its usually one of the reasons small children are not always keen of tomato based dishes, the easy way around this is always add sugars….hence the brown/BBQ sauce in this recipe – you can always add more sweetener but sometimes i feel sweetener can also leave a funny artificial taste to the sauce.

by julessmithie

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Love a beef stew especially now the weather is getting colder and this one is fab! its no fuss and so easy to make and by using the slow cooker you can buy the cheapest of cuts of beef. I browned off my beef first as you will see in the video but as always the choice is yours. 

My top tip for cooking a fab beef stew is give yourself plenty of time and wherever possible always cook it on low, if the beef is tough and chewy its not cooked keep cooking until it nearly falls apart.

I added pearl barley to mine but you can use red lentils if you want they will disappear during the cooking but will still thicken the gravy – they do exactly the same job as pearl barley but if you have kids then this maybe an easier option!

Lets talk about the Jam i added yep i appreciate that sounds mad but it really does work and you need to adjust it to your taste i would suggest you add 1 teaspoon then taste again before serving and add another one if you like. If your stew has that “too beefy” taste or a “tinnie metalic” taste the jam will counteract that and the sweetness from the sugars will take that taste away. 

The biggest mistake people make when cooking a stew in the slow cooker is they add way too much water trust me it doesn’t need it.

This recipe appears in my Cookbook MY SLOW COOKER MEALS its on my Amazon shop look under COOKBOOKS

The slow cooker i use can go on the hob under the grill and in the oven again its one my Amazon shop press the below link and look under KITCHEN GADGETS

https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/julesthelazycook

by julessmithie