Cooking Advice Poll

[digsdigsdigs]

All right, friends, I've recently come into possession of a lightly-used 1.5qt (very small) slow cooker. I've never used a slow cooker before and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to incorporate it into my life as a single person who likes to eat or if I should just pass it on. Because I only have enough brain to cook and clean a couple times a week, and am picky, I usually try to make larger portions of more-complicated dishes 1-2x/week and extremely simple things to fill in the gaps.

Does anyone have a slow cooker that they have successfully incorporated into their life? Especially a small one? Any favorite recipes/workflow?

Comments

[greywash]

I have a (large) slow cooker that I use and love, actually because—like you—I cook (usually) for one, and only like to cook a few times a week.

My favorite thing to do with my slow cooker is to cook the not-for-one-person portions of things you get from the store and freeze, usually as components to be used in later dishes. Example: bacon. 2 full packs of bacon cut up and cooked in the slow cooker turns into bacon bits to add to otherwise boring dishes for like the next six months. Also great: slow-cooker caramelized onions, frozen in ice cube trays -> instant caramelized onions in one-person-sized portions.

[digsdigsdigs]

Ooo, love this. Bacon and caramelized onion are two of my favorite flavor-adds. Thank you!!

[teaforlupin]

Ooh ooh ooh I love my slow cooker--mine are larger but I don't see why some of the recipes I use could not be halved/quartered, and they are DEAD simple--I can DM you some recipes if you like (the particular one I have in mind is a chicken recipe tho, so if you're vegetarian it might not work so well)

[digsdigsdigs]

oh I eat everything and would love that ! :)

[aphilologicalbatman]

O___________O I'm so excited for this flavor journey

[sylvaine]

I don't have a slow cooker myself, but eeee, exciting, yay! I could happily signal boost to my journal, if you like? I am pretty sure a lot of my mutuals have slow cookers. There's also this: Make an Impromptu Slow Cooker Meal With This Basic Formula.

[digsdigsdigs]

oh, a signal boost would be great, thank you!! I've got some kidney beans going in there right now. :)

[chestnut_pod]

Oh, exciting!

I second the caramelized onions comment above, and I am particularly partial to making soups in mine. I don't like leaving big pots on my electric stove for hours, as it makes me nervous, but somehow slow cookers don't activate that same anxiety. So you have soup for a week, or you can freeze it in portions, or a combination! Mine gets heavy use in winter :)

[sophia_sol]

Here from Sylvaine's signal-boost to say I love making soups and stews in a crock pot! Here's some recipes I've enjoyed. You'll notice that I tend to cook largely vegetarian, hopefully you are okay with bean-and-lentil focused recipes!

For all of these, the basic instructions are: chop ingredients to appropriate sizes, stick everything in pot, cook on low for 8ish hours. My usual workflow is to prepare everything in the crock pot in the evening, put it in the fridge overnight, and then pull it out and turn it on in the morning so it cooks over the course of the workday and is done when I get home from work. These are fairly low-maintenance recipes so hopefully they are simple enough to fit the bill for your needs.

Some of these don't have quantities listed because I am That Kind Of Cook, but if you want further details on any of these recipes just ask and I'll see what guidance I can provide. The ones that do give quantities are giving quantities that are too much for your pot, but they should be scalable.

Black Bean, Corn & Squash Soup

black beans
sweet potato or winter squash
onion
corn
garlic
chilli powder (don't overdo it)
oregano
cumin
bouillon
water
lime juice (add just before serving)

Sweet Potato & Peanut Soup

1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 can tomato paste (or one can diced tomatoes)
generous amounts of sweet potato
1 can chickpeas
water sufficient to make soupy
bouillon
~4 tbsp peanut butter

Curry Carrot Coconut Soup

1 onion
approximately 5-600g carrots (aka lots)
1 very large potato
1 cup red lentils
sufficient water for the above
some bouillon
generous quantities of powdered coconut milk (canned also works, just cut down the water in recompense)
curry powder
some garlic powder

Moroccan-inspired Chickpea Stew

onion, two cans chickpeas, two cans diced tomatoes, two sweet potatoes, a good handful of raisins, spices (cumin, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, turmeric) in quantities that looked about right, salt, and just before serving a bit of lemon juice. Probably it would be good with spinach or other greens added but I didn't have any to hand. Serve with rice.

Lentil Soup
Onions
Garlic
Grated carrot
Grated potato
Red lentils
Water
Bouillon
Rosemary
Parsley
Dash of soy sauce
Dash of lemon juice (add just before serving)
Also good with crumbled feta cheese (add just before serving) if you have it on hand; if you add the feta you may not need the soy sauce as the cheese adds sufficient umami for the soy sauce to be unnecessary. You can also remove the grated potato and serve the soup on rice or noodles for the carbs instead if you prefer.

[digsdigsdigs]

Oh thank you! Excellent tip on the evening prep, fridge, cook all day strategy -- some of these guides are really into overnight cooking, but I don't have a big place and a garlic-permeated wakeup is not really my thing.

[alatefeline]

My preferred workflow with a rice cooker/slow cooker is this:

Identify day when I can Make A Food.

Make a large batch of rice, rice-and-other-grains, quinoa, mixed veggies, etc in the slow cooker.

Optionally, pair this with also making a protein and/or a vegetable that I can quickly cook on the stove; top a blander, starchier slow-cooker thing with a smaller portion of something more highly seasoned that's faster to cook.

Immediately put about 6-8 portions of Slow Cooker Food into single-serving
containers (I use recycled plastic tubs from hummus or yogurt, but any washable item that come sin standard sizes works); freeze most of them; put one or two in the fridge for the Next Few Days. Eat a large bowl of a serving-plus of what is left.

Most common failure mode: put it all in one leftover container in the fridge, and then Not GEt Around to directly eating or re-cooking it.

Freezing in portions right away takes all the thinking out of it; I just dump them in a bowl to microwave when I want, say, quinoa with almonds or brown rice and lentil dal with spinach. And I don't waste the thing or get sick of it because it keeps in the freezer.

I suggest you identify things you are okay eating for several days in a row with optional toppings, OR things that you really like but rarely make because they are tedious (meats if you are a meat-eater, pilafs and bean stews for veggits like me). A super-basic filling food without any seasoning you find easy to mix in later, OR an enjoyable complete one-pot meal with all the tasty bits, are what I consider worth making in batches, but not anything in-between that I have to cook *again* later.

Ask yourself: am I saving washing 2 or more pots/pans by making 1 batch in the slow cooker? If so, it's worth it to me; if not, it's not.

There are complex recipes out there, so try telling your search engines for a simple version of some whole foods or food-pairings you know you like; I might google 'winter squash carrot slow cooker simple' or 'easy plain buckwheat rice cooker recipe'; if you know how to make Thing in a simple way you like, making a more-complicated version of Thing is easier later.

A fformer acquaintaince, whose strategy for a *small* rice cooker I still admire, just makes a fresh batch of plain jasmine rice every time 2 or more people are either hungry or around at a Food Time without a planned food, and gets someone else to wash the cooker. That works for her and is an example of different model of using a small cooker - no thought or prep required, just 'there will be a fresh batch of rice Soon' and it pretty much always gets eaten.

Since your slow cooker is small, consider using it to cook down whichever Thing you would like to eat more of but don't because it takes too long to cook or cooks unevenly - carrots, artichokes, beef, five bean chili, whatever - or to infuse a broth or seasoning into a bland protein for richer flavor. Small batches of plainish grains/starches can also make more portions than you might think.

Experiment!

Good luck with the Thing.

[sylvaine]

Ooooh, man, this is almost exactly my workflow for my Weekly Pre-Cooking Adventures, except with significantly less effort. I might have to invest in a slow cooker...