Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

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I've owned a slow cooker now for a year but the one thing that I rarely try to cook in it is a pudding. Stewed fruit always seems the most obvious but I've never been confident enough to try anything more adventurous. One thing that has been niggling away at me to try though is rice pudding, perfect for Winter time, and when I saw a packet of pudding rice on the shelf in the supermarket it seemed I could avoid it no longer.

I got home to discover the recipe on the packet called for three eggs which needed separating. As I don't do eggs, I panicked until I found this incredibly simple recipe online. I decided to give it a go one evening, and even though it was quite late already to put the slow cooker on, I carried on.


Ingredients:

  • unsalted butter
  • 150g pudding rice
  • 40g of sugar (I actually used sweetener)
  • 1.5l of milk (I used whole milk for a creamier taste)
  • 2 teaspoons of spice (I used cinnamon and nutmeg)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
  • 30g of raisins or sultanas
  • 2 measures of Baileys's (optional and clearly not to be added if giving to children!)
  1. Use the butter to grease the inside of the slow cooker pot to prevent the rice from sticking.
  2. Add the milk, spices, sugar, vanilla bean paste and pudding rice and stir thoroughly.
  3. Put the lid on, turn the slow cooker onto 'high' and leave for two hours, stirring occasionally. (Every time the lid is lifted off the slow cooker, 15 minutes has to be added onto the cooking time, so keep this to a minimum).
  4. The rice will suddenly swell at around 1hr 45, it may need more milk added. This was also the point that I added the Bailey's and the fruit (30 minutes before the end of the cooking time).
  5. Serve immediately with grated chocolate sprinkled on top

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Also linking up to Funky Foodies

Slow Cooked Gammon In Coke

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Since I've had my Morphy Richards Slow Cooker (48701 'Sear & Stew') I have been far more happy to cook meat than I ever was before. The fact that it can be used on the stove to sear the meat, then transferred to the slow cooker, and even placed on the table as a serving dish means it's quick and convenient to use. My husband reports it is also one of the easiest things to wash up as well!

For a vegetarian, it means that cooking meat is easy: minimal handling is necessary, a few extra flavours are popped in and the meat-eating members of my family (all the men bizarrely) are over the moon with the results. I tend to buy quality joints from the reduced section in the supermarkets and then freeze them until needed, and I've picked up some real bargains. This gammon joint was less than £2.00!

Ingredients:

  • Gammon joint
  • Half a can of coke (about 150ml)
  • Mushrooms
  • Leeks
  • Salt and pepper
  • Stock cube
  • Cornflour
  • A knob of butter
  1. Place the inner pot on the hob and melt the butter. Add the leeks and mushrooms and sweat them for a few minutes until the leeks turn almost translucent. Stir in the stock cube.
  2. Cross the fatty side of the gammon and sprinkle on salt and pepper, this will help it to crisp up.
  3. Put the gammon into the pot on top of the mixture and sear each side for thirty seconds-a minute, turning once each side is done. This helps keep the 'juices' in the meat as it's cooking.
  4. Transfer the pot to the slow cooker and pour in the coke. Place the lid on top and leave to cook on medium for five-six hours or high for four hours.
  5. Once cooked, remove the gammon and set aside to rest for a few minutes while transferring the pot back to the hob. Add a teaspoon of for flour and stir in with a wooden or plastic spatula. This will thicken into a gravy to use with the gammon.
  6. Serve with the usual roast vegetables!

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Linking up to Mediocre Mum's Slow Cooker Sunday

Slow Cooker: Vegetable Stew and Dumplings

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I love Autumn because of the memory of Summer, the warming tone in the sunlight, the rustling leaves, the promise of Christmas without the cold and bleak days, and the onset of stews.

As a vegetarian, I'm quite limited in my stew range, but there's nothing to me that tastes better on a Sunday evening than soft, root vegetables in stock and herby dumplings.

Ingredients:

  • sweet potatoes
  • carrots
  • leeks
  • mushrooms
  • brocolli
  • swede
  • parnips
  • stock cubes
  • a knob of butter
  • 1tsp of ground nutmeg
  • 3ooml of hot water
  • 50g Atora suet (vegetarian)
  • 100g self-raising flour
  • salt and pepper
  • 2tbsp of dried onions
  • 1tbsp mixed herbs
  • 5tbsp of cold water

vegetarian stew and dumplings

  1. Melt the butter in the slow-cooker pot on the hob and add the finely chopped mushrooms and leeks to 'sweat'. Stir in the crumbled stock cube and nutmeg.
  2. Chop the root vegetables into large, square chunks and with the other vegetables to the pot, transfer to the slow-cooker. Pour in 100ml of the hot water and stir to combine the sauteed vegetable mix with the root vegetables and liquid.
  3. Cook on high for 2-3 hours, or medium for 4 hours.
  4. Mix up the Atora suet, self-raising flour, salt and pepper, dried onions and mixed herbs with enough of the cold water to form a pliable dough. Divide into balls.
  5. Add the remaining 200ml of hot water to the pot and stir thoroughly. Gently place the dumplings into the slow-cooker and press down carefully to cover with liquid. Cook for 30 minutes on high.
  6. Turn the slow cooker off and let it rest for five-ten minutes before serving.

vegetarian stew

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Linking up to Mediocre Mum's Slow Cooker Sunday

Slow Cooker Sunday: Fruit Medley

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As Mediocre Mum is still enjoying the balmy weather in Canada, it falls on me to host #SCSunday again after the sterling job from Plus2Point4 last week.

Fruit Medley

What do you do when you have a ton of fruit that you bought last week when you started your diet, and haven't managed to eat it all? Especially peaches which are beginning to look decidely dodgy? Peel them and bung them in the slow cooker for two hours on low!

Added to the peaches were cherries and a bramley apple to counter the sweetness. I then might have sprinkled on some cinnamon and glugged in a slosh of Disaranno. Because I felt like it.

I was going to serve it with fat-free vanilla yoghurt which would have made it über-diet food, but quite frankly I craved ice-cream after 9 days on this diet, so I had a small amount of Cornish dairy ice-cream instead!

If you've got a Slow Cooker recipe to share, then please add it to the linky below. It doesn't have to have been done in a slow cooker, as long as it was cooked slowly.

TheBoyandMe's Slow-Cooker Sunday



Slow-Cooker Sunday: Rainbow Vegetables & Goat's Cheese Wrap

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While the marvellous Mediocre Mum is off in the pursuit of lasting sunshine on the other side of the pond, Aly from Plus2Point4 and I will be taking care of her popular linky so she can enjoy the Canadian weather while we dodge the rain showers.

Recently Mediocre Mum put out an appeal for Summer recipes, and it's with that in mind that I'm using this recipe which was inspired by something that The Crazy Kitchen posted.

Rainbow Vegetables & Goat's Cheese Wrap

slow cooker vegetables

Ingredients:

  • peppers, carrots, leeks, mushrooms, courgettes
  • mango chutney
  • stock cube
  • soft tortilla wraps
  • hard goat's cheese
  • caramelised onion chutney (optional)
  1. I sweated down chopped mushrooms and stipped leeks in a knob of butter in the slow-cooker first, before adding pepper, courgette and carrot strips. To this I put two tablespoons of water, a stock cube and my old faithful of two tablespoons of mango chutney. Stir and cook on high for two-three hours.
  2. Drain off the liquid and put a good spoonful onto the middle of each wrap in a rectangular shape.
  3. Place a layer of goat's cheese on top, then a smearing of caramelised onion chutney on the top again.
  4. Fold up the wrap, use cocktail sticks to hold it in place and place in the over for ten minutes to crisp it up, maintain its shape and allow the cheese to melt in.
  5. Serve with ranch salad and onion rings.

Please join in below with your slow-cooker recipes: either savoury and sweet.

TheBoyandMe's Slow-Cooker Sunday

Meal Planning Monday #7

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Last week's meal plan by and large was stuck to with the exception of Saturday night's Chinese takeaway. We decided to go into Cardiff during the late afternoon and buy an iPad (as you do) and took our Tesco vouchers with us so we could have a meal at Pizza Express afterwards. Therefore, I moved the Chinese to Sunday because we don't like to miss it!

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  • Sunday: Chinese (home-made deep-fried tofu/takeaway chicken balls, sweet and sour sauce, crispy seaweed, egg fried rice, spring rolls and chips. Because I'm Welsh and that's how we roll around here!)
  • Monday: Dauphinoise potatoes, blue cheese and asparagus tartlets and salad.
  • Tuesday: freezer left-over Pizza Hut pizza and spicy potato wedges
  • Wednesday: Pasta and salad
  • Thursday: slow-cooked vegetable pasta (not tried this before, it will be a cheese/cream based pasta because I dislike tomato sauces on pasta)
  • Friday: Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagne (my brother, the chef, was supposed to be coming over last Friday and I cooked this for him, but mid-afternoon he had to cancel. He's coming this Friday instead so I shall cook it again)
  • Saturday: Mango and coconut paneer

Quite a few repetitive meals in this week's plan that make up our staple diet, but after two weeks off work for Easter and working an extra day due to INSET, I know I'm going to be knackered and need easy food. I'll get back on track with my imagination next week!

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I'm linking this up to Meal Planning Monday at Mrs. M's

Slow Cooker Sunday: Fruit Cobbler (Dessert)

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Now I know I've already posted one Slow Cooker Sunday recipe today, and I also know that I've also posted this recipe several months ago, but this is the first time I've tried doing the fruit (in fact any dessert) in the slow cooker. Plus it's my blog and I want to post it again, so there you go. I've used the slow cooker for the first part of the recipe as I have no idea if the cobbler bit would cook in it, another time I'll test that out.

Fruit Cobbler

Ingredients:
Serves 4-6

  • 800g of mixed fruit, I went for apples, plums, pears and nectarines
  • 160g caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 300g self raising flour, sifted
  • 85g unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 150g Rachel’s Low Fat Natural Bio Live Yogurt

Method:

  1. In the slow cooker take the fruit, 100g of the caster sugar and add the water, cook until the fruit softens. Tip: leave the fruit to cool before adding the cobbler pieces this will stop some of the fruit bubbling out over the dish.
  2. To make the cobbler, add the sifted flour, butter, baking powder and the remainder of the sugar (60g) and using a food processor or mixer whiz together for a few seconds on pulse speed until fine crumbs form.
  3. Add the milk and yogurt and whiz again until a soft dough forms . You can either spoon the mixture in scattered clumps over the fruit or add a little more flour and roll out the dough using a cutter. Leave some gaps for the cobble effect.
  4. Bake the cobbler for 30-35 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is visibly bubbling beneath.
  5. Serve with vanilla ice-cream, custard or clotted cream.

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Pop yourself over to Slow Cooker Sunday on Mediocre Mum to see other entries

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