Good Food: Slow cooker favourites

Product Information

Marking their first foray into the world of appliances, this slow cooker from GreenPan impressed us with its wealth of settings and brilliant cooking results. They can help your broaden your slow cooking horizons and open up a new world of recipes you can use your machine for – from breakfast ideas to curries, pies, pasta bakes and even puddings. Nice little book, handy size and good pictures but many recipes require prior cooking which defeats the object of a one stop crock pot dish.

A good slow cooker has so many benefits – among other things, it can be a lifesaver for busy parents on a school night. Some of the controls also confused us – the button that looks like an 'on/off' switch is actually just an 'off' switch, and we failed to find any reference to this in the manual.

Without a hob-safe cooking pot, searing your meat before it goes in the slow cooker often comes with the admin of having to transfer it from one vessel to another – creating twice the amount of washing-up. We've produced hundreds of meal ideas over the years and this collection rounds up 150 of our favourites. This little gem is packed with ideas and has great spice and flavour combinations that I really wouldn't have thought of trying. Cheaper cuts of meat benefit from long, slow cooking, and it's always great for making thrifty one-pot meals.

For something a bit lighter, our slow cooker spiced apples with barley is full of warming spices, yet low in calories and fat. Rossi focuses on short ingredients lists and accessible family meals – think turkey taco rice, creamy gnocchi traybake or nacho loaded fries.Every recipe in the book uses one of three pans: slow cooker, a sauté pan/casserole dish or a baking tray – so you don’t need tons of equipment.