My slow cooker is slowly becoming one of my favorite kitchen tools. At the moment I am using my slow cooker to caramelise onions - thanks to some tips from http://www.savour-fare.com/ (my current favorite foodie blog). I have been using caramelised onions in everything - but my favorite (and least healthy) use is in home made French onion dip.
Ingredients:
3 to 4 large onions, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 Tablespoons butter, melted
large pinch of sea salt
2 cups sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
additional salt to taste
Method:
Place onions, olive oil, melted butter and pinch of salt into your slow cooker, and stir to coat. Cook on high for 10 - 12 hours, or until onions are deep caramel brown. I find that I need to stir the onions every few hours - when I have left them unattended they get more brown around the edges and not brown enough in the middle section of the slow cooker. This could just be my slow cooker, but the first time you make these...keep an eye on them and learn how your slow cooker works.
Once the onions are all a rich brown, turn off the slow cooker and drain all of the cooking liquid off the onions. Mix the sour cream and mayonnaise together in a bowl, and add onions to taste. I like to use LOTS of onions in my dip, but everyone is different so add to your heart's content. Taste the dip, and add some sea salt (have I mentioned that I love the Maldon sea salt flakes? I highly recommend them) to your desired level of saltiness. Just remember, you're likely to be eating this on salty chips - so don't go overboard. Also there's enough fat in here to cause a coronary...no need to up your sodium levels to guarantee it!
Refrigerate the dip for a couple of hours before serving, it will thicken up in the fridge.
Any leftover onions should go in the fridge - you can pop them in a meatloaf, add to home made pizza or put on hamburgers. These onions are amazing, and in the slow cooker they are just soooo easy.
In addition to my love of my slow cooker, I also really love Costco. Our local Costco has an amazing butcher, so we get some great value meats but in bulk. I recently got a batch of boneless beef short ribs that were lovely and was trying to figure out what to do with them. I watched an episode of Giada at Home and got inspired to make this dish in my slow cooker - slow roasted beef short ribs in a red wine and roma tomato sauce served with penne rigate.
Ingredients:
1 kilo (2 pounds) boneless beef short ribs
drizzle of olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground pepper (to taste)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 cans whole roma tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 cup beef broth
500 grams (1 pound) penne pasta
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Method:
In a heavy pan, sear the boneless short ribs in a drizzle of olive oil. Lightly season them with sea salt and freshly ground pepper while searing. Remove the ribs and place in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions go translucent. Make sure not to burn the garlic, add a bit later than the onions if you are worried. Tip the onions and garlic into the slow cooker over the top of the beef, evenly spread.
Add the tomatoes, wine, beef broth and mustard to the slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 - 10 hours.
Remove the ribs from the cooking liquid. Using a large spoon, remove any excess fat from the surface of the cooking liquid. Using a stick blender, puree the liquid in the slow cooker. Pour the sauce into a saucepan and keep warm over low heat - the goal of this is to reduce the liquid a bit. Using 2 forks, shred the meat into small pieces and stir the shredded meat into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Cook the pasta according to packet instructions, and ladle sauce over the cooked pasta. Serve with some freshly grated parmesan.
I also find some sort of bread accompaniment is helpful to sop up any remaining juices in your bowl.
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