Slow cooker Q&A with Elizabeth Baird

Get ready for the winter chill! Canadian Living's Executive Food Editor Elizabeth Baird shares her best slow cooking advice.

CL: Do you have advice for someone who's new to slow cookers?
EB: Slow cookers are one of the easiest appliances to use: There's just the lid, the stoneware insert and the housing. A slow cooker only uses as much electricity as a 100 watt bulb, which is why it's such a fabulous thing. You can put it on, go out to a movie and come back to a hot meal.

For someone that's new to them, there's no big inititation period – you can leap right in. There are no special techniques necessary to get going.

CL: Can any recipe work in a slow cooker?
EB: If you're changing a favourite recipe to a slow cooker version, you will need to cut the liquid down by about half, because there's very little evaporation in slow cooking.

This means you don’t necessarily get the same flavour concentrations that you might have from other cooking techniques, so you might want to work with juices or stocks – something that's got a little more flavour than water. A little wine, a bit of cider, or a little bit of beer – that will give you a nice flavour.


CL: I have a huge slow cooker, but I live alone. What recipes do you recommend that freeze well?
EB: A lot of slow cookers are coming in a larger size; some hold as much as 7 or 8 quarts. The kinds of things that work well for the freezer are stews, curries, and pulled pork recipes. There are beautiful beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Red Wine Sauce that freeze very well.

A reader told me she had made the pulled pork and that made one dinner for her family, one dinner for the freezer and then a couple of lunches for her teenage sons. That's exactly the kind of thing you want to use your slow cooker for.


CL: What's one of the simplest slow cooker recipes for someone who never remembers to organize 12 hours in advance?
EB: Most of the slow cooker recipes now cook in a lot less time than 12 hours. Generally speaking, chicken takes about four hours, so it's a good choice for a person who is short on time. Both Saucy Mushroom Chicken and Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic take 4 hours.

Beef recipes take longer; more likely around 5 to 6 hours. If you don't have a lot of time, there are soups that take less time and some of them are quite hearty.

The other thing that's really fast is fish. Salmon, or any other white fish, takes about an hour and a half to cook. We have one salmon recipe in my latest cookbook - Canadian Living: The New Slow Cooker Collection (Transcontinental Books, 2009), and it's a great, fuss-free recipe that's very nice if you're entertaining.


Page 1 of 2 – On page 2, discover the surprising foods—beyond soup and stew—you can make in your slow cooker.