Sausage and Apple Slow Cooker Hot Pot and a Giveaway!
We’ve been sent a Crock Pot slow cooker to review! Can you imagine the happy dance we did when it arrived? It may have involved whooping and some of those side kicks you see on cartoons and in old films. Not very dignified but definitely justified. AND – we have another one to GIVE AWAY to one lucky reader so you too could be doing the jig!
We’ve been cooking with it for a few weeks now and it is really proving its worth. The ability to fill it with veg, beans/Quorn and seasoning at lunchtime, dash around like a loon all afternoon, deliver kids to various clubs/friends/music lessons and then return to a house smelling of herbs and promising a meal which is ready to serve is, quite frankly, life changing!
We have lots more experimenting to do – we haven’t even approached the world of slow cooker desserts yet – so watch this space! In the meantime here is our recipe for autumnal sausage and apple casserole, cooked in honour of yesterday’s apple day. We made it in the slow cooker and it was divine.
Serves 4 adult appetites and 2 child sized ones
Ingredients
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
1 large tart dessert apple, peeled cored and roughly chopped
500g new potatoes, chopped into bite size chunks
400g carrots, sliced into chunks
2 packs of Quorn Barbecue Sausages
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped (or to taste)
1 tsp vecon vegetable stock (or any other good strong vegetable stock)
1 tbsp French’s Smooth and Spicy American mustard (other mustards will do, we usually use a good grain mustard but we have been sent French’s to try and it is very good!)
2 tsps sun-dried tomato pesto
2 tbsps tomato passata
200ml boiling water
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
2 tsps fresh sage, roughly chopped
Method
Turn the crock pot on to heat up while you prep the ingredients. Bung all the veg and fruit into the Crock Pot. Mix together all the ingredients for the stock except the sage and pour over the veg mix. Sizzle your sausages in a frying pan in a little olive oil until browned. Chop into pieces and add to the veg mix. Set to high heat and cook for 6 hours. Go out and do other stuff. Come back, stir in the sage, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve as steaming bowls of deliciousness.
There are lots of recipes and slow cooker tips on the Crock Pot website, vegetarian recipes are a bit scarce but the American site has more to offer. We’re having a go at rice pudding today as we’ve been told it is ‘to die for’ – but we’re going to fiddle with it a bit and add some more unusual ingredients so watch out for that one soon!
Your Chance to Win!
We are reviewing the 5.7l Crock Pot and we have its 2.4l sibling to give away to one lucky reader.
To be in with a chance to win simply leave a comment below (this is the bit you have to do!)
For a second entry tweet ‘I am entering @fabfoodblog’s Crock Pot Slow Cooker #giveaway’
Competition closes at midnight on Monday 31st October. The winner will be drawn using the online number generator. Open to UK mainland entrants only. There is no cash alternative. Our decision is final.
Edited on 1st November 2011 to announce the winner….drumroll….and the winner is….Liz Burton! Well done Liz DM or email me your address and I will saunter down to the post office and send it on its way! Happy cooking! I’m sorry to everyone else, I wanted to be able to send you all one!
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I so need one of these….
Am entering here too, my hubbie will love this hot pot dish as he is veggie so we use quorn a lot.
Cheers Mich x
Ooooh I want I want I want…. your food…. AND the slow cooker of course!
Maggy
IO really like the idea with using quorn sausages, i have never had them before.
oooh looks fab. Enter me please! I tweeted too. x
Hi again
I’m here to say I would love the Crockpot it would make my life a lot easier and with the colder weather, it would be be great for stews,just chuck the dumplings in after work wait 20 minutes and a lovely meal that has been cooking nice and slow all day like my old mums tasty stews.
Great giveaway! I would love to win!
This looks sooooo good – I haven’t danced a jig in a long while – this would have me jigging endlessly! I’ve never cooked quorn sausages in this way before – have had them and they are lovely, but with the apples it looks wonderful and I love the idea of everything in one pot, no more washing up, and time to get on with my work while dinner cooks.
This site is shaping up great! Well done so far Chris!
Please can I enter to have a chance to win the crockpot?
This would be perfect for my little family to replace our old one!
I need a slow cooker in my life
I’m entering here too! Love this new site
x
A slow cooker would be a superb addition to my stay at home dad routine
great new site! Looking forward to some more recipes to try out.
Perfect – my 9 year old has decided to spurn meat so I can’t wait to try this recipe out!
JUST LOVE THIS SLOW COOKER IT WOULD BE GREAT FOR STEWS AND CASAROLES IN THE WINTER GREAT COMPERTITION GOOD LUCK TO ALL
Slow cookers are fantastic, I’m after one of these for a relative. I really enjoy using mine and want to share the slow cooker love, lol! :O)
Since my preferred method of cooking is “shoving things in and leaving for hours” the Crockpot would fit right in with that philosophy. In fact, I have no idea why I haven’t invested in one already.
I love the winter, time for stew!
Commenting here (and subscribing too!)
entering here too
wow, as a full time wotking mom to 5, I sooooo need one of these, it would make my life so much easier xxxx
following on twitter @tracygrant3
I have a hankering for slow cooked pork that this would definitely help me satisfy. Salivating just thinking about it!
Ooohhh I wonder how I ended up here…
I appear to have tweeted as well. Fancy that!
My family could actually eat real food when I was working late if I won this. thanks for the chance x
Hello! Just popped over from your other blog. The recipe STILL looks delicious! I commented with my Twitter account, @janesgrapevine , over there.
Awesome giveaway!
Winning this would make life with two toddlers sooooo much easier!
I’d love to win a crock pot!
This would be perfect for us. My son accidentally broke a slow cooker of mine and I can’t believe how much I miss it. Perfect for busy days xx
I’d love to win this to help organise my life as a new mum of 2!
This would be great for all the healthy veggies and cheaper cuts of meat – I wonder if I could sneak in the odd dumpling or two
Oooh another chance to enter and win this fabulous slowcooker – Crockpot are a fabulous make
@HonieBuk
Commenting over here too, and having a read of the recipes!
Just popped over from your other blog and am entering your slow cooker competition here as well. Will now check out your recipes.
Huzzah for crockpots! Thanks for hosting a giveaway!
I’d love a slow cooker, but don’t have room for a big one, so this smaller version looks ideal.
I’ve tweeted about the comp too.
Net usually one for gadgets BUT this looks like one I could enjoy as much as my trusty 8 year old bread maker! PLEASE let it be meeeeeee!