Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Slow Cooker

Five soups, stews and roasts to warm you up

Next weekend in the UK, the clocks go back, which officially means the end of British Summer Time. It also means that it will be darker and duller and we’ll have to eat bucketfuls of comfort foods to keep warm. I have a couple of favourite books to turn to when the weather gets colder, Scottish chef Tom Kitchin’s Kitchin Suppers is full of one-pan wonders, served up on rustic plates or wooden boards and nestled against British tweed and Scottish tartan cloths. It’s the perfect book to curl up to next to a log fire. It’s also time to flick through Diana Henry’s Salt Sugar Smoke, as the sloes are in season and our apple tree is laden with fruit, so it’s time to get bottling and preserving. The slow-cooker has also been restored to its permanent winter position, ready to cook up plenty of soups and stews such as the ones below…

1. Slow-cooked beef brisket with celeriac mash and wild mushrooms

You can’t beat this recipe, it ticks all the comfort food boxes; rich, savoury, soft, flavourful and easy to make.

Beef Brisket

2. Slow-cooker chicken soup

This has already been on the go this week – a whole chicken, onions, celery, carrots, parsley left to cook for 5-6 hours on low. Add the noodles or dumplings once cooked.

Chicken Soup

3. Steak a la Moutarde

Not a slow cooker recipe, but literally a one-pan, twenty minute job, with a tasty creamy mustard sauce – serve with mash or french fries.

Steak a la Moutarde

4. Chorizo, chicken and chickpea soup

This is a recipe that’s perfect for cold, dark nights. Wholegrain couscous and organic spinach give this soup a healthy and hearty twist.

Chicken & Chrorizo Soup

5. Marjoram steam roasted chicken

Sometimes you can’t be a simple roast chicken, whether for a weeknight supper or a weekend roast. Here I take you through my mum’s way of cooking a roast chicken, which is succulent and falls off the bone once cooked.

Roast Chicken

We often enjoy adding some Yorkshire puddings to our Sunday roast dinners – my little boy often insists. If you are short for time, but enjoy the addition of some ‘added roastiness,’ this video of Aunt Bessie’s Home Bake Yorkshires might make you giggle, too. As the cold nights draw in, a little comedy is always good.

Keep warm!

I hope one of these recipes takes your fancy this week. As always, do leave a comment if you give any of them a try.

The video content within this post is sponsored by Aunt Bessie’s 

Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Soup

A cold winter’s day really only demands one thing – a warming bowl of chicken soup. My favourite word this week when describing soup was ‘restorative’ – exactly what this soup is. This is my mother’s Polish recipe for a soup called Rosół z Kury, a clear soup, usually served with homemade egg noodles or dumplings. It can be made on the stove, in which case it just needs to simmer very, very gently for up to two hours, but I discovered this week that it’s even easier to make slow cooker chicken soup, which needs hardly any babysitting at all. The trick to making a very clear stock soup is to never  let it boil rapidly, which is why it works so well in the calm and consistent heat of a slow cooker. Usually I make my own plain, poured noodles, or Lane Kluski, but this week I tried it with some tiny egg gnocchetti, similar to Spatzle, I found in the fresh pasta section of the shops.

Chicken Soup

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Chicken Soup

Lots of you have been getting in touch to say that you’ve been trying my recipes – the Chorizo, Chicken and Chickpea Soup was a big hit, as was the Slow Cooked Beef Brisket. Keep letting me know how you’re getting on. I’d love to see you photos on my facebook page, too.

Happy slow cooking.

Hug in a Mug: Slow Cook Bolognese Sauce

The sunshine has come out today! However, the weekend was a different story with wind, rain and all the garden furniture being blown about! So, it was a weekend of slow cooking, starting with this lovely slow cook Bolognese, which I served with some noodles, in mugs, which made us all feel cosy and warm. This recipe can be made either in an electric slow cooker or it can be cooked on the stove and left  to slowly bubble away for up to two hours. I credit my Italian brother-in-law for first showing me how to cook Bolognese sauce when I was a teenager. The longer you leave it the better and using a combination of lean beef and pork mince gives you an even better flavour.

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