In a mixing bowl stir together water and yeast. Add herbs, salt, and flour; mix to combine. Don’t bother to knead it, just make sure there aren’t any streaks of dry flour. The dough will be sticky.
Cover dough with a tea towel, and let it rise until doubled in size, an hour or more.
Line a large slow cooker with parchment paper, and sprinkle it liberally with cornmeal. Punch dough down, and divide it into 9 equal sections. Form each into a ball and distribute evenly on the parchment in the base of the slow cooker.
Cover the slow cooker and bake on high for 1 to 1½ hours. Your time for baking may vary, of course. Check the rolls by gently poking the top: they should not feel like wet dough, but they won’t be crusty – they’ll be set, and not sticky on the tops.
Remove from the slow cooker by lifting the parchment paper.
If you’d like the rolls to have a more normal browned-top appearance, place the rolls on a cookie sheet, brush the tops of the rolls with melted butter, and broil just until crust is browned — or, keeping to the no oven use, turn them upside down and use your grill!
Notes
Note that I used a 6-quart oval slow cooker. If you’ve got a smaller round one, cut this recipe in half, and make just 6 no-knead slow cooker dinner rolls.