apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The delicious smells wake up me up every time I try this! So I use an inexpensive timer to start/stop the slow cooker using only frozen foods.

Best of both worlds:
I do all the prep the night before and put all the ingredients in the pot and then put just the removable part in the fridge. when i wake up in the morning, i simply take the ready to go pot out of the fridge, and through it in the electrical part of the crock pot and turn it on. it is amazing to come home to!!!!

Brilliant, why didn't I think of using the slow cooker overnight? I can't tell you how many times I've put the meal on in the morning and rushed home after work only to find burned squash or dried out stew because I was away too long. So frustrating. I will definitely give your suggestion a try.

This is a repost of something I said on a related subject:

"One handy trick I use (and am quite proud of) is getting around that fact that I might be at work when the crock-pot needs to be turned on (many recipes run about 4-8 hours in length). Use a lamp timer. Complete your prep work the night before and refrigerator the crock. Pull it out in the morning before you leave and set the timer based on when you would like the cooking to be finished and plug the crock-pot into the timer. It's worked like a charm and I've had some fantastic midweek dinners because of it."

Not a slow-cooker thing, but similar in principle:
- Preheat your oven to really hot.
- Make your stew (or whatever).
- Put a lid on the stew and boil it for at least two minutes. (This is a safety measure, good for all kinds of cooked foods; the boiling basically kills any bacteria in the pot, and the lid keeps new bacteria out.)
- Put it in the hot oven.
- Turn off the oven.
- Go away. The residual heat will cook the stew.

So you folks who do the prep work at night - does that include braising the meat? For some reason that seems like it could be not the best idea for meat prep.

bennyrogers - In the recipes I've used, at most I've only had to sear the meat prior to it's cooking in the slow cooker. My refrigeration of the pot the night before doesn't seem to effect the quality of the meat. If that's what you're asking.

Lamp timer was going to be my suggestion too. They're cheap and you just set it to turn on and off whenever you want. If it needs six hours, you set the thing to turn on at noon and it's ready when you get home at six. The only thing I wonder about is letting it all sit all morning. Anyone have experience with that?

@ Anne (in Reno)
I use only frozen foods and refrigerate the crock & lid overnight. Then use the timer.

Anne (in reno) - We've suffered no ill effects from it (so far, HA). I'm not a microbiologist and I might even be a renegade when it comes to food safety (i.e. making homemade creme fraiche) but my guess is that after an overnight chill in the fridge the food doesn't come to room temperature for an hour or two anyway. With only another hour or two (or four) I don't think anything dangerous would grow that would also survive the cooking temperature. Anyone have words of warning?

This is BRILLIANT! I gave up crock pot cooking after a few mushy chicken dishes that cooked 10 hours. There is hope! Thanks!

G&D- sweet! I'm going to do that. Might try Molly's trick too, for that matter.

I'm on the 6-week extreme makeover diet and need to have a lot of cooked chicken on hand, so I throw one of those big economy packages of chicken breasts into the slow cooker overnight with a bunch of Mrs. Dash in water.

It looks pretty sad but tastes great and very easy to portion out into 2 oz. batches.