It seems the best plan when cooking in a slow cooker it to add very little liquid as it doesn't loose any during the cooking process, so adding too much will just mean you will have to thicken or reduce at the end of the process.
Cooking dishes this way seems to really benefit the flavours, giving spices and herbs time to develop and almost marinade the food as it cooks so slowly. Stews and casseroles are a favourite for slow cooking but curries come out brilliantly, I in fact often do a curry a day or so before I want to eat it so that I can chill the dish and really let the flavours develop.
The timings with slow cooking are mostly 4 hours or high or 6 hours on low. Obviously you should check that chicken or pork is cooked all the way through before eating, or if you think the meat is not tender enough just cook for a longer time.
If you are leaving the house for longer than 6 hours (I am out longer than this on a work day) slow cookers don't have a delay timer, but I use a generic timer to delay the start time to my cooking. This would have to be done with caution and consideration of how long the food will be in the slow cooker, out of the fridge but not switched on and cooking. I only do this in the winter and only for a short time delay (no more the 3 or 4 hours).
The slow cooker can be preheated to speed things along, by just switching it on whilst you brown, chop, saute and prepare your ingredients. Some recipes benefit from starting off in a frying pan then transferring into the slow cooker. Some recipes you can just chuck everything in and switch it on. Some recipes also work well by starting off on high for 1 hour and then turning down to low for the remaining cooking time.
Lifting the lid of your slow cooker lets out a lot of the built up heat and can add 20 minutes onto the cooking time so its best to try and resist peeking in all the time, This for me was impossible when I first bought it!
I will post some slow cooker recipes soon
happy cooking
xoxo
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