Slow cooker question

[motheroreily]

I know this might not be the proper place for this question but as I'm doing slimming world and I cook lots of slow cooker meals I thought I'd post it here!

Can you leave a slow cooker on and leave the house? I leave for work at 7:30 and am usually back by 19:00.

Would it be safe to leave for nearly 12 hours? Or if not could I let it cook overnight and then reheat when I get home?

Thank you

[codolod]

We had a week or so a few weeks back when we used our slow cooker almost every day! I did a bit batch prep or dump meals. I know, sounds minging, but you just prepare everything and then defrost over night, chuck it all in the slow cooker in the morning and it's ready for when you get back.

We regularly left the house and I think it's fine, it never really gets hot enough to be any kind of risk, especially if you're planning on cooking something for 12 hours! It would be really low I imagine.

[motheroreily]

Thanks for that tip. I'll try that tonight. So you say you were doing a stew you'd brown the meat and fry the onions and garlic, chop rest of veg and freeze it altogether.

Oooo wow that is a great idea.

[emmaluvseeyore]

We leave ours all the time on low. We don't cook anything first as it cooks completely in the slow cooker. We just make sure there isn't anything flammable near it just in case.

[codolod]

www.buzzfeed.com/melissaharrison/crock-pot-dump-dinners

This was where I got the reciped from, I spent a whole afternoon chopping veg, but I made 24 meals in total.

I would recommend, before batch cooking, making a single meal from that recipe and trying it first as we don't like two of the meals I made 12 of haha.

I haven't worked out any syn values yet, but you could probably do that quite easily and make any swaps you need to :)

[motheroreily]

Thank you so much . I'll sit down later and have a proper look through. Did you have a favourite?

[codolod]

I did the thing from the first list (teriyaki chicken) but the lady who wrote the blog post did three different meals and wrote out a shopping list

newleafwellness.biz/2014/10/20/6-healthy-freezer-crockpot-meals-50-minutes/

The chicken teriyaki - neither me or my boyfriend liked it, but neither of us had tried any version of that dish before anywhere.
(3 servings and 7 syns in the recipe, so 2.3 syns per serving if you cut all the fat off the chicken.)

The like shredded pork - this was v. bland! It needs some kind of bbq sauce with it.. we improvised and chucked in whatever we had in our cupboards. (4-6 servinge and 2.5 syns in the reipe, so 0.4 - 0.6 if you cut the fat off the meat and used this bbq sauce.)


Balsamic beef with carrots - this was our favourite one, I still have one left I think.. my excitement level just went up a tiny bit!
(4-6 servings and 7 syns in the recipe, so 1.2 - 1.8 syns per serving if you cut all the fat off the beef.)

[DamedifYouDo]

The other option is to use a cheap plug in timer to set it to start at the time you want.

[codolod]

We're planning on doing that :) most of our recipes are 4-6 hours, we had to make adjustments because we both work 8 hours so we're away 9 hours a day!

[motheroreily]

This dump cooking is a whole new concept to me! Just looked on Pinterest there's so many ideas

[motheroreily]

That's a good idea about a plug timer I hadn't thought of that

[drinkyourmilk]

I dump cook all the time. No where near as imaginative as the recipes you've just given though. Fab! Thanks

[motheroreily]

I'm going to it this weekend - I'm excited!

[LillyBugg]

I use a timer and use the slow cooker when I'm at work. I think of it as the same as leaving the fridge switched on.

I need to be more organised for dump meals though. There are so many and I really should do it!

[motheroreily]

My favourites were the teriyaki chicken and the balsamic beef. They were very flavoursome. I am off to look for more dump meals!