I am going through a dilemma with my slow cooker. I want to use it more but even on the low setting it cooks things way too fast, so I can’t just set it before work and have a wonderful meal ready when I get home. I came up with the idea of using the timer that we have for turning lights on when we go on vacation and use it on the slow cooker.
At first I thought only vegetarian meals would work for this but that leads me to my question, would I be asking for trouble if I used the timer for cooking a frozen chicken breast? I would set the frozen chicken and seasoning in the slow cooker at about 7:30am and have the timer set for 12:00. In my mind it works out great. By the time the chicken is thawed the slow cooker has started and I have a yummy meal when I get home, but would this be asking for gastronomical trouble?
I suppose I should mention that I am one of those reckless sorts that thaw meat on the counter on occasion. I never let raw meat sit on the counter but frozen, sure. I figure I kill any bugs in the cooking process.
You would be better off thawing it out, dicing the meat, and setting the timer for later and cooking on the higher setting, otherwise the meat can either fall apart - the veg probably will, or it can go tough and dried.
I very often assemble something in the slow cooker, and leave before 8:00 am, and ask my husband who will still be home to turn the cooker on, usually at 10:00. One of my favorite meals starts with frozen chicken breast and we’ve never had any trouble, gastrointestinal or otherwise due to the sitting out time.
I would think that your timer idea would work nicely.
I have wondered about those dimmer switches used to dim lights for whatever reason. I have one and hate it. Never use it. But I just had this thought. If I plug the slow cooker into the dimmer can it be made to cook even slower?
light dimmers and light timers are designed for lights. look at your cooker and find the wattage that it is rated, you find it is a high value. the timer or dimmer would need to handle that value continuously. you risk a fire if you use a timer or dimmer improperly. i have seen melted timers that were just short of starting a fire.
rather than cooking slow you could cook fast. a pressure cooker can do large volumes in short amounts of time.
I could be imagining this but it seems to me slow cookers used to be made with a built-in timer to do what you are talking about. I think they stopped making them because of what you are talking about.
You might want to look into sous vide cooking. You can let things cook for days with no loss of quality.
Yeah, I was going to say this: buy a better slow cooker instead. I’m fairly certain they sell ones with timers and such- sort of like a coffee pot, you can set it to start cooking at noon or whenever it is you want.
Back in the dark ages, my mum used to routinely place casseroles in the regular oven in the morning and set the timer to begin cooking at, say 2:00 P.M.
As near as I can figure, we all lived.
Meat can sit out at room temperature for up to two hours. I wouldn’t have any issue cooking something 4 hours after removing it from the refrigerator, since it takes time to ramp up to room temperature. Besides, if you cook it fully there should be minimal issues anyway.
No, my point was that I really think they stopped making slow cookers with timers because of the health issues regarding letting food sit in one for hours before it starts to cook.