I just got this freebie mag in the mail about cooking, I think "Cooks Illustrated". They had a really good recipe for slow cooker beef stew. I can't type out the whole thing here right now, but the basic interesting ideas were:
Brown the meat first in a pan. Remove the meat from the pan and add chopped onion and thyme. Reduce. Put the beef in the bottom of the slow cooker and put the onion on top. Add wine and stock to cover. Put chopped carrots, potatoes, and other veggies you want in a plastic bag with more fresh thyme and a little olive oil. Create a pouch with aluminum foil for the veggies and seal them tightly. Place that package on top of the onions in the cooker and put the lid on. They also used instand tapioca in there somewhere to thicken - I can't remember the whole thing.
I thought it was a great idea to put veggies in a little pouch on top of the meat, because I've never been able to get the meat tender without the veggies falling apart. I did put the veggies in halfway once (when I went home for lunch) but they didn't have the taste of the meat.
I'm going to give this a try, maybe next week, and we'll see if I'm amazed.
I did this a couple weeks ago and it worked pretty well. I coated cubed chuck in chopped fresh thyme, salt and pepper, then coated it in flour. I browned it on all sides, added tons of chopped garlic, then deglazed the pan with a little red wine. I put that mixture in a container and into the fridge for dinner the next day. I also chopped the red potatoes and put them in a bowl full of water and into the fridge, covered.
The next morning, I put the beef and it's juices into the bottom of the crockpot, added a bay leaf and a little more fresh thyme, then created a veggie pocket as described above. I put chopped mushrooms, baby carrots, and the potatoes from the night before in my little pouch with a couple sprigs of thyme. (I made sure the beef was covered with wine and stock) I set it on low for 8 hours.
Donovan got home before I did, so after about 7 hours, he opened the pouches and put the veggies into the crock, and added a bag of small frozen onions which I'd kept in the fridge to defrost. I gave it about another 30 minutes to all mix, then enjoyed.
It came out pretty good - the veggies were definitely better than if they were in liquid all day, but they were still a little over done. I think the ticket is the 4-hours on high setting. But the bummer there is that I have to set it all during lunch, when I just want to relax. Still, it was pretty good stew.