A few days ago I found that if I heat the uncooked ingredients in the slow cooker on browning settings and stir it to properly heat the whole thing up to around boiling temperature, then I put the lid on and switch the program from browning to slow cook on higher temperature (if you have such thing) and set the suitable time, it works like a charm. Everything is thoroughly cooked but not mushy, and when we're ready to eat our dinner, the dish is ready to be eaten. It takes about 3 minutes longer to prepare the dish in the cooker this way, but I think it's worth it.
Hope it helps someone
