It may be my fault that I assumed that the heating element and the cooking pan are not attached to each other. Based on all the pictures and descriptions I have seen it seemed like you can easily put the pan with leftover food in the refrigerator. But from the looks of the whole design it seems like you have to empty the leftover food into another container or else you are going to spill the food all over the kitchen counter or the the floor if you try to take the cooking pan out of that white base. I wish the heating element was part of the white base instead of the part of the cooking pan.I desperately want to buy Aroma type cooking pan. But I will have to keep looking.