Who has a crock pot? I do, and I can make a wonderful wonderful lentil soup.
However, I just tried to do a pot roast, which was horrible! Seriously, I should have been worried that the recipe did not call for any liquid- but it said the meat would simmer in it's own juices. My husband has requested that I not use the crock pot for a while now.
Also, do you feel safe leaving it on while you are not at home for long stretches of time?
What are your experiences with them? Do share.

what happened to the roast? I have had varying (sp?) degrees of luck w/ them in the c.p. Sometimes overcooked and falling apart...usually when I put it in thawed and with a little (1/2c.) liquid....tougher when I put it in frozen - this tends to be a big no-no, for saftey reasons (my c.p. cooks very fast, so I am not so concerned) whereby the food thaws and cooks, but not as quickly as it should thus enabling the possibility of contracting (potentially) food poisoning...not that I am trying to be scary or anything...just what I've read.
But since moving to this new (100 year old) house with the 25 y.o. built in piece of shit stove with the f*cked burners....everything that I dont feel like cooking in the oven goes in the pot. If you eat chicken, its pretty good in there, as is pork loin and whatever else. I tried this thing with sliced potatoes and mushroom soup on the bottom and cooked ground beef (w/ onions, garlic and other seasonings), it wasnt too bad. I've also cooked meatballs from raw in it (most recipes recommend putting them in precooked, why I dont know, but mine turned out fine). bbq ribs...from raw...most recipes I've seen, again want you to add in a few extra steps, like boil, bake and THEN c.p. (too much work imo) anything with those EXTRA steps, I usually just stick them in the pot and add on extra time.
i know this has become alot wordier than I originally tended, but I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE my c.p. As for leaving it on untended, I have no problems with it at all....house hasnt burned down yet.
here's a link for you for c.p. recipes.>http://members.amaonline.com/nrogers/Kitchen/crockpot.htm>http://www.ebicom.net/kitchen/page/cpidx.htm
hth

I have one and love it. I'd never really gotten much use out of it, but since we opened our little café, we use it for all of our soups. Before that though, I have successfully used it for sweet and sour ribs as well as roasting a whole chicken. Both recipes were from the cookbook that came with the crock pot, so I'm sure with a little imagination they could have been made better, but they were pretty good just the same.

As far as leaving it on while not at home, I'd just be sure nothing was touching it, or close to it. The sides get quite hot, even on the low setting. I don't imagine it could start a fire, but it could melt any plastic close by.

Oh, the roast basically turned into jerky, and the entire house smelled like burned meat for a week. It still sorta smells... (It's been a week and a half).
It completely ruined the meat to- none of it was edible-- I tried.

I make pot roast all the time in mine.
I also throw chicken breasts in with a can of soup. I think you always need liquid to cook meat in a crockpot.

I usually put the meat, cut up potatoes, carrots, and onions in with a full bottle of beer (preferably dark) and a bit of salt and pepper. Comes out great everytime! I just recently tried a bison pot roast - even better than beef. Much less fatty, as well.

I make sure there is nothing on the counter around the cooker (like a dishtowel)- but i feel pretty safe with it on all day.

I love love love my CP. I love coming home from work and smelling dinner almost done! I make tons of things in there, stews, soups, roasts. I can think of two problems with your roast. 1--you needed some liquid in there. CPs are funny in that if you put a little water in there, suddenly they're full of juice but if you skimp, they dry out and everything burns. 2--if your CP has a low setting and a high one, did you maybe put it accidentally on the high one?

I do not have a problem leaving my CP on all day. I know people who do, however. I guess it depends on the person. One lady I know said she would never leave it plugged in, but she unplugs her toaster and her radio before she leaves the house. I always make super sure nothing is touching the pot part which will get hot. I burned out a Crock Pot once because I got the cord caught between the pot and the crock. Fortunately I was home--sparks started flying once the heating element burned through the plastic part of the cord. I bought a new pot and I am very very careful about checking it before I leave! There is no flame so it really can't catch anything on fire. If something happens it should blow the fuse or the circuit breaker. (When mine burned the cord it blew the circuit breaker). Then the worst case scenario is you don't have a cooked dinner when you get home, but at least your house is not a smoldering lump.

I'll share my crockpot story....once upon a time a girl got, not one, but TWO crockpots for Christmas....so one went back to the store (they were the same size and all). Not too long after the girl puts a frozen roast in and goes to work. 12 hours later girl comes home from work. Somehow the pot had made this huge leap from the kitchen counter to the stove, about 5 feet away. Inside it was sparkling clean....no roast ANYWHERE!!!! Where could it be? Did the man eat it? No. did the pot roast faeries come and take it away? No. did that damned bad dog with the shit-eating grin hiding under the bed eat the roast? You betcha!!! And she also ate the cord. How she didnt get electrocuted is beyond me, as is fact that she not only moved it from the counter to the stove, but got the lid on as well....at least it didnt have the same reaction as the time she ate a pound of prunes....the end.

<did the pot roast faeries come and take it away?>

Ok, so that made me spit my drink across the desk.

I have a crock pot and I hate it! It's huge and a pain to clean. I just made chili in it, and that's all. I hardly ever use it. But, I'm going to try the website listed above.

evilducky-
I'm going to try that. So one bottle of beer is all the liquid it needs? Do you cook it on low all day?

I made the best corned beef and cabbage last week.
I put in the corned beef, cut up potatoes, covered in water and put it on low for about 8 hours. During the last 15 minutes I put in chunks of purple cabbage and it was perfect.

I'll bet a little Guiness in place of some of the water would be really good.

I bought a crockpot and tried it once. Apparently if you work 13 hour days, the crockpot just turns your food into mush. So I returned it.

I like making chicken noodle soup in mine.

Just put ~8 cups broth, plus cut up onions, carrots, celery, basil, etc., and I usually use leftover cut up chicken meat.

I cook that on low all day. Then I make the boyfriend add thick Amish-style egg noodles to the pot about 1-2 hours before dinner time. (He's home off and on during the day because of school.)

As long as you add the noodles toward the end it doesn't become a big pot of mush.

But I have had disastrous results with cooking whole turkey breasts, and stews that just turn into glop. It's an art.

i love my crock pot. i hadnt used it for a few months, and then last week i used it twice. my fave thing to make: a bunch of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts with 2 cans of cheddar broccoli soup thrown over them. then when its done you eat it with rice or mashed potatoes. yummy!

also: took four raw lean hamburgers, threw them in the pot and covered with a jar of spagetthi sauce. i put it on high for 2 hours, then low til i was ready to eat it about 5 hours later.

i never worry about leaving the crock pot on all day. just as everyone else said, make sure there is nothing right around it that might get too hot. my crock pot is the one my parents had since i was 5 or something, and it still works wonderfully. yay for easy cooking! :)
brianna

O love my crockpot, I'm crock-potty! As for leaving it on all day while you're out, don't worry, your computer monitor or stereo, left in standby mode, is more likely to cause a fire (or actually, maybe that's not such reassuring news for you all!).

I get my crockpots from thrift stores, and pass them on to friends. We make fantastic Indian dishes, with that great falling-off-the-bone chicken. It's SOOOOOOOOOOO tender. We just serve it with rice or couscous and everybody looooves it!

melmelon, I'm seriously in tears laughing at that story!

We've ("we" meaning "my bf" -- I don't cook, which is just as well) made chili and goulash in it, both of which turned out yummy. We have the Betty Crocker Slow Cooker cookbook which has lots of recipes that look good in it -- soups, stews, even desserty things. We've learned that for non-basic stuff you really have to follow the recipe to a T -- don't just add ingredients you think might be good to it or else the Crock Pot will know you went against the recipe and will decide to give you a pile of inedible slop.

MlleEmily, would you please share that Indian Chicken falling off the bone recipe? I love to make curry but it takes a while, I would love love love to make it in my CP!

Oh god, I don;t know that we follow anything so high-falutin' as a recipe! ;) Basically we put in the chicken pieces and pour over whatever ready-made Indian-style sauce is on special at the supermarket that week, turn the CP onto low, and then about 6-8 hours later we have beautifully tender chicken curry.

Basically, the sauce you should look out for is the stuff you usually add to the frying pan after you've browned your chicken, and would usually just let simmer till the sauce became thick. Because we put it in the CP and there is little or no evaporation, the sauce stays sloppoer, but we like this because there's more of it, it's more like the way you get it at an Indian restaurant, and if you serve it up with rice or couscous the sauce runs into it better if it's... runnier.

We sometimes add a bit of onion that we have fried in a frypan at the beginning, and also sometimes slice up a courgette (zucchini?) or some bell peppers, and they get nice and soft too.

Good luck!

crock pots rock! I got a fabulous recipe book for Christmas this year called Gourmet Slow Cooker
( http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=4X0W70J8CC&isbn=1580084893&itm=4 )
It has lots of great recipes that, although more labor-intensive than your average throw some meat in the pot and add cream-of-something soup, are really worth the effort. Including one for amazing Indian Curry chicken!

I would LOVE a crock pot, one year for xmas I am sure I will get one. My favorite way to cook a roast is to cook it in a frying pan until it's browned, then add beef soup broth mixed with about a cup and a half of water and simmer the meat in the frying pan with the liquid for an hour. It is so tender and juicy!

!crock pots! I really miss being at home because I can't cook here at the dorms. My mom makes the most kick ass vegan stuff in that. A few weeks ago she made chili...mmmm. Oh yeah, and its really good for dried legumes. I always make weird concoctions in there. One time I made this stew type stuff that was like the stuff in pot pies, and served it over biscuits. Soup is really easy in there too, just make sure you add the right amount of liquids to dried grains, thats the most important part. They are awesome. And for all purpose things, the $10 ones are just as good as the $100 ones, you just don't get all the instructions and weird settings.

I made chicken and dumplings this weekend! :)

Thanks, glitter!

I heart my crockpot.

It got a lot better when I bought an appliance timer. Instead of only cooking 10 hour + recipes during the work week, I can cook anything and just set the timer to start at an appropriate time. The only thing I can't do is cook on high and then switch to low.

As for recipes, I get lots of ideas from --
>http://www.crockpot.com/support/recipes.html

and the ever-wonderful http://www.recipesource.com
(just search for "slow cooker" or "crockpot" for a bevy of recipes.

Thanks for the advice all!
The funk is starting to fade from the house, so I may be able to repress the memory and break it out again.

I've been thinking about getting a timer like that. Thanks for letting me know it works, now I'll have to get one for sure.

The first recipe I ever tried was here http://www.thatsmyhome.com/slowcooker/garlic-chicken.htm - it is tried and true. I used a tablespoon or 2 of chopped garlic from the jar.

Just a note, whenever I've cooked anything with broccoli in my crockpot the broccoli becomes a piles of mush.

Also, you can make a rotesserie style chicken. Salt and pepper the chicken and place it so the the skin is against the crock. If cooking a whole bird put it breast side down. You do not add any liquid to this.

I think the thing to remember with the CP is that it pretty much renders any and all food that's put in there together the same texture, ie pretty mushy. It is suited to certain kinds of dishes, like cuts of cheap meat that can be rendered amazingly succulent and tender after cooking on low for 6-8 hours; and for beans and legumes, which get infused with the flavours of the 'sauce' you cook them with.

Serve your crock-pot-cooked dishes with a fresh salad or some other non-crockpotted dish so that the mush factor is not overwhelming.