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4.5
For the ten years I've been married, I've thought I just didn't have the slow cooker gene. So many people rave about their effortless Crock-Pot dishes, and yet mine always turned out dry, stringy, leathery, and mushy-tasting. I finally accepted it as one of those things I just don't have the talent for, like gift-wrapping and pretty much anything athletic.When I started troubleshooting with friends, I found out a few tips that made me rethink the situation. Our 6-quart (because my then-fiancé insisted it was the necessary size) was actually too big for most of the cooking I did. Then, the slow cookers of today run at much higher temps than the old-school ones we remember our moms using. I finally looked up the Amazon reviews on the specific model we'd received as a wedding gift and discovered that, with several hundred reviews, it had a 2-star rating for the same reasons I'd struggled with. Ah.I finally let go of my loyalty to the wedding gift and decided to try another model. Don't laugh, but this is a GAME-CHANGER. I was concerned that the 3.5 quart slow cooker would be too small, but it's ideal for our family of four. Roasts, whole chickens, soups, all sorts of things are in there, and I find that I have it out on the counter being used more often than I have it in the cabinet! I threw in a whole chicken the first day to make shredded stuff for a soup, and the results were what I always thought it was supposed to be: falling-off-the-bone tender, juicy, perfectly done. I then put the carcass back in with some vegetable scraps I'd been saving, and after setting the slow cooker to 'simmer' for 24 hours, I had a phenomenal organic chicken stock. (If you haven't looked up the health benefits of this stuff, you're in for a pleasant surprise.)There are two features that I won't do without now: the ability to program time in half-hour increments up to 24 hours (yay!) and the four settings: high, low, simmer, and warm. Turns out the 'simmer' setting is almost the same as what 'low' used to be years ago, which is ideal for things like bone broth. Being able to set the temp to 'warm' from the start is also a wonderful feature, and I really enjoy having that flexibility.The insert is remarkably easy to clean, and the exterior just needs a simple wipe-down with a damp cloth. The footprint is reasonably small, so that having it on the counter all day does not eat up the entire space. Much as it pained me to donate a generous wedding gift, I really am wishing I'd bought this particular model years ago!!