I am with Barb.  I just cannot get anything to turn out tasting
anything rather than stewed.  I even have cookbooks that are geared
toward slow cookers, and supposedly the techniques that will improve
the dishes cooked in them.  But even using those, I still don't find
the dishes that good.  Maybe my tastes are just different.

The only ones that have really looked interesting to me lately have
been the dishes that Ming Tsai is doing on his PBS cooking show.  He
is using an All-Clad slow cooker in that show, and he seems to be able
to do a bit more with it.  And the dishes do look good.  

I guess one thing that makes the dishes taste all pretty much the same
to me is the lack of liquid reduction that happens in a slow cooker.
If I cook a dish in the oven, I get that slow reduction that
intensifies flavors...

Anyway, I think I am giving away my larger slow cooker to my former
housesitter, if she wants it.  I will keep the little one, as I do fix
steel cut oats in that one, and I did a batch of caramelized onions in
it a few weeks ago.  Those two things work well.

Christine
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http://nightstirrings.blogspot.com