If you have a Nesco with the Roast-Air attachment you can brown the top all you want. And FWIW I grew up with turkeys made in an electric roaster, cook my turkey breast in a 6 qt Nesco and that's the best way AFAIC. Easy and forgiving. Electric roasters are a portable oven. Versatile and handy. They're an oven but also do everything a slow cooker will do. Here's a recipe from Nesco. Shredded Potatoes 4 Lb. Frozen hash brown potatoes 2-1/2 Cups Milk 1 Pint Sour cream 2 Cups Grated Cheddar or Swiss cheese 2 Cans (10-3/4 Oz. ea.) Cream of Celery soup 4 Green onions, thinly sliced 1/4 Cup Chopped parsley 1 Tbsp. Italian herb seasoning Salt and pepper, to taste Remove Cookwell. Preheat covered Heatwell to 350F. Combine all ingredients in Cookwell; stir until well mixed. Set Cookwell into preheated Heatwell. Cover; bake 1-1/2 hours or until center is set. Gently stir edge into center once halfway through baking time. To hold: Reduce temperature to 200°F. Pour 1 cup milk over top if potatoes begin to dry. Serves 25. Here's [another one](http://www.ellenskitchen.com/forum/messages/9764.html) with larger proportions: This recipe has quite a few variations. Most folks agree that without the sour cream it is pretty dry, or they double up the canned soup. I often use home made thick white sauce, made with 1/2 beef or chicken broth and 1/2 milk, in place of the soup\- or at least I use the low fat, low sodium family size cream of mushroom in plce of regular. It really matters how cold the mix is to start. If you mixed and refrigerated the night before, it takes about 3 1/2 hours to cook. If the soup/sauce etc is room temp, at least 2 hours. Electric Roaster Hash Brown Potato Casserole One roaster (serves 60) \* 5 (2 pound) packages frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed overnight in the refrigerator \* 1\-1/2 cups melted butter \* 5 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom, celery or chicken soup \* 5 (8 ounce) containers sour cream \* 2\-1/2 cups chopped onions, sauteed in butter until tender but not brown OPTIONAL, chopped celery or bell pepper cooked with the onions \* 2 1/2 pounds (10 cups) shredded Cheddar cheese, Colby cheese or blends (see note above) \* 1 tablespoon salt \* 2 teaspoons ground black pepper OPTIONAL, 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce OPTIONAL, crushed garlic or garlic powder to taste OPTIONAL, 5 small cans green chilies \* 5 cups French fried onion bits for topping 1\. Spray the inside of the roaster with a heavy coating of non\-stick spray. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 2\. In a large bowl, combine hash browns, 1/2 cup melted butter. Make sure hash browns are thawed as per recipe instructions. Pour melted butter/margarine over the potatoes and mix. Then add the cheese and mix. Lastly add the rest of the ingredients. 3\. Pour into the roaster, holding back the topping till later. 4\. Bake in the electric roaster covered for at least 1 hour, 40 minutes, up to 3 hours if the mix was cold/refrigerated to start with. Sprinkle on the onions,cover, bake 20 minutes longer. Here are more Variations: Add some chopped or minced green pepper, or some cooked and crumbled bacon. About halfway through baking, place more cheese on top and finish baking until the cheese is nicely browned. \*\*\*White Sauce\*\*\* 1 gallon whole milk, warmed but not boiling (or use 1/2 beef stock) 10 ounces flour, may need a little more 1 pound unsalted butter or margarine 1 tablespoon dry mustard 1 1/2 tablespoon salt White pepper (optional)\* Topping with the French fried onion bits is my preference, as the electric roaster does not give a crisp finish to the top. But you MUST wait till about 20 minutes before serving, or they will get limp. Cracker Barrel uses Colby cheese. My current favorite blend is the Kraft Mexican blend and Italian blend, 1/2 and 1/2. No spices in this, just many creamy, flavorful cheeses. FWIW, I don't like using spray coatings on cookware. I'd prefer to go with oil, butter or something. That spray stuff builds up and is difficult to remove. I often wonder what it's doing to the innards of people that eat that stuff.

I own a Rival Crock pot, a Chef's pot (virtually the same thing only a little larger and is a multipurpose crock pot, deep fryer, etc) and a 4 & 6 qt size Nesco roaster. Hands down winner is the Nesco roaster. They work in a similar fashion. You just have much more control with the roaster. I'm going to talk about Nesco since that's what I have and I know its features. The other roasters do not necessarily have the same features. Cost of a crock pot or roaster are about the same. I just bought two of the 6 qt Nescos at Target for $24.99 each (they were on clearance and I couldn't turn them down for gifts). The crock pots have Off/Low/High for settings. I never found them to really be right. Low wasn't hot enough and High boiled everything so it was a constant switching back and forth. Granted, others do not have this problem. The Chef's pot has a variable temp controller, and a crock. I just hate cleaning the crocks. They're NOT easy cleaning. The Nesco with the enamel pot is fine for a while, but gets harder to clean. But with the non stick which comes in them now, it's easy cleaning. Plus you have temperature control from off to 450° or so. I've baked bread (frozen white bread and banana bread in the Nescos. I can put a 7# turkey breast in the 6 qt version. Beef roast is great. I'll cook up a package of boneless chicken breast and have for other things. I'll use it for baking potatoes. Basically if you can put it in the oven and cook it and can fit it into the Nesco, it works fine. The best lasagna I've ever made was in the Nesco and not cooking the noodles. In summary, yes, you'll do everything with a Nesco that you can do with a crock pot and more. I don't use my crock pots anymore. No need to and it's less hassle to clean and don't fight the heavy crock. Lift out cookwell fits in the frig better too. I'm also hearing people who have similar units say they're not as good as the Nesco brand. No, I don't work for them, just very satisfied with it. The people I know and have either bought them or received them as gifts *all* love them and won't go back to crock pots. Crock pots served their purpose but are now obsolete. I equate it to a can opener and an old can to a pop top lid. The Nesco is more modern way of doing the old way. Yes you can still use a can opener and crock pot, but why when you can use pop top lids and a Nesco? OK, not the greatest analogy, but you get the idea. Ken

I always use a thermometer probe with the alarm and set it for 150ð. Once it hits 150ð I turn the temp way down and start getting ready because residual heat will continue to cook. I call a turkey breast done at 160ð. The unit keeps so much moisture it's a moist heat, rather than a dry heat, which they claim will prevent cheesecake cracking but I don't eat cheesecake so I don't know about that. To brown the skin more you have to keep the skin dry. Dry it well when you put it in there, pull out juices as you're cooking, pat it with a towel or paper towels a you go, and Kitchen Bouquet, soy sauce or the like are tricks to brown it but I don't eat the skin anymore so I don't really care. I do occasionally put the RoastAir fan on and THAT will crisp it up! I used to cook the turkey breast to 180ð per some recommendations and it was fine in my Nesco. Not dried out like in an oven. But there's no need to cook it that much but it doesn't matter if it goes a little over. Use a thermometer and turn it down to 150ð and it'll stay hot and moist. Don't limit your use to just turkey or ham. Soups, stews, meatloaf, pot roast, chicken, ribs, casseroles, sausage, and virtually anything you'd put in a regular oven, since that's what it is! :) Great for baking potatoes, au-gratin, roasting cauliflower, steaming veggies and the like too. I've baked bread in mine and some of the best lasagna I've ever made came out of that Nesco.

Browning is a little different in an electric roaster than a conventional oven. You need to understand the cooking process to understand what happens. In a conventional oven it's more open and moisture evaporates. Cooking in an electric roaster is more like cooking in a covered roasting pan in the oven. As mentioned about the oven heating up the kitchen, that's because ovens leak more air than people realize so it vents more moisture out. You will definitely have trouble browning in a roaster oven, covered roasting pan, slow cooker, dutch oven, etc unless you take different steps. What you're doing is more of a braise than a roast. To really "roast" you'll need more dry air and the bird (or whatever) will need to be a bit more dry. This is why you brown your pot roast, ribs etc before braising. Remember the tip for conventional ovens to get a good browning - pat that bird dry. So, there's essentially 3 or 4 ways to go about it, maybe more. 1) The easiest way (if you have a Nesco, don't know if other brands have the option) is to get the "Roast Air" kit. Essentially it's a lid with a fan on it and converts the unit to a convection oven. I have it for my 6 quart. You'll brown like any oven with that baby blowing that hot air around! I usually don't run it the whole time though. I hook it up toward the end. I also pull the juices out of there, especially if I want them for gravy or something. 2) Second option as mentioned is to use your oven or broiler to crisp/brown it up. 3) Virginia Olson from Nesco used to be on QVC often and she suggested using Kitchen Bouquet to baste it if color was what you were looking for. Again, I suspect she would pull liquids from the roaster because her turkey sure looked fairly crisp too. 4) Another thing I occasionally do is pull the juices, paper towel the bird dry and then cock the lid and crank up the heat on the roaster. That will brown it up too.