Oh you lucky dog you. I finally found my daughter an 18 qt one, but want a 6 qt for her too.

I love mine and use it for many things. One of my favorite uses is a roast chicken, the last one I marinated in soy and a bit of olive oil with fresh lemon, fresh thyme, fresh oregano and some salt and pepper. It was delicious.

It also makes a great crock pot, once you get the temperature down pat and I simmer stock in it, make apple butter, bake beans.

Have fun, I love mine!

Annie

First, a suggestion: If you think it's possible that it's new or very new, give the cookwell a thorough washing, which I'm sure you have, but give it a coat of oil to season it, then set it outside or in a well-ventilated area and put it on highest temperature for a while and see if there's a smell. If it's new, it might need to be burned off. They can give an obnoxious smell until it's burned in. It's possible the owner thought it was defective or something when all it needed was a burning in.

From there, well, lots of recipes, what do you like? It's a portable oven, an electric Dutch oven, a slow cooker and more all rolled into one, so anything you'd make in one of them you can do in the Nesco. Pot roast, meatloaf, ribs, chili, soup... are all favorites of mine. Or a turkey breast goes great too.

BTW, the Nesco site has a lot of recipes available too.

I'm so glad you brought that to my attention cynic. I had glanced over the manual & overlooked this. You're right, possibly they thought it was defective. I would too if you hadn't brought it to my attention. Actually, right after I posted here I put a bit of water in it to make sure it heated up. I can return it in 48 hours if it doesn't work. I did notice an odd smell from it & didn't leave it on long.
I would roast a chicken in it, & may pick one up when I go out today. I need to try it out soon.
Thanks for the suggestions. I love my crock pot, but my big complaint has been with the newer ones sometimes burning. I had picked one up from a consignment store but that burned out, so I'm using the one I was given as a gift. It is ok, but I really preferred the older ones & hoping this works well for that. So wonderful to have a multipurpose item too.

I have the 18 quart Nesco. I finally bought a cookie sheet that fits it perfectly. I find that it does a better job with my chocolate-chocolate biscotti than an oven does. The moisture perhaps?

I have a crock pot but I'm thinking a 6 quart Nesco might be on my want list. :)

Eileen

Be aware that, at least for me, when I used my 6 qt. for a slow cooker, the liquid evaporated and it went dry! My lid doesn't fit real tight, so watch yours the first time you use it as a slow cooker. I keep mine in the motor home. It's nice when I need both an oven and a microwave, as I have the oven/micro combination.

Tami

Well, I oiled it & put it on high for close to an hour. It smoked a bit. I really don't think it has ever been used. This one has an aluminum lid, and it discolored a bit after that. I really wish it had a glass lid. My big crock pot has a glass lid that fits, wonder if I can use that instead. I got a chicken that is marinating to test it out.
I sure hope this one works as a slow cooker, although my slow cooker has been known to go dry too. I can easily see this one cooking dry with such a light weight lid, doesn't seem like it would hold moisture in well. We'll see how it does, most of the things I like in a crock pot I do in the winter, soups & stews. I may try stroganoff this weekend though.

Just thought I would say, I roasted my chicken & it did fine. I was disappointed though that the skin was not crispy. About the time I pulled it out of the roaster, I realized that I had not brushed it with the melted butter that was still in the microwave.

The skin will not get crispy, that is the drawback. I cooked a couple of chickens in my 18 quart. They were just okay. I missed the flavor added by the browning of the skin even if I don't eat the skin. I do keep the skin for making stock from the carcass. There is a lot to be said for the Maillard reaction.

Eileen

I have a little rotisserie cooker that makes the best darn roast chicker EVER! So simple and good!

Well, I will miss that crispy skin when I use it, although sometimes I roast a chicken just for chicken salad, etc. Either the site or the booklet suggested that the butter would crisp it up & I was hoping that would be it.
I have a little rotisserie attachment with my toaster oven I keep meaning to use. I keep thinking of the mess it would make in there though :)

Basting it with butter will make it tasty but I don't think it will cause the skin to brown. :)

I have the same little rotisserie attachment for my toaster oven and I think the same thing! Must be messy! I have never used it.

Had completed a brilliant post and was just going to hit preview and CLUNK! The computer overheated and shut down. Couldn't handle so much wisdom in one page presumably. OK, chill baby, I'll use another one. Ever more pearls of wisdom were being typed and part way through that up pops the BSOD. Now I'm beginning to suspect a conspiracy... OK, give it one more try. Now I know I won't remember all those great things. (heavy sigh)

We're talking about a cooking appliance here and it'll do different things depending on what you instruct it to do. It'll only follow orders. We're not at the stage of the Jetsons and Star Trek with their Food-o-Matics! :)

The skin CAN get crispy, but it's not going to happen by default. My point was, well, one of them, was that the basic concept in cooking something brown and crisp, short of deep frying, is to apply dry heat to it. Moist heat won't do it, rather, it'll have the opposite effect. Remember one of the basic tips for a crisp skin on the T-day bird is to pat that chickadee dry before placing it in the oven. A watched pot may still boil, but a wet bird won't brown and crisp. At least not for a long, long, long time. The laws of thermodynamics always trump Maillard in a cooking process. You don't make peanut brittle by pouring the ingredients into boiling water. Dry heat vs moist heat.

So what do you do? Well, either adapt and/or accept, or change cooking methods to work with the tool provided. There's a couple ways you can accomplish this. First you can go the easy route and get the Roast-Air lid. Very handy and I highly recommend it. It's a high domed lid with a fan unit on it to convert the unit to a convection oven. I don't know for sure but rumor has it that it's not available from Nesco anymore for the 6 qt unit so you'll need to seek other sources. I bought the kit from QVC and it had the high domed lid (with a nice big handle rather than a wimpy knob), the fan unit and also a "2-way" rack. I use the rack often and also use the lid without the fan at times. I don't remember whether the extra cookwell was separate (probably was) but it's been handy. I like the non-stick one. If I want to crisp something up a bit, I'll cook it most of the way and then put the fan on for a while. That baby will dry it out quickly and crank the heat with it will brown it up without significant damage to the moistness of the bird.

Another much less desireable option is to put it in a convection oven or even the regular oven for a while to crisp it.

You can also just keep removing the juices and occasionally pat the bird dry. I would occasionally cock the lid a bit to let a little more steam escape when I had one of those fuel-injected birds they pawn off these days. Keep in mind if you have too much moisture in there, it's not dry roasting, it's going to steam and/or braise the item. That's not the fault of the appliance, it's simply not using it right.

The lid has vent holes it it purposely to vent out some of the excess moisture but they can't know the amount of fluid in everything. Some will have more, some will have less so that's where the cook's talents have to come into play. There's been a time or two I wanted NO moisture to leave the cookwell so I just put a layer of heavy duty foil over the top of the cookwell and then the lid on top of it. I always thought an adjustable vent would have been better but they argue that it's the right amount for most things. Oh well, can always plug a hole or two. And no, it's not an air tight seal but it's surprisingly tight when you look at the design. Pull that top off and a LOT of steam comes out! I imagine something can boil dry if you leave the heat too high and for too long. I've never had a problem with it that I can recall. Actually, I have more concerns about excess moisture than drying out with the cooking I do.

I should have mentioned you could have just covered it with foil, or for that matter even left it open while it burned off. The purpose is to burn off the coating on the electronics and to season the cookwell which would happen without a lid on it. Sorry about that, didn't even cross my mind. Was concentrating on mentioning the burn-in. My lid has discolored over the years, but I attributed it more to improper washing than a heat effect!

LOved my Nesco roaster and cooked many roasts & chicken in it when we used to be out haying. I once cooked a wild turkey (made hubby cut it up like chicken so easy to clean) and everyone thought it was pork! Still have it but don't use it much now...but can't part with it yet! lol! Mine has the glass lid too.

Thanks so much for taking all the time to type that up, cynic! I've made a copy of it all to add to my notes. I don't cook a lot any more, especially in the summer, but thought this might be ideal to keep the kitchen from getting so very hot. I was really excited at all that can be made in it & plan on trying it out more very soon. DH liked the chicken, although he also missed the crispy skin :) We ate some of it just roasted, & I made a couple of casseroles from leftovers.

I'm sorry cynic. I'm having a rough morning.

You said "First, a suggestion: If you think it's possible that it's new or very new, give the cookwell a thorough washing, which I'm sure you have, but give it a coat of oil to season it, then set it outside or in a well-ventilated area and put it on highest temperature for a while and see if there's a smell. If it's new, it might need to be burned off. They can give an obnoxious smell until it's burned in. It's possible the owner thought it was defective or something when all it needed was a burning in. "

I'm reading my instructions for my Nesco and it says:
"Unpack your NESCO Roaster oven completely and REMOVE ALL PACKAGING MATERIAL AND INFORMATION LABELS. Place the
Roaster Oven in a WELL VENTILATED AREA ON A HEAT
RESISTANT SURFACE. Set the control dial to its minimum setting. Plug the cord into a 120 volt AC outlet. Return control to maximum setting (425ºF). Operate the Roaster Oven empty (without the Cookwell or Cover) for approximately 60 minutes, or until any odor or smoking disappear. Some smoke and odor are a normal part of “curing” the element and will not reoccur in cooking use. When curing is completed, turn the temperature control to its lowest setting, unplug the unit from the electrical outlet and allow to cool."

My Cookwell is porcelain, but I don't see anything about seasoning the Cookwell. Can you tell me where you read about that or provide more information? I really appreciate it.

Cathy in SWPA

I think all of the CF members should get compensated for their evaluation of the Nesco roaster. The Nesco roaster has been praised to the high heavens on this forum, therefore, Nesco should reward the CF members for the free advertising. DYA THINK?

With all of this talk about the roaster, I just looked at the booklet that came with mine so long ago! It says that browning may be enhanced by placing a sheet of aluminum foil (shiny side down) loosely over the top of the cooker. Allow foil to extend to the front and back of cooker. Cover with lid. Do not allow foil to obstruct venting. I used to brown the chicken sometimes too before roasting it. There is a recipe for Golden Baked Chicken that has directions for browning the chicken.