Ant that's pretty much why I don't use a crock pot for anything.
Glad your chicken was edible...Next time try a Dutch oven ito your electric oven.

I use my crock pot a lot during winter but until I had a handle on how long things took I would check every so often. I find things are less likely to scorch on the bottom than in a conventional Dutch oven.

OK, that's funny. That said, I don't really like chicken cooked in the crockpot, it always seems overcooked. Same with chili, the burger gets a weird texture, don't like it. Mac and cheese turns to mush.

However, I do use the crockpot on a regular basis. It's great for starting a pot of beans and leaving it cook all day with no scorching or sticking. Italian style beef for sandwiches? It's wonderful and completely hands off. I put in some sauerkraut, top it with cabbage rolls, dump on the sauce and walk away and they come out perfectly. I have a boston brown bread recipe that gets cooked in the crockpot in canning jars with some water in the bottom, basically a bain marie, works like a charm. It's great for reducing apple butter for canning, or cooking spaghetti sauce all day. Pork chops? Not so much, although I've never had a pork chop cooked in any manner that actually was very far above barely edible, I just don't really like them. Keeping things like cheese sauce or hot chocolate or mulled cider warm? Works perfectly, especially if you have a larger amount and no stove space.

Crockpots shouldn't be overfilled or underfilled or your results won't be optimal. Like most cooking methods, it's not good for everything.

Annie (who has overnight oatmeal in the crockpot right now, because Elery has jury duty at 8:30 am)

I love my crockpot. I currently have meatballs in a hot sauce. (Frank's hot sauce, apricot jam, honey, brown sugar and soy sauce).

Jasdip, mxyplux did pretty much everything wrong, which is what made me laugh. There wasn't even a real lid, she used a dinner plate. She overfilled the crockpot, didn't say anything about seasoning, used a recipe meant for a stewing chicken but used a frying/broiling type chicken instead.

Yes, aren't we surprised it didn't come out as expected? LOL Hey, but to each their own. LindaC isn't afraid to leave her oven on while she leaves the house for several hours, but I'm not comfortable with that. My ovens are electric and Elery isn't comfortable with the use of that much electricity when I can do it in the crockpot for pennies anyway.

Truthfully, though, a lot of times I use the 6 quart Nesco roaster instead of the crockpot. It works like an oven, which it is, and uses the energy of a crockpot. I've even baked brownies and dinner rolls in the Nesco. Everyone likes what they like. As I've said numerous times, taste is not objective, it's subjective.

Annie

Oh crap, I missed some of those vital points, Annie!!! Using a crockpot twice the size as recommended? No wonder everything over-cooked! LOL

I remember reading a blog, and some nit-wit posted a comment that when she saw all that water dripping from the lid onto the food she panicked, and left the lid ajar. It turned out perfect. smh.

Annie, pretty sure Myxyplux is a "he" on a steep learning curve caring with love for a wife with dementia.

Right. Mr Mxyplux if you please. :-)

Am I a crock pot rookie? sure am no doubt about it. Good judgment comes from
experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

For the record I looked for but found no specific instructions for the 6 qt pot. Only
some meager hints on the 4.5 qt pot vs the 3.5 qt pots. Not even on
the Rival website. Only some vague generalities for the 6-8 qt pots –
nothing to hang your (or at least my) hat on. The auto-shift feature
was not mentioned aytall. There were some hints about that on Google
but no real specifics – just assumptions.

I have never really liked anything from a crock pot even when my Poor Sweet Wife wasstill able to cook; she was an excellent cook and loved cooking. A
friend cajoled me into trying it – an attempt to lighten my load
bless her heart. So I tackled it. Blah. Lotta work. Screw it.

She ( our friend)said it was oh so simple; just throw in some meat and veggies and a
can of cream-of something soup, turn it on and violah! dinner at
6:00. So I consulted the recipes in the little crock pot book (3.5
qt mind you) and discovered most leaned heavily toward beef which I
no longer eat hardly at all, bacon which surely tastes good but I
haven’t ate in maybe 50 years, creamed soups which I detest and
will not eat, mushrooms of which I’ve ate the last half of one 2
years ago, recommended preparing various entrees for cooking which I
just simply will not spend the time to mess with, (one example was
stuffed beef heart – the brief sentence was “ trim fat and remove
tubes” - whoever wrote that never messed with beef hearts),
suggested exotic herbs and spices which do not now and probly never
did grace our cupboards and in general suggested much preparation.
Well when? Spending much time prepping food in the morning just is
not in my equation. So I settled on the chicken (stewing chicken not
available) as a rather simple first try. Judgment experience etc etc.:-)

So that’s mystory. I hope you all enjoyed my adventure.

Welcome to the forum, where tutoring is happily offered! You're a wonderful guy juggling many responsibilities. I'm with you on creamed soups and mushy textures. I eat beef, but prefer chicken, fish, lamb and pork tenderloin. If you could get yourself to eat pork tenderloin, it's extremely versatile and easy to prepare. Baked, grilled or sliced and sauteed, it's one of my go to quick meals. If I can offer another suggestion, it's look into getting an electric pressure cooker, called an Instant Pot. They've been on sale for as low as $70. Not all the meals will be to your liking, but there's cookbooks out there and a blog called "This Old Gal" who have many different recipes to try. The booklet that comes with the machine isn't very helpful.

Sorry, Mr. Mxyplux, for the gender reversal! I'm also sad to hear about your wife. My husband's mother died from Alzheimer's, my stepmother had a form of dementia that was not Alzheimer's, but similar, and a dear elderly friend, a retired pastor, is currently adjusting to life with his wife in a nursing home with Alzheimer's. It's a terrible, cruel, agonizing disease. On our latest visit the friend was trying to convince his wife that the staff had not poisoned her hot chocolate and wasn't trying to kill her, she was terrified and wanted him to take her home, he ended up in tears. (sigh)

The crockpot was used more when my girls were still home and I was working, as I could leave something cooking in the morning and have it ready when we got home on those days when we had some band/sports/choir/church/whatever function right after work. I still like beans in the crockpot better than any other way, but I don't like everything cooked in it.

Another thing I found helpful was to never make a single batch of anything. Lasagna, soup, stew, stuffed pork chops, meatloaf, whatever, half was consumed and half was eaten later, so I could just pull something out on those days when I just didn't feel like it or didn't have time. Stick it in the oven and you're good. Put it in a disposable pan and you don't even have to scrub after. It never seemed to take extra time to cook twice as much and it sure saved time later.

And, like you, I don't eat cream-of-anything soup. (shudder) My youngest daughter used to sit on the couch and eat it cold, out of the can. Maybe that's why she had a stroke at age 27...

Good luck with your cooking adventures and hugs to your wife.

Annie

Mr Mxyplux, I'm so glad to read your disdain for using cream soups in slow cooker recipes. So many recipes start with add a can of, and package of onion soup mix. Horrible!!!!

I make both beef and pork roasts in my slow cooker. The pork roast doesn't need to be browned, but it makes a lot. I use the leftovers as shredded pork on a bun. If you like, I can give you the recipe.

I use mine for stews, curries, goulash (the real kind, not the kind with ground beef and noodles), pulled pork, baked beans, soup, stock for soup, anything that needs long, slow cooking. My stews are made from scratch and do not include canned cream soups.

Mxyplux, I have nothing to add to the advice others here have given you about crock pot cooking. I have a kind of love/hate relationship with mine, but not going into that now.

I just wanted to say that I've read some of your posts on other threads, and I have a great deal of admiration and respect for you! I also love your style of writing. I lost my husband to Alzheimer's almost 5 years ago. I was his caregiver 24-7 with the exception of the last month of his life. I know and understand the work, the heartbreak, the love, the hope and the disappointment that caring for someone with dementia brings. You have a wonderful sense of humor, that is a blessing, indeed! ! And thank you for sharing that humor here on Gardenweb! God bless you and your wife.

Rusty

Like colleenoz, I find my crockpot invaluable for soups, stews, chili, pot roast, pulled pork and a few casserole type dishes. And to be honest, a couple of those casserole dishes do include both chicken and canned soup :-) But my family, when I cooked for one, loved them so I continue to make them on occasion. And I have never found that the chicken turns out dry or mushy but I think that depends on the chicken part (I typically use bone-in thighs), the amount of liquid used and the length of cooking time.

I think folks that do not like slow cookers/crockpots have just never mastered the use of one.

Sorry that my posts seem poorly typed and the lines/spacings are discombooberated somehow. I usually type them on Libreoffice Vanilla text file on a Mac then paste them in here. Well they look ok on preview but the final post disrupts them. Several edits don't fix em maybe makes em worse. This seems to be a recent developement. No comprendi.

mxyplux, have you tried TextEdit on the Mac? It seems to be standard on the Macs I’ve had/have, I use it for copying recipes into, etc. I used it to type this post to see how it would work. Lea

Edited to say it seems to work fine..:)

Hmmm. I have the same problem sometimes, but your posts look fine to me. Line spacing is a bit off, maybe, but not horrible.

Yours was good enough that I figured out that it was funny! (grin) So, you got your point across even without perfect spacing.

Annie

The underlying code is HTML, not a text editor. That's probably why the weird formatting. Then there's the overlay of the rudimentary text editor in the message box--they were still tweaking it when we first merged into Houzz--which adds its own layer of confusion. Lea's suggestion should help. You can add whatever decoration (bolds, etc.) once you paste over.

Thank-you for staying around and chatting this time. It helps if you let us get to know you a bit.

Ok here’s a mssg typed in Mac Textedit. I started with Mac last fall and found most applications totally complicated compared to the cut down versions of MSFT word pad and MS works SS etc. All I need are the cut down stuff. I absolutely do not need an SS or word processor with every possible variation of every function known to man. Especially in icon form. How about some words? I didn’t major in Icon at school.

I tried all the Mac text apps and with all else just gave up - too much info - not enough patience. In my case NONE. Gave up on Numbers too - blah. Enter Libre Office Vanilla. Not enamored of that either but can use it although is does aid my digestion.

Even with this Textedit I had to mess around to figure out how to change the default font. As you might imagine switching from Windows there was a lot to figure and figure I did but found it expedient to let a lot slide. Text Edit, Notes Numbers Sticky Notes AntNotes Phooy. I got Libreoffice going and stuck with it. AAAAHHHHH ! No hassle.

Not only that Mac seems the think they can organize and/or run my stuff better than me. Got news for them. Take pics for example. I take em, send em, delete em. What to my surprise and horror I found a million billion pics lined up for 30 days to await final deletion just in case I changed my mind. Well. I am a big boy now. If I delete a pic I want it gone as in gone. If I delete a pic by mistake I somehow have the feeling I just might survive with out barfing my guts out.

So this ought to be a good test of the Houzz preview problem. 10-4? 10-4. We be gone gone.

Edit: Seems to have worked.

Yes. It seems to have worked, indeed! Sorry you had such a hassle. Yours has been the underlying complaint about Mac since it first came on the scene: Instead of having four different ways and customizations so it'll do what you want the way you want, it does what it wants and expects you to adapt.

This is 10+ years old but still makes me laugh:

Compumom:

Re: electric pressure cooker

Well we have a Presto Pressure Cooker (6 qt - what else?) and an electric cook top. Close. I put a new seal on it 15-20 years ago which is still good even after 3 uses. 2 beef stews and one beef tongue; a mouth watering treat in my youth. After a 50 year hiatus on beef tongue I found it to be a fat filled tasteless glob (blah) and gave it to my dog. His reaction was the equivalent of falling into an outhouse and coming out with a new suit.