Bob had brought home a frozen Banquet Crock Pot Classics dinner a while back, and I finally pulled it out of the freezer for dinner yesterday. He got the "Beef Stew" variety. In the end, it was flavorful, and the meat was actually very tender... probably more tender than the pre-packaged "stew meat" that you can buy in the meat section. The Banquet meat was cut in nice small bite-sized pieces and was very tender. The veggies were good sized chunks, and there was a good meat to veggie ratio. The seasoning was a little salty, but we like salt, so for us it was pretty good. And simple? Can't get any simpler. Basically there is one prep step (to thaw the gravy packet under running water), stir in some water and hit the cook button. Put the 'taters in toward the end and then serve it up. I will probably do that again because it can sit in the freezer until a day when I feel like making dinner a no brainer.
My issues are with my Crock Pot. Bob bought me a gorgeous stainless-looking crock pot for Christmas a couple of years back, but it is the oppposite of a "slow cooker." We call it the "turbo" crock pot because when I put it on 10 hours, it really means 2. The 4 hour setting may as well be 15 minutes. On "warm" the liquid is boiling. So, I had to futz around with the timing and the settings, and in the end my veggies were pretty mushy. I could never put something like a Crock Pot Classics dinner in this thing and leave it all day while I am at work, because I'd get home and find nothing but liquid... even when set on the longest cooking time.
My best guess is that there was and is something defective about the "controller" in mine. I will get another one, but possibly not the stainless kind (if you touch the outside of it while it's on, you could get third degree burns it gets so hot). I have both of the inserts, including the cool divided one, and the carrying case, so I'm not willing to give up on it completely. I am curious if anyone has had a similar issue with their Crock Pot.
The beef stew I will probably do again, but next time I'm using my old 1980s slow cooker so I don't have to baby sit.
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FYI: I wrote an email to the Rival Crock Pot people, and a nice person wrote me back. Their thought was that I was not putting enough stuff IN the crock pot... in other words, I need to load the sucker up. I was probably putting only the quantity of food that is right for a 3-4 quarter, instead of the mac daddy 6 quarter I have. I guess I have a basic misunderstanding of how these things work. But I am willing to try it his way. So, I won't hurl it out the back door just yet. I will, however, need to invite about 30 people over for dinner...
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