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A Closer Look at Best Crockpot Recipes
A crockpot, sometimes called a slow cooker, is a cooking appliance that cooks food over very low temperatures for hours. This allows the home chef to create one-pot meals with ease. A crockpot consists of a metal container housing an electrical heating element. A ceramic cooking pot sits inside the metal container and this is where you put the ingredients. Most crockpots feature a clear glass lid so you can watch your crockpot recipes cook.
Why Use a Crockpot
It is common for families to resort to pre-made, store bought foods to save time in today's modern, fast-paced world. Unfortunately, this can lead to unhealthy eating habits and a variety of medical conditions caused by poor nutrition. People often feel they do not have time to make a nutritious homemade meal and rely on junk food or high fat, high calorie pre-made meals instead.
This could not be further from the truth! There is an abundance of fresh food in the supermarkets and with modern kitchen appliances like the crockpot, you can make homemade nutritious crockpot meals with ease. You will soon discover the best crockpot recipes for your family and we have plenty of easy crockpot recipes right here for you to try.
Making delicious crockpot soups, crockpot appetizer recipes and even simple 4 ingredient crockpot recipes means you can give your family the nutritionally balanced, delicious meals they deserve, without spending your evening over a hot stove. A crockpot allows you to start a meal cooking in the morning and have it ready when you get home in the evening.
The Benefits of Crockpot Cooking
Crockpot cooking is fun as well as versatile. You can make delicious and healthy crockpot recipes like crockpot white chicken chili, crockpot goulash, crockpot lemon chicken and more. Crockpot side dish recipes include crockpot mashed potatoes and crockpot red beans and rice. You can even make crockpot dessert recipes too. As you can see, your imagination is the only thing that limits you in crockpot cooking and you can make wonderful meals from the fresh ingredients at your local market.
As well as being able to make stews, soups, one-pot meals and more in a crockpot, this handy appliance means that you can tenderize tough cuts of meat. You will be able to create gourmet meals with this remarkable piece of culinary equipment.
You will also be saving money. Tough cuts of meat are inexpensive but you can transform them into tender morsels, combined with other tasty ingredients, when making a crockpot recipe. Fresh produce is cheaper than pre-made meals and so much better for you too.
When you get home from work, spending quality time with your family is important and making crockpot meals means you can relax with your loved ones, secure in the knowledge that you are feeding them healthy and nutritious food. The crockpot can be used all year round to make wonderful meals for everyone.
Types of Crockpot Meals
In the summer, a slow cooker makes a great companion to the grill and you can make magnificent side dish recipes to accompany your favorite grilled meat and fish recipes. When the fall brings cooler weather, you can create warming soups and stews in this great kitchen appliance.
BestCrockpotRecipes.net offers dozens of crockpot recipes for making life easier. You will be able to put together incredibly tasty meals with minimal effort. Enjoy our complete selection of crockpot recipes for appetizers, side dishes, desserts and more. We offer an extensive and growing selection of handpicked recipes for the crockpot, which have been developed by our food expert team, especially for you and your family. You will be able to enjoy a great meal and the extra time saved by using a crockpot, making it a truly valuable asset in the kitchen.
If you find our site helpful and useful, why not share the experience with your friends? You can use the AddThis button found on every page to email our recipes to your friends and family or to social bookmark us. We always appreciate you doing this because it helps to spread the word about our site and it keeps us focused on the food.
Thanks for stopping by and we hope you enjoy the recipes and articles,
Christine and everyone here at Best Crocpot Recipes
Featured Crockpot Recipe:
Crockpot White Chicken Chili
This crockpot white chicken chili is a beautiful recipe to make on a cool fall evening or a cold winter night. The chicken is brilliant with the onion, garlic, wine, and bean flavors and this is certainly a satisfying and warming dish worthy of being added to your list of the best crockpot recipes. This can also be counted as one of the most easy crockpot recipes because, after browning the chicken, onion, and garlic, you just mix everything together in the slow cooker and let it blend and cook.
If you are going out for the day, it only takes a few minutes to sauté the chicken, garlic, and onion, and then you can leave the mixture, with the other ingredients, to cook happily in the slow cooker until you return home. That is when the amazing aroma of crockpot white chicken chili hits you, the moment you get home, and of course you can serve it right away and enjoy the amazing flavors of this easy crockpot recipe.
The mustard powder and cumin give this dish just enough spice to make it flavorful without being too hot. You will also enjoy the garlic and onion flavors and the typical cilantro and cheese garnish, if you enjoy making Mexican crockpot recipes like this delicious crockpot white chicken chili dish. This is a really flavorsome recipe, which you will want to make again and again and it goes well with warm bread and butter instead of the tortilla chips, if you fancy a soft layer underneath, rather than a crunchy one.
White Chicken Chili Cooked in the Crockpot
Ingredients -
¾ lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon mustard powder
2 cans great northern beans, drained
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, minced
1 cup dry white wine
½ teaspoon salt
4 cups baked tortilla chips
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Handful of cilantro
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium high heat and add the chicken.
Sauté until it is no longer pink then set it aside.
Add the garlic and onion to the skillet and cook until soft.
Put the chicken in the crockpot with the garlic and onions.
Add the wine, beans, cumin, mustard powder, salt and pepper.
Cook for 5 to 6 hours over a low heat and serve over tortilla chips.
Garnish with the cheese and cilantro.
(Serves 4)
Photo Description:
As you can see from this picture of our crockpot white chicken chili recipe, this dish is appetizing with its melted cheese and cilantro garnish. It is one of the best crockpot recipes for sure. The chicken, onion, and garlic form the main flavor basis of this easy crockpot recipe and the cumin, mustard and other ingredients add more tastes to it. Whenever you fancy making something hot and soothing, this crockpot white chicken chili is a real winner and the whole family will enjoy the flavors. This might even become one of your favorite crockpot recipes, since it is so simple to prepare yet tastes amazing.
An Introduction to Crockpot Cooking
Crockpots have been one of the most important cooking tools for over thirty years and they are a godsend for busy families. Crockpot cooking is a brilliant way to provide tasty home cooked meals for families on the go and there are hundreds of flavorful crockpot recipes to choose from.
A crockpot, also known as a slow cooker, is made from fired clay and is normally glazed and surrounded with a metal housing. It has a controlled heating element to maintain the correct temperatures to allow the food to cook over longer times.
Most crockpots have two heat settings and a glass lid to retain the moisture and heat. The lid is essential to stop the hot water vapor from escaping. It is important not to lift the lid while the food is cooking. If you do, the food will take an extra twenty to thirty minutes to cook!
How Does a Crockpot Work?
Slow cookers are very different than pressure cookers. A pressure cooker allows much higher temperatures than boiling water. A slow cooker uses the opposite technique and keeps the temperatures low. The lid of a crockpot sits loosely, which means the temperature inside the appliance will never be above the boiling point of water. Any vapor resulting from the crockpot cooking will condense on the lid and fall back into the food, keeping it moist.
Because of the way crockpot cookery works, you can cook food for longer than expected without harming it. Actually meats because incredibly tender when they are cooked in this way.
Slow cooker recipes must be adjusted to compensate for the way a crockpot cooks the food. The water is usually decreased for crockpot meals because it will not turn to steam and escape like if you were boiling something in an uncovered saucepan. When you are experienced at making crockpot meals, you will be able to adjust recipes that were not originally created for the crockpot.
The Truth About Crockpot and Slow Cooking and Health
The direct heat from the pot, steam, and long cooking time decrease the risk of bacteria so crockpot cooking is a healthy cooking method. Also, if you are simply adding ingredients rather than precooking anything, you are going to use very little, if any, oil or butter. If you are deep-frying or sautéing you will need to use fat to stop the meat, fish or vegetables from sticking to the pan but this is unnecessary in a crockpot because of the liquid ingredients.
Which are the Best Foods for Crockpot Cooking?
The best foods to cook in your slow cooker are those, which cook well at low temperatures for a long time. Leaner, cheaper cuts of meat do especially well in a crockpot. They become tender and do not shrink much. Food with a high moisture content like stew, soup, spaghetti sauce, and chili are all great for crockpot cooking. You should cut food into small pieces to make sure everything cooks all the way through and defrost meat before adding it to the crockpot.
How to Clean a Crockpot
The best way to clean your slow cooker is to wait for it to cool, then fill it with hot soapy water and leave it for twenty minutes. Never run cold water into a hot crockpot because it might crack. Scrub the crockpot with a plastic sponge, nylon net pad, or cloth. Do not use a metal pad or anything harsh or abrasive. Rinse it well in hot water and let it dry.
Inside Best Crockpot Recipes
Crockpot Appetizer Recipes
Crockpot Appetizer Recipes Made Easy - Appetizer recipes are something that set the tone for the whole meal and serving your guests truly great appetizers whets their appetites for more. Our crockpot appetizer recipes will inspire your crockpot cooking abilities and gently guide you through making the tastiest and most enjoyable appetizers.
Crockpot Soup Recipes
Wonderful Crockpot Soup Recipes - When soup is left to cook slowly and gently for hours over a very low heat, you find that the ingredients used will release their natural flavors and combine in a natural and brilliant way. Crockpot soup recipes are so simple to make that even a complete cooking novice would find them a breeze.
Crockpot Meals
The Many Kinds of Crockpot Meals - Crockpot meals range from crockpot soups and crockpot appetizer recipes to crockpot dessert recipes. You can make healthy meals with a crockpot and many people love the ease and convenience of cooking with a slow cooker. There are crockpot meals for everyone, including international fare and classic favorites.
Easy Crockpot Recipes
Quick and Easy Crockpot Recipes - You might be wondering how crockpot recipes can be quick since crockpot cooking is, by definition, slow cooking. However, with many easy crockpot recipes, it takes mere minutes to add the ingredients to the crockpot and then you just leave it to cook for several hours, making crockpot meals quick and easy.
Healthy Crockpot Recipes
Healthy Crockpot Recipes That Taste Great - Because food becomes so juicy, tender and flavorful in the best crockpot recipes, you will find that even the most simple meat or fish crockpot recipes come out tasty and succulent. This makes many crockpot recipes so flavorful that your family will not realize they are eating healthy food!
Crockpot Dessert Recipes
The Best Crockpot Dessert Recipes - Crockpot meals do not always have to be savory and you can make plenty of wonderful sweet treats in this wonderfully versatile culinary appliance too. Perhaps you never thought of making chocolate cake or bread pudding in your slow cooker but it is simple to do and these desserts come out really well.
Crockpot Articles
Fun and Useful Crockpot Articles - The humble crockpot has a very interesting history and there are many recipes you can make in it. Our collection of crockpot articles covers everything from crockpot tips to crockpot cooking around the world. We will even show you how to cook turkey, pork ribs and more in a crockpot.
Ten Great Reasons to Use a Crockpot
1. Crockpot cooking is easy, even if you are an inexperienced cook. There are 4 ingredient crockpot recipes and 5 ingredient crockpot recipes, which just involve adding the ingredients, turning the machine on and waiting for several hours. Some of the very best crockpot recipes are the simplest ones.
2. Slow cooker recipes are so versatile. You can make much more than crockpot soups and stews in there. You can make crockpot appetizer recipes, crockpot dessert recipes and many other kinds of easy crockpot recipes. You can also match your slow cooker to your family because they come in sizes ranging from one and a half quarts to seven quarts. If you are not sure which size to get, go for a bigger one because crockpot meals reheat well and you can make roasts in the bigger ones more easily. A three and a half quart one is ideal if there are only two of you.
3. You can start your crockpot meals as late as four hours in advance or as early as ten hours in advance. Most crockpot recipes can be cooked on high for four to five hours or on low for eight to ten hours but if you have to leave the food in the crockpot for an extra hour because dinner is unexpectedly delayed it will not be ruined.
4. Slow cookers make cleaning up easy. Most slow cookers have a removable ceramic dish, which is easy to clean. Cleaning one ceramic dish is far better than having several pots and pans to wash up.
5. A crockpot recipe will cook itself. This means you can add the ingredients, combine them, turn the appliance on and go off to do something else. You do not have to watch a crockpot, stand over it or even stir the recipe. Just leave it alone and it will cook your meal perfectly by itself.
6. Sometimes you will not feel like using a regular oven because the weather is hot and you know that using an oven or cooking on the stove makes the house even hotter. Crockpots do not heat the house up like ovens do or like stove cooking does.
7. Crockpots use less electricity than the oven, which means you can save money on electricity. A crockpot actually uses about the same amount of electricity as a light bulb. You can save money on your food bill as well, since cheap cuts of meat come out beautifully in the slow cooker.
8. Potluck suppers are simplified if you have a crockpot. You can warm sauces or dips in the crockpot or cook cocktail meatballs and take them to the party still in the cooker or in the removable liner.
9. You can keep food warm until dinnertime in your slow cooker. Some models have a keep warm setting and will automatically switch to it when the food has finished cooking. This is great if you have a big family and some might be home later than the others.
10. Crockpot recipes are often more flavorful and tender than recipes cooked by other methods. A crockpot cooks a meal in its own juices, maximizing flavor. This also allows for healthy crockpot recipes, since you do not have to add any fats or oils to many crockpot recipes. You can make a roast in the crockpot and it will be tender enough to fall apart when you try to cut it. If you want to make roasts, getting an oval shaped crockpot is a good idea.
Try These Delicious Easy Crockpot Recipes
Here is just a sampling of our delicious crockpot recipes you'll find plenty more inside the site.
Chicken Wings Appetizer Recipe
Vegetable Beef Soup Mexican Style
Slow Cooker Easy Creamed Corn Recipe
Caribbean Crockpot Red Beans and Rice
Crockpot Recipe for Apple Brown Betty
Webmaster's Notes:
Welcome to Best Crockpot Recipes. We have recently gone through and recoded our old site, Easy Crockpot Recipes. This is a site we took offline for a while, until we could come out with something better, which was totally CSS based and designed. Although this has taken longer than we had initially anticipated, we think the new name and design, and more importantly the tons of new content, have been well worth the wait.
If you are not familiar with some of our sister sites in the Recipe Publishing Network, we offer you a warm welcome for your first visit. We are sure you will love our gusto for food and recipes. We are a small family-run business that prides ourselves on delivering the best specialty recipe sites on the web. We put a huge amount of time, effort, and financial resources into our business every month for one reason. Well, two actually - we love food and we love sharing top food content with others.
As a working mom, I know how hard it is to balance family with work and also to provide good wholesome meals for my family of six every day. This is why we are very excited about BestCrockpotRecipes.net. You see, crockpots are a great way of providing mouthwateringly delicious, home-cooked meals without being a slave to the kitchen.
They are wonderful timesaving appliances that will make your life easier. If you didn't know how many different kinds of meals you could make in a crockpot, prepare to be amazed. Not only will these little machines save you time and money but also they offer hundreds of possibilities for nutritious and delicious dinners, which the whole family will enjoy immensely.
We hope you like the site upgrade, the new recipes, and crockpot cooking articles. Over the next several weeks, we have loads of new content to add to the site, so check back often to see what is new. Our goal here is not only to make this the best site we can but also to make it the preeminent crockpot site on the web. Thanks for visiting and, if you have a moment, please bookmark us in your favorite social bookmarking site. We appreciate the vote of confidence and it helps us to focus our resources on what you really want - great content.
Christine and everyone here at Best Crocpot Recipes
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The History of Slow Cooking
There are many different cooking methods these days but it seems that slow cooking will always be our favorite. Prehistoric man used to cook food slowly over an indirect heat because this allowed juices to seep between ingredients, creating wonderful flavors and tender meat and vegetables.
Crockpot cooking today is not so different from historical cooking methods although the process has been fine tuned. With great quality slow cookers on the market today it is not difficult to see what all the fuss is about. Crockpot meals are tasty, flavorful, and healthy and you can simple leave the ingredients to combine and cook to perfection without even having to stir the meal. This means your dinner can cook itself while you are out all day.
Early Slow Cookers
The precursor to the modern crockpot was developed in the early 1960s and it was called the Bean Pot. As the name might suggest, this apparatus was designed to cook beans. The 1970s saw the launch of the Beanery, which was a self-contained unit. Soon after, the first slow cooker was launched and this was a bright red appliance with a basic crock interior and a glass lid.
How Crockpots Evolved
In 1974 crockpots were made with removable stoneware liners, making it easier to store leftover meals in the refrigerator and simpler to clean the slow cooker. Oval crockpots were created in 1997 for making roasts and 2001 saw the launch of the first programmable crockpot. Modern crockpots come with hundreds of pre-programmed recipes.
Slow cooked food is flavorful, succulent, and easy to make, meaning that crockpots remain one of the most popular kitchen appliances today.
More Crockpot History >>> Crock Pot and Slow Cooker History
Crockpot Cooking Temperatures
Most crockpots have two heat settings, low and high, but some of the newer ones have three - low, medium, and high. With a lot of crockpot recipes, you can choose whether you want to cook the meal on the low or high setting. Obviously using the low setting means you will have to cook the meal for longer. This could work out better if you are going to be at work all day and will not be home for eight hours.
What is the Degree of Crockpot Low Temperature?
The low temperature on a crockpot is 200 degrees F, which is enough to cook nearly any food. A lot of crockpot meals are suitable for cooking on the low setting. Remember that one hour of high heat cooking is equal to two hours of low heat cooking in a slow cooker so a recipe might say something like "cook on low for eight hours or high for four hours."
You might like to cook your food on high for an hour and then turn the heat down to low for the rest of the cooking time. Heating the food up quickly minimizes any chance of bacterial contamination caused by your food heating up too slowly.
Safe Temperatures for Crockpot Meals
Chicken breast must be 170 degrees F, chicken thigh must be 180 degrees F, and ground meat needs to be 160 degrees F in order to be safe to eat. Roasts should be 145 degrees F for medium rare, 160 degrees F for medium or 170 degrees F for well done. Soups, stuffing and casseroles should be 165 degrees F. You can check with a thermometer at the end of the cooking time.
Around the World with Crockpot Cooking
Some of the best crockpot recipes are those, which rely on international flavors. There is much more to slow cooking that plain chicken soup or beef and vegetable stew (even though those are great too!) You can make easy crockpot recipes, whether you fancy Chinese, Italian, Greek, or even Indian food.
International crockpot recipes are ideal for dinners with an international theme or church group gatherings. Perhaps your town has a regular Diversity Expo at which your international crockpot recipes would be enjoyed.
Alternatively, you can make a family night of it at your home with different international crockpot appetizer recipes or international crockpot soups every week. If you let your kids sample different international foods regularly, they are less likely to be fussy when confronted with unfamiliar food. You can even make a game of it and learn a few facts about a different country every week with the kids and make an easy crockpot recipe featuring food from that country.
Types of International Crockpot Meals
If you fancy an oriental dinner, what about making crockpot Korean style short ribs with rice? This is a sweet and spicy dish, which is ideal for anyone who loves ribs. Crockpot Swiss steak is a creamy dish using round steak, which is another winner.
Slow cooker recipes vary a lot but they share some common elements. For one, crockpot recipes always contain some kind of liquid to prevent the food from drying out. Some international crockpot recipes use water but others rely on wine or broth. As the liquid heats and evaporates, the lid of the crockpot forces the contents to return to a liquid state, ensuring the food remains flavorful and moist. Crockpot recipes are usually meant to be one-pot meals meaning you can cook everything in the crockpot without having to use any other appliances.
Healthy Crockpot Recipes from Overseas
If you like to eat healthily, you might be reassured to know that you can still enjoy your favorite international meals. You might think that a Chinese takeout is high in fat and sugar and that is often the case but making Asian food in the crockpot means you can enjoy healthy crockpot recipes with an Eastern taste.
When you cook recipes in a slow cooker the flavors become more intense, meaning you will not need to use as many flavorings as when you boil, sauté or grill foods. There are healthy versions of most international meals so if you are a lover of Chinese food or a curry fiend, do not worry, you can make your favorite dishes in the slow cooker.
When you cook food slowly, over a long period of time, it becomes soft and tender. This means you can use cheaper cuts of meat in your crockpot recipes which would turn out tough or chewy if you grilled them or sautéed them. Using lower grade cuts of beef to make crockpot meals ensures you will end up with the most tender pieces of meat because the long, slow cooking process breaks down the tough fibers.
Slow cookers mean that you will not overcook your food if you leave it on for a few minutes too long. Cooking in one pot means you can keep preparation and cooking time to a minimum, as well as the cleanup. There are many reasons why crockpot cooking is so popular and most crockpot recipes are easy enough for cooking beginners, including international slow cooker recipes.
A Few Handy Crockpot Cooking Tips
If you have never used a crockpot before, you are going to be amazed at how easy they are to use and the range of tasty crockpot meals you can make in them. When you shop for a crockpot, there are different types you can get. Crockpots are not expensive and you will soon offset any cost with the savings you make on cheap cuts of meat and other crockpot-friendly ingredients.
Remember that crockpot cooking times listed in crockpot recipes are guidelines rather than fixed times. The actual crockpot cooking time will vary depending on the crockpot brand, the size, the amount of food you are cooking. You can check your food to see if it's done but remember that if you lift the lid and it is not done, you will need to add another twenty minutes to the cooking time to make up for lost steam and heat.
Crockpot Safety
Common sense tips for using a slow cooker include making sure it does not touch any walls or other appliances because the outside gets hot and checking it for cracks and breaks before adding any ingredients. If the interior shows any cracks, even a tiny one, do not use the appliance.
Browning the Meat for Crockpot Recipes
Browning meat is not essential with crockpot meals but if you do brown, the meat you will find this helps to reduce the fat content in large cuts of meat such as roasts. Browning the meat also caramelizes the sugars in the meat, making it more flavorful and nicer looking.
If you want to concentrate the flavors in the crockpot recipe or thicken up juices, you can remove the lid from the slow cooker and cook on high for the last half an hour of cooking time.
Crockpot Tips and Tricks for Perfect Crockpot Meals
- If you are using poultry in crockpot cooking, remove the skin. If you are using meat, remove excess fat. Fatty food cooks too quickly and fat melts when you are cooking food for a long time, adding an unpleasant texture to the finished dish.
- Ground meat should be cooked in a skillet before being cooked in a crockpot for the best flavor.
- If you are using a crockpot recipe with seafood, add it in the last hour of cooking time, else it will go rubbery.
- Tabasco sauce and cayenne pepper take on a bitter flavor if you cook them for a long time so don't use too much and add them near the end of the cooking time.
- You can brown large pieces of meat for color and flavor before cooking them in the slow cooker but this is not necessary.
- Unless the recipe says otherwise, dairy products should be added in the last thirty minutes of the cooking time.
- Tender vegetables like mushrooms, zucchini, and tomatoes should be added during the last forty-five minutes of cooking time if you want them to hold their shape.
- Spices should be added in the last hour of cooking so they do not lose their flavor.
- Remember that liquids will not boil in a slow cooker so if you are tailoring a non-crockpot recipe for crockpot cooking, use a third or a half of the liquid unless you are making soup or cooking rice.
How to Make a Roast Dinner in the Crockpot
If the thought of roast beef, roast chicken or roast pork makes you drool, what about making a roast dinner in your slow cooker for the family? Surely, this would take all the hassle out of making it the conventional way, in the oven. Actually, it is possible to make a fantastic roast in the crockpot but there are a few things to bear in mind before you begin.
If it is your first time making a roast in the slow cooker, find a good recipe and follow it carefully, especially paying attention to any layering instructions. Dense ingredients like carrots and potatoes usually have to go at the bottom, because they take longer to cook. The other ingredients will go on top.
What is Best Roast for Crockpot?
A lot of people ask, "what is best roast for crockpot" and the answer is that you have a choice. Slow cooking tends to make any meat succulent and tender and you can get really good results from various types of meat. A pot roast will always come out well in a crockpot and the best way to make this is to add the meat to your crockpot, along with some seasonings. This might be an envelope of onion soup mix and a can of condensed mushroom soup, for example, or some other seasonings. You will need to add some water too.
It takes three or four hours to cook your pot roast on the crockpot's high setting or about eight hours if you want to cook it on the low setting. The meat will be juicy and delicious and the soup, onion soup mix, and water blends to make a tasty gravy. The very best meat to choose is tri-tip roast. You don't need to brown it before adding it to the slow cooker but it is a good idea to trim off all the visible fat, else there will be too much gravy at the end of the cooking time. Fat tends not to do well in crockpot recipes and most will advise you to trim off the excess.
An oval-shaped crockpot is better for making roast recipes, especially if you want to cook a whole chicken or a large piece of beef. Round crockpots might be more common but they can be limiting if you are cooking a roast.
