I understand that, but it defeats the purpose of minimal prep time and effort. (At least that's MY purpose in using the crock pot.)

With baked beans, that you parboil them at the beginning of a six-hour cooking process hardly matters, time- or effortwise. Presoak beans, no effort; parboil them, hardly any.

Stew, though, is highly reliable. Things-in-a-sauce recipes also.

Crock-pot Chicken and Dumplin's

2 to 4 cans cream of chicken soup (depends on the size of your crockpot)
chicken breasts - enough to feed your family
Bisquick

Turn the crockpot on low. Add the soup and whisk it around a bit.
Add the same number of cans of hot water and mix it up well. Remember to leave room in the crockpot for the dumplings.
Add ground pepper to taste. Add the chicken. Cover and leave.

When you return home, mix up dumplings according to the recipe on the side of the Bisquick box. Drop globs of this into the crockpot. They will expand quite a bit. When they firm up a bit, they're done - about 5 minutes.

This is a good quick dinner on a cold day.

Having recently purchased a new slow cooker, I have one major piece of advice ... buy the bigger one.

Why do you say that wolf?

Experience.

What you want to make does not fit in the little one, but you try anyway, and then it boils over onto your counter, and you have to spend an hour trying to scour the burnt mess off the inside of the heating element part.

Ohhhh, ok.

I have a huge one and everything I make looks woeful in the bottom, and doesnt taste as good as when I make a huge big batch and it comes half way up the sides.

ALWAYS make a huge-big-batch. Freeze the leftovers in package-sizes that make sense to your household. Home-made TV dinners are SO much nicer ...

The only crock pot recipe I can ever remember off the top of my head:

Crock Pot Chicken Curry

1-2 lbs. chicken, chopped
1 16-oz. jar of mild salsa
1/2 to 1 TBS curry powder, as preferred
1 8-oz. container sour cream

Mix together chicken, salsa, and curry in crock pot. Cook on High 4-5 hours or Low 8-10 hours. Just before serving, mix a small amount of hot liquid from the crock pot into the sour cream, then add sour cream mixture to the crock pot and stir well. (The first step greatly helps the sour cream combine smoothly.) I personally cut back on the curry and add some garam masala or other Indian spices, but above is how I originally learned it.

Here are the 591 search results for slow cooker on Chow Hound

http://www.chow.com/search?search%5B...ooker&x=47&y=8

I have your recipe in the slow cooker today Clod :D

Thanks Harry!

Damn, that's big!! It just came from the library. I'll have to pick something out to try while Mrs. Dallas is away.

Yeah, I got that one ...For Two at the library first, bought it on amazon later. Most books I've bought have origianlly been from the library first.

So how was it?

I used to just put a whole chicken, carrots, very small creamer potatoes, fresh ground pepper, little kosher salt, white wine, a couple of kinds of mushrooms (dried shitakies do really well in this), fresh rosemary, fresh basil and dried oregano in with enough unsalted chicken broth (water works fine) to reach 1/2-way up the chicken (it makes more as the fat cooks off the chicken.
When you are done, drain the liquid into a large sauce pan and reduce, make gravy out of that an put that on some rice, and the chicken if you like.
The chicken will fall off the bone.
You can also do this with a roast, beef ribs, or rack of ribs... hell, just about anything really.
You don't have to make the gravy if you don't want and can change or leave out the spices as you like.
Use very little salt, add more when you are done to taste.
I don't use celery for long cooking, does not agree with me for some reason, you can if you like.

You can add egg noodles or rice near the end and turn it up if you like.

This was a staple of mine in college.

I have a crock pot big enough for a turkey. It is amazing.