<nitpick>
I’ve never needed 3 full cans of beer. A few ounces at most, as the shoulder will seep plenty of liquid during cooking. Save the BBQ sauce to add after it comes out of the cooker. By keeping the BBQ sauce out, you also get a whole lot of concentrated pork stock, which is great to use as a soup base for the leftover pulled pork.
</nitpick>
Other than that, I will also sing high praises to pulled pork from a crockpot.
How do I pick a good crock-pot, and what size? I’d cook for myself though I might want to cook several meals at a time to reheat later. Sometimes I would cook for several people.
Size? Mine is a 1 quart–calls itself a “Crock-ette”–a treasure from Grandma’s Attic.
It’s a little small. 1 lb stew meat, a can of cream of mushroom soup and a package of Lipton’s onion soup mix and a bit of water fit in the crock-ette with not a whole lot of room to spare–which doesn’t make it easy to stir. Served with mashed potatos and a green veggie, makes food for 3 or 4 meals. Might make fewer meals if you are the sort who eats a lot of meat.
If I were to buy the perfect crock-pot, I’d probably get one that was 2 quarts. And I’d look for one like my mother’s–which has a liner you can take out and put in the refrigerator, or allow to soak in the sink, without worrying about the cord.
Eureka hit several of the key components: decent size and a removable liner. 2 quart is a good compromise. Big enough to do a roast, small enough to fit in the cabinet. It should have 3 settings: High, Low and Off. Anything else is a waste.
Reynolds has liner bags these days, like their oven bags but for crock-pots. No more needing to soak! Just be careful you don’t put a hole in the bag while stirring. 
:eek: 
You just made my day! That’s better than flying cars, s’far as I’m concerned! The future is NOW!
I absolutely love my Rival Programmable crock pot (I think I have the 5 quart one?), primarily for exactly the opposite reason as silenus states; I can choose the amount of cook time (at either a high or low setting), and when it ends, it automatically switches over to a “keep warm” mode. Without that feature, all of my crock pot meals would have to cook for 10+ hours, since I’m gone from home that long or longer on a work day, which would completely ruin most of them.
Either that, or I’d be relegated to using it only on the weekends when I can watch over it, which would make it much less useful to me. I use mine much more in the summer than the winter, because we don’t have air conditioning in our house, so cooking a full meal in the crock pot on week nights saves us from having to heat the house any further by using the stove or oven.
I agree with most of that, but I like a Keep Warm setting. Once in a while your dish will be done an hour before dinnertime, or right at the time of your cat’s vet appointment.
If you, like me, like to save money by buying whole chickens on sale, then reduce a bird to several meals of meat, broth and stock, you need a cooker big enough for a chicken.
My big Hamilton Beach came with an insulated nest and a lid-bungee for taking it to a pot luck, but I have never used either of those.
ETA, this post was written to answer post 24, not the ones after that.
if you plan on making extra go for a 4 quart, unless you want to make ALOT extra.
I make a large batch and freeze the left overs in single serving sizes in zip locks, so whatever me and my roomate dont scarf down on day one gets frozen and eaten over time. with my 6 quart I filled it last time and wound up with 6-8 bags for freezing and a couple extra that sat in the fridge to get eaten the next day or 2.
as long as you make a variety of stew/soups this method is great, I am rarely tempted to grab a burger or fast food crap on the way home if I know I have some homemade goodness just waiting to get zapped.
2 cans cranberry sauce
1 big can tomatoe juice
kielbasa
Boil the kielbasa in water to remove some of the fat. Discard the water. Slice the kielbasa into 1/2 inch thick pieces. Throw everything into the crock pot for 6 hours. Serve as an hors d’œuvre, or serve over mashed potatoes!
It is one of those dishes where nobody can guess the ingredients.
I have three crockpots - isn’t that ridiculous? I have the 5 quart programmable, like Shayna’s, that included a little tiny crockpot. My mother bought me, as a housewarming, a little 2 quart, but it’s too small for most of the big soups I like to do (we usually will eat one batch for three days).
My Vegetable Beef Soup:
1 1/2 - 2 lbs cubed stew beef
1 can diced tomatoes
1 onion, sliced
3-4 carrots, sliced into disks
3-4 potatoes, cubed
1 stalk celery, chopped
handful each of frozen peas, green beans, corn (and whatever else you want…lima beans are good)
8 teaspoons beef bouillion granules
8 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
diced garlic, if you want
Throw it all in the pot and stir it up.
Cook on low 10 hours
This takes about 5 minutes to throw together and you can mess with the ingredients to suit whatever you have. If you don’t want to make as much, just put less stuff in and do 1 tsp of bouillion for every cup of water you’re going to add. I usually serve it with fresh bread or rolls.
Deviled Chicken (This comes from a low-carb recipe book; you don’t have to be on a low-carb diet to love it. But if you’re on a low-fat diet, avoid this like the plague):
5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
6TBSP each butter and brown mustard
16 packets Splenda
1/2tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4tsp. nutmeg
Combine all ingredients in slow cooker; cook on low for 4-6 hours. I serve this over brown rice to soak up all the buttery, seasony goodness of the sauce.
Continuing my hijack but with good reason, on which slow-cooker to buy, I came across a review on Amazon by someone whose Rival crockpot caught on fire. Someone replied, mentioning a recall. I found this:
Apparently they made some faulty ones between 1999 and 2004. Now I’m apprehensive about buying one.
Only certain models. Ours is a more advanced model (4 different timer settings and a “warm” setting) and is just fine.
riker1384 – thanks for the info and link!!
This recipe works well with either squirrel or rabbit:
Coat carcass with Lawry’s and other such things (S&P, paprika, cayenne pepper, etc.) of choice. Add soup.* Add appropriate vegetables (carrots work especially well). Cook on low from noon until dinner time.
*Soup. There’s a word that’ll set off the fireworks. Some people will add a can of Campbell’s cream o’ chicken and a can of milk; others will add a broth made from the glacee they made from the ducks they shot last fall. Doesn’t matter; just make sure you cook the stuff in something wet and tasty.
But this is a family thing and may not appeal:
In one pan, you brown a couple of pounds of breakfast snausages, and drain them. Brown 'em. Brown 'em good.
Get your paws on the American Midwest version of “farmer cheese”, closely related to mozzarela. Grate it.
Over there you’re going to peel, core, and slice some sour-ish apples, then you’re going to cook them in the second pan with butter and brown sugar. Do NOT make apple butter - that would be bad. Just get everything warm and syrupy and coated and melty.
If you’re smart you’ll do this the night before the hangover. Come moring, the first person out of bed will take the crock out of the fridge and put it in the pot and turn it on high, stirring occasionally to prevent the cheese from congealing into that blob it likes forming.
The wolves will devour and all will be happy.
…and cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, whatever floats your boat.
Ha! There’s proof that you need to subscribe so you can edit.
Subscribe. Subscribe. Come to the dark side. We have edit functions. You are getting very sleeeeepy. . .what?
Try cooking your pot roast in a can of beer (not actually IN the can of beer…you need to pour it into the crock pot) along with other spices to taste. Tender meat and delicious gravy abounds!