Okay, I don’t get this. I’ve been cooking in my crock pot for years, but somehow lately, my veggies are not cooking through. Potatoes and carrots are still crunchy. What am I doing wrong?
FTR: I always put the veggies on the bottom, meat on the top, and add at least 1 cup of liquid (broth, various juices, water, etc.). I cook usually on low 8-10 hours, but occasionally on high for 5 hours or so.
Is everything else getting done to your satisfaction? Perhaps your element is failing.
1 cup of liquid doesn’t sond like much at all for a crock pot. Are the veggies covered with that amount? I mean when the cooking is done assuming you’re counting on additional liquid from the veg and meat as it cooks.
One cup of liquid sounds like TOO MUCH for a crock pot, unless she’s making soup or stew. I’ve had several slow cookers over the years, and most of them say to only use about a quarter cup of liquid.
I think it might be a salty brine and excessive steaming. A brothy and more waterey mixture at low should work quite well.
Then I got nothin’ and you and I are using vastly different slow cookers 
You do not need to add any liquid to a slow cooker unless you are making soup. Enough liquid will come out of the food to make a sauce, which you can thin out later if you wish. Liquids will get too hot and overcook your food. If you’re in a hurry, you didn’t need a slow cooker.
But if you’ve been doing it that way all along, that’s not why your potatos aren’t cooking. It’s probably just getting old and the heating element doesn’t work as well any more.
Now if you have changed the type of vegetables, you will see differences. Those fake baby carrots they sell seem to take forever to soften up. And potatoes which are barely ripe will take longer to cook. And of course, bigger pieces cook more slowly also.
I suspect the answer is, in fact, your crockpot/element is just getting old and not heating as well…Try laying a clean dishtowel over the lid of your Crockpot. It seems to keep more of the heat in, and may help a bit.
The heating element going bad seems strange–I mean, my crock pot isn’t new (nearly 10yrs old now), but it’s only had regular use for about 5 years. Heh, I didn’t discover the beauty of having dinner ready when I got home from work until I became a mother. Meat is cooking in it…hmm. Is there a way to more or less test the heating element’s function?
You are testing it. Heating elements reduce in efficiency through usage. With some appliances you can just turn the heat up. With a crockpot you usually only have Low-High-Off settings.
Place water in your cooker (about two-thirds full). Set it to low before you go to work. When you come home, take the temperature of the water with a cooking thermometer. My older slow cooker will reach around 190* F (and it cooks fine at that temp). My newer one gets up to around 210* F.
Something somewhat similar happened to me. I have a suspicion that it is the potatoes, maybe irradiation changes them?
I bought red potatoes, medium to small, cleaned them and put them in the crock, covering with water. They were not peeled and were placed in there whole. I heated on Low for 12 hours and they came out perfectly.
Perhaps a week later I made a soup with a new batch of the same potatoes, but I cut them into about one inch chunks. I had the pot in the fridge during part of the day. I heated for 12 hours in the pot and the potatoes were not done. Now, I realize the thing was in the fridge, but the potatoes were cut in much smaller pieces.
I am not sure if I salted the first batch, but think I did.
Perhaps the first batch were older potatoes, I don’t know how much of a difference that would make.