Beef stew with Brussels sprouts on the side. Before Christmas I picked up a 2 qt. Crock-Pot on sale at a hardware store. I was prejudiced against stockpots from a bad dinner experience many years earlier. An extremely attractive and intelligent lady invited me to dinner following work. As a modern-day woman she was employing all the time saving technology available. In this case it was a slow cooker. She prepared the ingredients and put it in the slow cooker before leaving for work and assured me that dinner would be ready when we arrived. However, dinner wasn't ready, unless you like your potatoes crunchy. The meal was a disaster. She was intelligent, so I figured that it was just some inherent design problem with slow cookers. That experienced prejudiced me for many years. So, it was with some trepidation that I finally picked up one myself, but I figured at $10 it won't be too costly a mistake.

I was pleasantly shocked. The beef stew was delicious, and most of all easy to make with simple ingredients. The only change from the recipe in the manual was that I added a pound of baby carrots and more onions. The chicken cacciatore recipe was also simple, elegant, and delicious, although I would add a little tomato sauce or paste to the canned plum tomatoes and white wine. When I saw a 4 qt. Crock-Pot on sale, I grabbed it. I'm now on the look out for a 6 qt. one on sale.