Now We're Talkin'!!

Finally, a slow cooker you can actually walk away from! We love slow cookers, but we've outgrown the round ones; they just aren't big enough for the things we like to cook. We've owned a number of oval slow cookers, and every one of them had one (or more) serious design flaws.

The kitchenAid solves all those problems and even brings additional value to the table.

Let me preface this review by saying my wife is a professional trained chef, and I consider myself a pretty good cook as well. We cook, we eat and we're very particular about all of the above. Close doesn't count, its got to be right.

This slow cooker was intended to replace a competing oval slow cooker which we were very disappointed with (separate review). Initially the KitchenAid had not been our first choice. The reason for this was we had found generally negative reviews of this product.

We had done quite a bit of research for the most recent purchase. We really only had one criteria; it had to work! Seems simple enough, but you'd be surprised the variation in reliability with slow cookers out there. We have a number of KitchenAid appliances. We finally decided to give the KitchenAid a try.

Well, what a surprise. This unit not only functions, it's fantastic. You can actually leave this unit alone for several hours and not come back to a smoldering pot of charred food.

This unit has several really nice features some of the others don't. First, the unit is programmable so you can set it at one temperature for a predetermined period of time after which it will switch to a 'keep warm' setting. Another slick feature is the 'Auto' setting. This setting is also programmable, but cooks at not two, but three, temps (High for 2hrs, low for up to 8hrs and then keep warm for up to 4hrs). The other feature that really adds value to this unit is the 'Simmer' setting. We've found most slow cookers, well, don't cook "slow". They get too hot. The simmer feature is a great way to cook something all day, but not have dried out food.

One of our goals was to get a slow cooker we could truly set in the morning before work, and 8-10 hours later return home to a ready, and tasty, meal. This is the one. Prior to the KitchenAid the only slow cookers we found could do this were the round ones, and those you had to put on a timer to keep from overdoing the food. For some reason they heat evenly and many of the ovals do not. The KitchenAid is oval, and it does heat evenly, no hot spots. So, after an extended cooking time you don't wind up with one scorched area (usually in a corner).

We had read some critical reviews of the KitchenAid indicating problems with the croc cracking, improper lid fit and odors from the seal. We haven't experienced any of these problems. The lid fits perfect, the croc is fine after repeated use and the seal on the lid smells just fine. We did however clean the seal with a little clorox and water mixture as recommended on KitchenAid's website.

All in all this is an excellent unit! We'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a true 'slow' cooker.

UPDATE: (September '08) ------------------

Now almost 7 months later and literally hundreds of uses later, the unit still functions flawlessly. All of the featured functions still work. We've not had a cracked crock or any type of failure. We have noticed that the lid does want to go on in a certain direction, and if you turn it around there are some small gaps between the lid seal and the croc. However, there is no adverse functionality that we can see as a result. Plus, if it really bothers you, just turn it around.

I like it when others post follow ups after they've used a product for a while to see how things hold up. I thought I'd share the same.

Overall, this is a really great unit and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a slow cooker.