afoodnut

Yes we have a car.. and we are staying at the Breakers on Mississippi AvenueI don't know why I can't make this quoting function work properly, but I'll post this anyway Denver isn't the greatest city for high end dining, in any case. Here are some suggestions for non-fancy, unpretentious restaurants, with good food (and great vegetarian choices) that are not far from where you're staying. Masalaa, that I mentioned earlier, is about a five minute drive from where you are. Cafe Paprika (Middle Eastern) 13160 E. Mississippi New Orient (Vietnamese) 10203 E. Iliff Pita Jungle 2017 S. University Thai Spice 1842 S. Parker Phoenicia Grille 727 Colorado Star of India 3102 S. Parker Another great Sushi/Japanese choice near downtown Denver is Opal 100 E.9th.

I love this idea. My family and friends are used to my experiments and fooling around with food, but I never thought of diagnosing my sanity/insanity this way. Thanks.

I've tinkered, browned/not browned, tried everything I can think of. I'm an intuitive cook, not a recipe follower, and not being able to get the crockpot-cooked food to taste great drives me crazy. I appreciate your suggestions and ideas.

Thanks for responding, Jaymes. I can even use a similar example. I often make pork with green chile, and it just doesn't seem to turn out the same in the crockpot. I've tried using more chile, less liquid, other changes, but overall, from the crockpot the result is kind of "blah." It gets to the point that my daughter will groan, "not the crockpot again." That's why I asked if anyone else had the experience, because I can't make any sense out of it.

I use a crockpot frequently. As others have pointed out, it's convenient, makes the house smell great, lets us have a hot meal ready when we get home after a long day. There is one problem I've noticed, though, and I don't know why it is. Foods cooked in the slow cooker never seem to develop the strong, deep flavors of oven or stove top braised foods. Food from the crockpot seems to end up bland and uninteresting, no matter the seasoning and flavoring. After a while we find that everything starts tasting the same, and that's with using wildly different ingredients. Adding additional seasoning at the end to try to "fix it" doesn't help, either. Has anybody else found this? Any explanations?