Glass lid here, too. Can't imagine a plastic lid would be all that useful or practical, but at least it wouldn't break if you drop it!
I honestly have no idea where the element is in mine either, it gets damned hot up the sides, but then it is stainless on the outside so it could just be the heat being conducted around.
Having one pan that can go on the stove top and then into the SC would be useful (but I often don't brown the meat more as a time/energy thing rather than a generating washing up thing), but I've got corningware casserole dishes that can go on the stove top as well as in the oven so I don't see why it needs to be metal to do it. I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone go plonking their SC insert on the stovetop - they aren't designed like the corningware!
I'm using my slow cooker for the third time for tomorrow night's dinner. My first dinner was made using a recipe base from the supermarket. Cooked it on low for about 10 hours while I was at work and it was gluggy and starting to burn to the bottom of the pot. Also, the recipe said it serves 4 and we hardly had enough for 2 of us and had to quickly make some chips to go with it. The next meal I cooked was corned beef with potato & carrot. I thought it was perfect! Tomorrow will be interesting. I'm using a different recipe base and thought I'd get 2 packets of it and add 2 tins of tomato instead of one. There's lots and lots of veggies - my 6L cooker is almost completely full and I'm probably going to need to add one or 2 cups of water I think.
I've been told that much of slow cooking is trial and error, so if we have something that isn't quite right then we'll try it again with a few adjustments (like adding more liquid - or slightly reducing the amount of liquid if necessary).
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