Reply #192: Check out recipes from America's Test Kitchen or the Cooks' Illustrated website (same outfit)

[kath]

They test their recipes *to death*, tinkering with many variables, in order to make them the best they can be. They have quite a few crock pot recipes in "The Best Make-Ahead Recipe" that are very good. They agree that many crock-pot recipes are awful, so they have tinkered with the methods and ingredients in order to improve them. In some (or most) of the recipes they eliminated the pain-in-the-ass pre-browning of the meat step. Instead, they saute up the aromatics first (onions, garlic, etc.) before putting them in the crockpot. The meat goes in raw. A bit of Soy sauce (or sometimes stock or other flavorings) is added to give the rich flavor that the browning is supposed to give. Sounds weird, but it works.

Many of their recipes, but not all, are available on the website. For full access, you can get a free two-week trial membership.

I LOVE their cookbooks. I had "The Best Make-Ahead Recipe" taken out of the library so many times that I finally broke down and bought my own copy off Ebay. Also have "The Best Recipe" and "The Best 30-Minute Recipe".