To fuck or to cook?

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by notcasesensitive

The pork we made was overcooked and I first checked it about an hour before the minimum cooking time. The meatloaf was 180 degrees all the way through by the time I checked it about 90 minutes before the minimum cooking time, but still tasted great and was super tender. Both recipes were for 5-6 qt pots. I don't mind experimenting, but I'm really not a fan of overcooked meat. Answers. I just want answers. If the answer is that I need to continually test the meat basically at all times after starting the slow cooker, well that seems to do away with all the convenience factor of using one.

First question -- are you cooking things on high or low? If you're cooking on high, then switch to low.

I don't understand the concept of pork being overcooked -- the point of making meat like pork in the crockpot is for it to basically break down to melt in your mouth tenderness.

I know there are recipes for meatloaf in the crockpot but it doesn't take that long to cook it in the oven so I'm not planning to use my crockpot for that.

Here are some cooking tips from Rival -- look at the list of cooking times for various weights and types of meat. http://www.crock-pot.com/Hints.aspx?id=ct&fgid=44

Better yet, their recipe section has the ability to specify the quart size of your crock pot: http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipes.aspx