Shhh, It's for Christmas...
I'm working on getting my Christmas shopping in, and one of the things I want to get is a new crockpot for my Mom. She's long had a big one (I think it is this ), but she doesn't use it very much. She has two complaints:
a) it's way too big for when she's cooking for just her and Dad.
b) it's very limited in how you work with it: you can't set a cooking time other than the four options given, and even if you're home, it won't switch to warm unless it's had at least half of whatever setting was chosen -- very, very annoying.
So, I'd like to get her a new one that is a) smaller, and b) more versatile. I've done some subtle browsing around here, and noticed that I'm very limited in my local options. I've seen a 3 qt Bravetti slow cooker at Canadian Tire for $20, but it's got a manual control -- while she'd be able to switch to warm if she was home, she couldn't leave stuff while she's at the office. Home Outfitters has a much lovelier Cuisinart 3.5 qt programmable slow cooker, but it's almost $100, and I'm balking a bit at that gap (their prices do get higher than other stores, for some reason). What do people think? Any particular brands that do a good small slow cooker? Anything else I should be looking for?
a) it's way too big for when she's cooking for just her and Dad.
b) it's very limited in how you work with it: you can't set a cooking time other than the four options given, and even if you're home, it won't switch to warm unless it's had at least half of whatever setting was chosen -- very, very annoying.
So, I'd like to get her a new one that is a) smaller, and b) more versatile. I've done some subtle browsing around here, and noticed that I'm very limited in my local options. I've seen a 3 qt Bravetti slow cooker at Canadian Tire for $20, but it's got a manual control -- while she'd be able to switch to warm if she was home, she couldn't leave stuff while she's at the office. Home Outfitters has a much lovelier Cuisinart 3.5 qt programmable slow cooker, but it's almost $100, and I'm balking a bit at that gap (their prices do get higher than other stores, for some reason). What do people think? Any particular brands that do a good small slow cooker? Anything else I should be looking for?