I realized late in the day I wasn't going to have time for my original dinner plan. I decided to use some of my frozen spaghetti sauce and make minestrone soup. I used the slow cooker to brown some meat and then added my other ingredients. There is a minestrone soup recipe in the cook book so I looked at the cooking instructions. It had you cook it at a higher temperature for 30 minutes. I knew I wanted mine to cook longer so I turned it to 180. When we got home the potatoes were still a little hard. I turned it up to 250 but then it started to boil too much. I never did find a good simmer temperature but our soup was done and we were ready to eat. It was very tasty. Next time I'll get the soup on in the morning and let it cook at 150 all day and see how it goes.
The other day, I cooked a roast in the slow cooker for nine hours on 150. It was done but not as tender and falling apart like I expected it to be. This slow cooker might be the hardest thing to figure out. I better get to it though, I used my old crock pot at least 2 time a week in the winter.