This is the moment you've all been waiting for, hopefully; my first review. This week I was lucky enough to have a Bella 6 quart slow cooker delivered to me for free from the Bella Ambassador program. All I have to do is try it out, and give my honest thoughtful opinion. This is the first time I have ever heard of the company Bella, so I checked out their website and the products. Everything seems to be aesthetically appealing and good quality products. The slow cooker they sent to me is from their diamond edition line. Here is what the box looked like that the slow cooker came in. (Please don't mind my son getting rough and tough in the background.)
Upon arrival, I was super excited to start using this! I hopped on Facebook and told everyone about getting this awesome slow cooker and posted a freebie add for my old slow cooker to go to a new home. After opening up the crock pot box and getting rid of all the recyclables and trash, this is what the slow cooker looks like.
It has a very pretty design all over the outside, where I'm pretty sure the name of the line "diamond edition" comes in. This crock pot also comes in a lot of other great colors, I was secretly wishing that they would have sent me a green one or a pretty red one to match my microwave. But, it was gratis, and white matches everything in kitchens! The chrome colored knob on the front to change the temperature is a little hard to read. It has black writing on it, but the chrome gives it a glare. Other then that, it looks great, and that doesn't really affect the looks as much as it is just a tad bit irritating. You just kind of have to move from side to side to read it. The weight is a bit heavier than my old slow cooker, but not too aweful. I like that the pot lip goes over the edge so even if your contents decided to boil over, it would not go in between the pot and the outer shell. My old one did that, and it was really hard to clean!
When you first get out the instruction pamphlet that comes with the crock pot, I know most people toss it aside. But, I read it. It says you need to fill the crock pot up with a few cups of water and turn the slow cooker on high for about a half an hour before use (after washing the pot). I got everything cleaned up, dried off and then filled it with the proper quantity of water. Turned it on and let it do it's thing. It got hot very quickly, it had a burning plastic smell to it, which is why you need to do the trial run before using it for food. The smell does not come from where the food is contained, but on the inside of the outer shell with the heating mechanism.
The next day I was ready to use my new crock pot. I decided to make a pot roast. I bought a small sized beef chuck roast, a packet of McCormick brown gravy mix, a bag of carrots, a bag of regular old Russet potatoes and a yellow onion. Added 2 cups of water, put the roast in as is, peeled and snapped the carrots in half, peeled the potatoes and cut them in half as well, then quartered my onion and threw it all into the crock pot. Here is what everything looked like getting ready to cook in the slow cooker for the first time.
I turned the slow cooker on high and let it go. I noticed there was still a mild plastic smell the slow cooker for a few hours, but nothing major; and you had to get right up next to it to smell it at all. My entire house was filled with a wonderful aroma. The crock pot did not leak at all, even though the lid did collect condensation inside. The outside of the pot became warm, but not so hot that it would burn you to touch it. It is a silent appliance, no cracks as it heats up like some other small appliances I own do (IE: George Foreman Grill). I cooked my roast and veggies for about 8 hours as I usually do, and then my husband came home from work. We decided to go grocery shopping before eating, so we changed the setting to "keep warm". We put away the groceries when we came home, and then dished up dinner. The keep warm setting works very well, the food was the right temperature and did not over cook. I was really pleased with this slow cooker. It was nerve wracking to try a new one and hope that my food came out correctly. Here is a photo of the finished food, half of the pot was already dished up when I remembered to take this pic. We were very hungry!
After eating dinner, I scooped out the remaining food and put it into plastic storage containers to put into the refrigerator. I immediately put the cooling crock pot into the kitchen sink and rinsed out what left over chunks I could. There was some baked onto the sides as you can see in the previous photo. I put a little dish soap in the slow cooker and filled it up with hot water. I let it soak overnight. The next day when I scrubbed it out, it came completely clean without any hassle. I just used a plain dish sponge. Very easy to clean. Very easy to store.
All in all, I recommend Bella slow cookers! Here is a link to the exact slow cooker that I reviewed from the brand website. http://bellahousewares.com/countertop-electrics/slow-cookers/manual-slow-cookers/white-diamonds-collection-6qt-slow-cooker-13727
Thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions! Also, keep your eyes open for my next blog on a Braun brand thermometer!
