Crock pots are good for those times when speedy completion of a meal is not a priority. With the slower speed of cooking, crock pots can often bring out more flavors in your food and they allow families and individuals the opportunity to begin preparation early and then have the food ready to eat at a specific time.

These appliances come in all sorts of different sizes and prices. The crock pot I own is a little larger than normal and it has a few more bells and whistles than the typical slow cooker. It’s the Rival Smart Pot, a large crock pot with specific time settings.

Features:

Rival Smart Pot has four timed heat options, grouped into two hourly settings. Under the High setting, you can choose between four and six hours of cooking time. Under the Low setting, you can choose between eight and ten hours of cooking time. The pot automatically switches to warm after the cycle is complete. There is no automatic shutoff.

This crock pot has 275 watts of power and it holds up to six quarts of food. The measurements of the pot are eighteen inches (45 cm) in width, nine inches (23 cm) in length, and fourteen inches (31 cm) in height. The unit has a weight of 13 pounds (6 kilograms).

Handles on the side of the pot help with moving. The cover of the pot is clear, made of glass, and lifts off for easy cleaning. There is no opening on the top cover to let steam escape. You have to lift up the side to release pressure.

Customer Service:

Questions about this crock pot can be directed to the web site, rivalproducts.com. You can also call the customer support line, 800-323-9519, to get quick answers to questions.

Final Thoughts:

Crock pots offer a nice, simple way to cook food without having to think about the task at hand. I’m not expert at food preparation, and I am always looking for ways to make the process simpler. With a crock pot, I can place my food in the pot, leave for school or work, then come back at the end of the day to find my food cooked and ready to eat.

Among crock pots, Rival Smart Pot offers some nice advantages and also some disadvantages that cannot go overlooked. On the plus side, this crock pot is larger than average and it holds a large amount of food. The oval shape is the reason. Unlike round crock pots, oval pots like this one will easily fit an awkward- shaped roast or ham. With round pots, you often cannot fit your food inside the container. You have to cut it apart first in order to fit all pieces into the pot.

The color of this crock pot is another one of its advantages. It is mostly white, and this neutral color helps the pot to easily blend into any kitchen surrounding. It is very non- obtrusive (white with some blue) and it easily matches most any decor.

Specific time settings are nice, too. Other, less expensive crock pots have only three or four settings- high, medium, low, and (sometimes) warm. There are no time settings on most crock pots. That means that, with other pots, your food will continue to cook until you arrive at the scene and turn off the heat. With Rival Smart Pot, the food will cook only for the number of hours specified. Once it has reached the end of the heating cycle, it will automatically switch to warm.

Speaking of the “warm” setting, this brings me to one of Rival Smart Pots greatest disadvantages: the lack of the ability to switch the pot directly to warm. There is a warm setting on the front panel, but you cannot directly switch the pot to this setting. All you have to choose from are the hourly settings. The crock pot will automatically switch to warm once the number of hours has passed. This means that, if you just want to keep something warm, you’re out of luck. The best you can do is set the crock pot to the longest number of hours, which is ten, and then come back periodically to check on the food, which is kind of a drag when you consider that not having to check is one of the main reasons you use a crock pot in the first place. But I have found myself doing exactly this whenever I want to keep my food warm using this pot. There is no direct setting for warm, so I just set the timer to the longest timed setting offered- ten hours- knowing that this is will generate the least amount of heat. In most cases, this works. But it still bugs me that a crock pot that supposedly has a greater level of sophistication would not offer any way to set the unit directly to warm.

Because there is no “warm” setting, and because of the limited heat settings, I have found that the food will sometimes burn. If I place food in this crock pot and the amount of food is less than six quarts, there is a good chance that the food will be burned when I check it several hours later. If the food is filled to the top of the pot, there is less chance of burning. I have also found that the times settings cook faster than they claim. If the pot is set at, say, eight hours, you can expect your food to be fully cooked and ready to eat at only six or seven hours- especially if the pot isn’t full. The food will likely be burned if you let it go much longer (if there is less than six quarts). If the pot is completely full, the timing is close to accurate and the chances for burning are minimal. But if the pot is filled only partially, there is a good chance that it will be overcooked and possibly burnt when it reaches the completion of the cycle.

The interior ceramic pot comes out for easy cleaning, but you need to be careful- if the pot is full, it will be heavy, making it easy to drop. You have to keep a good grip and use pot holders to keep from getting burned. And the handle of the cover (and the pot itself) is often very hot and needs to be handled with care. It is very easy to reach for the cover and then suddenly drop it when you realize just how hot it the handle can get. This was a common occurance when I first started to use this crock pot. I would reach for the cover, thinking it was warm but not extremely hot, only to quickly discover that the lid was much warmer than I thought- warm to the point that I would drop the lid quickly when my reflexes kicked in.

As far as crock pots go, Rival Smart Pot has its share of good points and bad points. I’m going to go ahead and give it a recommendation but not by much. If I was more of an expert at cooking, I would probably not like this crock pot very much. But since my cooking skill is limited, I think the Rival Smart Pot is a decent choice among slow cookers. It takes care of food preparation by allowing the user to set the pot to a specific number of hours and then walk away and ignore it (as long as it is full) while going about the day. It could be better, but I think it’s still a decent crock pot- better than most crock pots that only allow a few settings with no way to time the cooking process.



Be sure to click the link below to read my review of my other slow cooker:

Cuisinart CSC- 650 Slow Cooker


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 47