Roast report

I tried out the slow cooker last Thursday.

Ingredients:

• 3.75 lb beef rump roast, sliced into 1.5 inch slabs
• three potatoes
• one large onion
• a handful of "baby" carrots
• two Roma tomatoes
• a cup of mushroom-flavored water, saved from reconstituting the dried mushrooms the previous day
• about a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, mixed with a similar amount of water

Process:
At 1 PM, placed beef, potatoes, and carrots into cooker. Forgot to pre-season the beef. Added onion, Worcestershire sauce and mushroom water on top. Set to cook on "High."
At ~5:15 PM, opened lid briefly to stir mixture and add tomatoes.
At ~6:20 PM, removed a serving for supper, accompanied by pasta. Set cooker to "Low."
At ~8:30 PM, turned off cooker.

Results:
The pieces of beef at the top were dry and hard. There was plenty of liquid in the cooker, but it didn't cover all the solid food. The beef that was submerged was softer. I think there was too much food. It was difficult to stir, and I don't think it's supposed to need stirring. In the future, I'll not use a roast that big, or if I do, I won't put vegetables with it.

Also, there wasn't enough seasoning. I thought the mushroom water would be strongly flavored enough, but I should have used a bouillon cube as advised. That's not a big problem, though, since we can easily add salt and pepper after the fact.

My most important food critic, aristeros, likes it well enough. So I consider it a qualified success.