Crockpot Challenge: Gone All Day Casserole

I've renamed it "Gone For Good" casserole!

This is another crockpot recipe from the 2000 Quick Cooking Annual Recipes book. Link to the recipe on the Taste of Home site.

What did I do differently? 1) Skipped the rice. If indeed I was "gone all day," I would have tried it. But I find that cooking the rice separately insures the rice is soft and not hard. 2) Reduced the water to 2 cups instead of 3. If I was crocking the rice, perhaps I would keep the water the same, maybe. I find sometimes all the veggies and meat add to the liquid volume and the crockpot basically "boils" the meat. 3) Skipped all that salt (2 1/2 teaspoons!) and just used a sprinkle, along with a bit of pepper. 4) Used a rounded teaspoon of Penzeys Beef Soup Base and mixed with the 2 cups of water instead of 3 beef boullion cubes. 5) Tried just a small handful of sliced almonds...not sure how it would go over with the others and this way, not as much to pick out. 6) Used only one can of sliced mushrooms instead of two. It looked like enough with one and L doesn't like mushrooms.

Grade: D-/Won't make this mistake again!

What happened? Way too watery! Maybe with the rice it would have been thicker and looked better. I served it with mashed potatoes instead, thinking I would get a nice gravy - not! The meat turned out very tender, though. Hopefully I can recycle the meat and veggies into something else!