Sad new recipe

I have not posted a new recipe for several weeks. Back in February we tried a new recipe from one of my favorite slow-cooker cookbooks. This was the recipe:

Teriyaki Chicken

6 bone-in chicken breast halves

2 16-oz. cans pineapple chunks, one can drained, one can undrained

1 c. teriyaki sauce

Put in cooker and cook 6 to 8 hours on low, or 3 to 4 hours on high.

But it did not turn out well for us. We put the ingredients in the cooker at 8:00 a.m., left for church, and arrived home ravenously hungry and ready for our delicious lunch at 1:00 p.m. only to find a burnt mass in the cooker. It was awful. It wasn't just burnt, it was a carbonized lump that had fused with the metal insert of the cooker.

We soaked the cooker liner in water for a few days. The lump did not budge. We chiseled at it with knives, tried to pry it out with forks - to no avail. I thought I might have to throw away my cooker (horrifying thought!) and get a new one (and this one is only a few years old), but that didn't seem like a good use of money.

Karin finally went to the store for me and bought as much baking soda as she could buy with $4.

And for a week this was my new recipe:

Removing Burnt Food From Cooking Pot

-lots of baking soda

-water to fill pot

Boil water and soda in pot for 30 minutes. Allow to cool. Remove burnt residue. Repeat if necessary.

It took 6 lbs. of baking soda, and 4 times of boiling the water and soda to remove all that nasty stuff. But I have my cooker back now!