Product Reviews – Average Joe Cooking

For several years, I have tried to make good rice, but failed miserably almost every time. I always wondered how to make better rice and if it was ever possible for me to do. I tried the conventional approach of making it in either a skillet or in a pot with a lid. A few years back, I put the Cuisinart CRC-800 8-Cup Rice Cooker on our wedding registry. Fortunately, for my new wife and me, a good friend of ours purchased it for our wedding present. Boy what a great present it has been. Now I enjoy making rice with this no hassle rice cooker.

After taking the rice cooker out of the box, I must say, I wasn’t to impressed with it. It didn’t seem to great a first site. I was expecting more buttons to play with. It only had one switch to push down and a couple of lights. I am a bit of a technology geek, so I am used to having tons of the settings to play with. I was searching all over the place for an on/off button or some other settings. Turns out, you don’t need anything else with this rice cooker, just one switch. It is very simple! You just plug it in, add your rice and water, and push down the switch You will see a cooking light come on. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I haven’t actually timed it yet the switch pops up and the warm light turns on. Just like that, your rice is done! You just have to wait 5 to 10 minutes and you will be enjoying perfect rice with your meal. How great is that? Now I make rice on a weekly basis instead of attempting to make it a few times a year.

This rice cooker is also able to steam food as well. I have only used that feature once though. I steamed some chicken and made rice at the same time. They both came out pretty good. I am mainly interested in cooking rice in this. So I would recommend if you are interested in only making rice to go with a different model and perhaps it would be a bit cheaper.

In conclusion I would definitely purchase this rice cooker. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. Make excellent rice each and every time. It takes me a minute or two to make tasty rice and the clean up is equally easy with the nonstick coating on the cooking pot. So if you enjoy eatting rice but don’t know how to make it to well this is the rice cooker for you.

Click here to purchase the Cuisinart CRC-800 8-Cup Rice Cooker

Well yesterday was finally the day to put together the smoker, I got for Christmas! The weather was perfect outside and it seemed like a great idea to get outside and assemble the smoker out on the back patio. It was a nice sunny day and the temperature was just right. One of the perks to living in Florida during the winter time.

It wasn’t to difficult to assemble the grill it took me approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes. The hardest part was probably putting on the Side Fire Box. The directions call for you to get out the hammer and knock out a portion of the side of the grill. That gave me some problems. I was a bit affraid of damaging the grill. Overall the directions were not extremely detailed and I would imagine if they were a bit more detailed I could of finished it a little bit quicker.

Take a look below at some of the pictures of the assembly of the Char-Griller Smokin Pro!!!

Update: check out the Smoked Baby Back Ribs recipe I did with the Smokin Pro!

Here is what the contents of the boxes looks like. Both boxes are fairly heavy so get assistance when carrying them.

Char-Griller Smokin Pro - Structure together

Here it is with the basic structure put together.

Char-Griller Smokin Pro - Grill Assembled

Here is what the assembled grill part looks like. You can purchase just the grill part and use as just a normal charcoal grill. But we want to Smoke some ribs so next up is the Side Fire Box!