Gadgetory

hey I'm cnet's right Chris and this is the three-in-one ninja cooking system now why is it 3 and 1 it's three and one because it works as a slow cooker but also as an oven and as a stovetop type cooker so what that means is you'll switch this knob over here for slow cooking and then you'll switch it back over here if you want stovetop or all the way over here for oven mode on oven mode you can set it anywhere from 250 to 425 degrees and on slow cooking you can set it anywhere from 30 minutes up to 12 hours now that's a lot of versatility for a counter top slow-cooker usually you just pour your ingredients in set it to lower high and then walk away for eight hours and come back to a home-cooked meal now with this you can do a lot more you can bake cookies you can saute vegetables you can steam bake and steam roast meats and all that in addition to the basic slow cooking functions now one important thing to note about the ninja is that it has a metal pan as opposed to a ceramic crock that we've seen in a lot of other machines so if i take the lid off and take this pan out for you you can see that it's this aluminum nonstick material it's pretty easy to keep clean dishwasher safe that's nice but it's so thin and that means that it conducts heat pretty well cooks fast but it doesn't retain heat that well that means that when you're traveling if you're throwing this thing in the backseat and driving across town to a party if you get stuck in traffic this one's going to lose a lot more heat and your foods going to be a lot colder than it would be in another machine so if you're going to travel a lot maybe consider something else if you're looking for a countertop slow cooker that can do other things as well and add some functionality to your cooking repertoire the ninjas are pretty good device it costs 199 dollars and that's pretty expensive for a slow cooker you can get it a lot less than that at Walmart or Target or retail outlets like that but still it's a bit of an upgrade from your standard $25 $35 machine I think it's worth it if you're going to use all those extra features if you're going to bake with it if you're going to replace your oven replace your stovetop sure that that's a good investment but if you're just looking for a classic slow cooker that's going to make meatballs and BBQ for your next big game day party I say go with cheaper machine for seeing it I'm wreck rest you