Easy Slow Cooking in a Nesco Roaster

I love my Nesco roaster.  It's not just for feeding large crowds or the holidays.  I use my Nesco to cook in all the time.   I figure as long as I am going to use my slow cooker, I might as well use the Nesco.  This way, I can plan a few meals based on what I put in the Nesco.  Last week, on Wednesday, we had beef potroast, sweet potatoes and green beans; on Thursday we had beef barley soup and Friday, BBQ beef sandwiches.
For these menues, I filled my roaster with 2 roasts (3-4 lbs each) and a package of soup bones - these were right out of the freezer (frozen).  We raise our own beef so we do have alot of soup bones.  I added 5 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 red onions, 3 diced carrots, 4 ribs of diced celery, handfuly of fresh parsley, salt & pepper - these are really only added to flavor the stock - 1 can of tomato paste, 3 TBS of beef base and enough water to reach top of meat.  Cook on low for the whole day - just leave it.    After lunch I did add a steamer to top of the meat and put in my sweet potato chunks.  About an hour or so later, I added the green beans right on top of the sweet potatoes.  Just leave it do it's thing.    Wednesday done. I preboiled the barley I needed for the soup in  a.m. while I prepared the veggies for the stock. 
After your supper is over, take out the meat and strain the juices.  You will have a rich brown stock.  Put this in the refrigerator.  I then took the meat and bones and added those to my pressure cooker with water and cooked them at 10# for about 15-20 minutes - this cooks the meat off the bones.   When cooled, seperate meat from bones and put meat in a seperate container for rest of meals.  You can save that stock too.

For the beef barley soup, take out reserved stock, take the fat off the top and put that "jelly" mixture into a kettle.  Heat it up.  I did add some water to "thin" the stock.   Cut up 4 - 5 carrots and to boiling stock.  I added left over green beans, pre boiled barley, 4 -5 ribs of diced celery, chunks of  the reserved beef and 2 cans of beans (whatever you like) I did fava and northern, really up to you as to what you like in your soup. 

Then on Friday, I took the rest of cooked, diced beef and added some BBQ sauce.

I had a busy week and having all of this really cooked in one day saved me alot of time.  If you don't have a Nesco they are truly worth the investment!  So easy and a real time saver!  Blessings from Wisconsin!