They are great for lots of things - soups, stews, roasts. I used mine a lot when the kids were growing up - put everything in the slow cooker in the morning, come home and dinner is ready. I still use it some, but not as much. Mine is almost 30 years old and works like a charm. I second the suggestion that you don't need a lot of fancy features, but mine has one that is really useful. It's a setting where it cooks for four hours on high and then switches to low automatically.