The roast is very good, however the time is not even close for me. I've been trying to figure out what time is needed to get it to give me a little pink inside. Today I tried cutting back to three hours and it was still nearly cooked through. Unless the 'low' setting on my slow cooker is higher than others, I suggest watching it very carefully.

I really enjoyed this. I, too, made a change or two as I went along. I broke my salt shaker and salt was everywhere! So I had no choice but to continue on without salt. After reading the reviews and hearing that it was somewhat bland, I decided to try to compensate that and the lack of salt by using seasoned salt. I also increased the broth to about 3/4 C knowing that the noodles would be soaking up most of what I started with. The only other changes I made was using slightly less penne and I used about a cup of cheese and added it into the pan with the mixture and then sprinkled some on top after serving. My produce department did not have thin asparagus so I had to use thick stalks. I def think the thin would have gone smoother... had to let it steam a lot longer to get it softened up enough. Definitely a recipe you can play with a bit and takes no time at all once you've done it.