I can tell you that the rice pudding is really excellent. When my gas cooker expired(!) I decided to try a slow cooker instead and it is one the best buys I've made. Because nothing dries out in a slow cooker, you don't lose as much when cooking in a conventional oven. The rice pudding used to dry out in my oven, but in the slow cooker I get a lot of portions from the same recipe. I haven't tried cooking chicken without liquid but that sounds like a good idea, the meat really comes out tender in a casserole. The other advantage is that you get a lot of liquid from cooking so there isn't any need to make a separate sauce with ingredients outside of the slow cooker. You can just use the liquid from the cooking and make a really tasty sauce - I usually add soured cream to make it creamy and even more tasty.
PS: Us gents can cook very easily using the slow cooker!!!