Dulce de Leche

It being pretty floody out, (flooditious?) I have changed my plans for culinary exploration today.

No ketchup.

Instead, having already in my possession a can of sweetened condensed milk, and having dragged out my small slow cooker and decided it was too small for the pork I intended to stew, I figured I would try that recipe I've seen everywhere, from the Paper of Record to comments on every food blog ever. (Come to think of it, the Times] suggestion may also have been in the comment boxes.)

I have a very slight fear of 'splosions, (Mom had a pressure cooker that was her Mom's and strings of venison dangling from the ceiling is an indelible childhood memory,) but the real reason I haven't tried making caramel before is that boiling a pot on the stove for three hours seems like an insane waste of energy.

And Himself does not like butterscotch, or caramel or any similar flavors. (I can man up and eat the whole can myself, I decided....)

But now that it's simmering away, I've begun to wonder - are slow cookers a terrible waste of energy?
Not sure at all how much power they draw. Have to look that up.

And  now, I've begun to wonder something else - what kind of deranged person thinks to substitute dulce de leche for ketchup?

Do what I refer to as "plans" have any actual planning behind them? I sometimes wonder.