The Everything Slow Cooker Cookbook: 300 Delicious, Healthy Meals That You Can Toss in Your Crock300 Delicious, Healthy Meals That You Can Toss in You

by Margaret Kaeter

Book Overview

A comprehensive cookbook providing simple instructions, prep times, and degree of attention required, to allow readers to employ their slow cookers to the fullest potential. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158062667X
• ISBN13: 9781580626675
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Everything
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.7" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Good beginner slow cooker recipes

This is a good all-purpose cookbook to get you started enjoying your slow cooker. To address some of the criticisms: Yes, some of the recipies are mild. But I think that's a strength because it allows me to adjust the spices and seasonings to fit my family's preferences and easily make a dish my own. No, slow cooking does not have to be over-cooked mush. Like any appliance, there is some trial and error in learning what temperatures and cooking times maximize your cooker's performance. I plug my slow cooker into an electrical outlet timer (since mine hasn't digital controls) to assure that it doesn't cook too long. This also allows me to start cooking mid-day when I'm away at work. It should go without saying that this kind of delayed cooking is not appropriate for eggs or raw meat due to food safety concerns. Baking recipes are best suited for very large, cafeteria-style slow cookers. Slow cookers do an excellent job baking, but I wouldn't adise it beyond a fun experiment or if your oven was out of commission. Give it a try - I've enjoyed this cookbook and found it a good foundational resource for slow cooking.

Not a "Dummy" or an "Idiot" -- I Just Needed a New Cookbook

I researched the available newer slow cooker cookbooks for a week or two before going to a "brick & mortar" chain bookstore this weekend to buy one. I've used a Crock-Pot for over 20 years, but just recently upgraded to a larger oval slow cooker, and needed a more recent cookbook with recipes which could be made in a larger slow cooker without adjusting ingredient quantities. I browsed through all of the slow cooker cookbooks at the bookstore, and ended up buying this one. Why? 1) Price -- This is one of the least expensive of the full-size-with-lots-of-recipes slow cooker cookbooks. 2) Recipe Format -- Very clear & easy to read layout, with important information like slow cooker size and attention required in boldface type on the same corner of every page. 3) Recipe Variety -- 300 recipes (usually 1 per page), and in many categories which I hadn't thought of in connection with crockpot cooking before. (I think I will still bake bread in my bread machine and cookies in my oven, though.) Have not actually cooked anything from this yet, which is why it hasn't earned a fifth star from me (so far). "Bland/church supper"-type recipes (as mentioned in some of the other reviews) aren't a turnoff for me, as I don't mind going beyond the recipe to adjust seasonings, and I do actually bring hot dishes to church potlucks occasionally. Looking forward to trying some of these recipes out.

Finally--good slow cooker food

I love the concept of a slow cooker. I love the idea of being able to dump some ingredients in, leave it all day, and come back to a tender, delicious meal. But somehow it almost never seems to work out that way. We've tried all sorts of slow cooker recipes over the years; almost every one comes out tasting very bland. Or the flavors get jammed together and you lose the subtlety and richness you'd get out of a "normal" recipe. Or the recipe author solved the lack of flavor by finding a strong ingredient or two and pouring them on, producing a dish with a very unbalanced taste. Finally we stumbled across "The Everything Slow Cooker Cookbook," and we found recipes we actually liked. The book provides an unusual variety of recipes, for a slow cooker cookbook at least. There isn't as much as a regular cookbook, but then most slow cooker recipes out there are variations on stew or pot roast, so I'll take what I can get. There's a serious limit on what you can do with this kind of cooking appliance so you can't really expect the variety of a generic cookbook. The author provides information on how slow cookers affect the flavors of things like spices and aromatic vegetables (this makes it much easier to adjust recipes to your taste). She also gives information on converting regular recipes to the slow cooker. These pieces of information alone make this book valuable. She also has a good sense of flavor, in my opinion. I've always thought I *should* like baked beans, based on the ingredients, but I couldn't find a version that appealed to me. I've made the two versions from this cookbook and they were both delightful! We've made other things as well, including soups and a rice pudding, and all of them came out quite well. My only issue with them is that some of them didn't store well at all, which can be a pain when you're making an entire crock-pot's worth of food. Also, the author sometimes drastically underestimates the number of servings, I think (but better that than over-estimating...). For the life of me I can't figure out why the author converted things like cookie recipes to the slow cooker, but oh well. These recipes don't take up that much space. Other than the storage issues we've really enjoyed this cookbook. The flavors are very good, the recipes are straightforward, the information is comprehensive, and the variety and number of recipes is extensive. If you want the convenience of a slow cooker but don't like typical slow cooker recipes, this is a very good cookbook to try.

Delicious meals without the fuss

Most slow cooker meals are mushy and overdone -- particularly chicken dishes. Not so the recipes we tried from "The Everything Slow Cooker Cookbook!" The best one (so far) is the peanut chicken stew. The main ingredients -- peanut butter, chicken, bell peppers and chile powder -- sound strange together but the combination is wonderful. The chicken came out tender, not tough and stringy. Even my daughter -- a chicken and bell pepper hater -- loved it. We also tried one of the beef vegetable soups and liked it, although I'll use less onion next time (personal preference). These recipes are innovative, yet easy to make. The presentation is straightforward, without extraneous verbage you don't need when you are in a hurry to get dinner made. This book has earned a permanent place in my cookbook collection.