Customer Reviews

The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Many slow cooker books strongly feature American dishes like chili, short ribs and stew. Nothing wrong with that, we all love those comforting favorites. However, it's easy to get bored with your slow cooker and then consign it to the back of that kitchen cupboard next to the fondue pot and the raclette set. Judith Finlayson's book could have you dragging the old Crok-King out of the cabinet again to try Pumpkin Soup with Shrimp and Lime, Bobotie (South African meat curry pie) and Thai-Style Coconut Flan. There are also recipes for seasoned mixed nuts and hot spinach cheese dip and even, dare I say it, fondue. Sounds like a party in the makings!

If you don't want to dine nightly on exotic fare, however, there are good versions of old standbys like Shepherd's Pie with Corn (ground beef, corn and mashed potato topping.) This is certainly one recipe that we love to come home to find steaming away in the slow cooker. There are also desserts, soups, appetizers and casseroles and roasts, even a vegetarian chili. The desserts are puddings or fruit based cakes and cobblers.

Some of the recipes are designed for certain types of slow cookers; small size crock pots are specified for the appetizers, oval shaped for roasts. So if you only have one type of cooker, you may not be able to make some recipes come out without figuring out how to adjust them. On the other hand, a small crock pot is a handy item for entertaining and you might find one at a yard sale. This book could also help you decide which pot to buy, based on the type of recipe you are likely to make the most.

The photographs are clear and colorful, the recipes are varied enough to suit most tastes. If you would like to dust off your slow cooker and take it on a world tour, this book will serve as a great travel guide, but there are plenty of home-style recipes for when you just want something familiar.

If you're a purist about using *just* the slow cooker, even though the browning step produces more intense and balanced flavours and only one extra item to clean, this book isn't for you.

If you aren't interested in a mixture of English/North American standards along with a number of spicy recipes (Korean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Hungarian, etc.), or if you will have a difficult time finding the ingredients because your supermarkets has a limited selection, this book may not be for you.

But if you love a variety of national cuisines and can get the ingredients, you'll love this book. The Easy Chicken Paprikash (using canned soups and sweet paprika, easy to find anywhere) was amazing. The New Potato Curry (using curry powder available in any supermarket, although I made up my own mixture) was wonderful, even though I left out the fresh cilantro as I didn't have any on hand. Time required to clean the cast iron skillet for each recipe: 30 seconds.

There are a lot of slow cooker recipe books out there with great recipes for beans, stews, and soups. Get one of those if all you want to make are those great standards. Keep in mind, though, that you will find similar recipes in this book, such as Bakers' Potatoes with Onions, Creamed Onions, Shredded Chicken for tacos and sandwiches (no pre-browning!), Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole, Homestyle Chicken with Gingersnap Gravy, Pork Ribs and Beans, Pork Chops with Onions in Mustard Sauce, Pot Roast with Tomato or Gingersnap Gravy, Beef Noodle Casserole with Cheddar-Crumb Topping, Meat Loaf, Southwestern Brisket, Shepherd's Pie, Swiss Steak, Smothered Steak, Chicken Fried Steak, Mushroom Barley Soup, Black Bean Soup, and Seafood Gumbo.

But you'll also get Indonesian and Spicy Chinese Chicken, Chicken and turkey curries (spicy and mellow), Caribbean Pork Roast with Rum, Portuguese Pork with Clams, Pork Vindaloo, Morroccan Lamb, Lamb Keema and Korma, Greek Beef Stew with Onions and Feta Cheese, Korean Style Short Ribs, Osso Bucco, Potato and Cauliflower Dahl, and Caribbean Pepper Pot Soup.

If you're counting, that's nowhere near 150 recipes yet. And did I mention the desserts? Flans, crips, cobblers, custards, pudding, cake and, yes, cheesecake.

This is a great book. If you want to move beyond the standards, here's your chance!

I LOVE to cook, I HATED ancient crockpot recipes. They are so bland. I bought this for myself back when I didn't have a lot of time to cook when I got home from work. There are recipes in here that have become a staple of my weekly cooking. The Mellow Chicken Curry is absolutley wonderful - sometimes I use low-fat coconut milk in place of the yogurt. The Tarragon Cream Roasted Chicken is delicious. Carribean Pork Rum Roast - Oh my gosh! Beef Burgenion (sp?), Vegetarian Chili - has a lot of ingrediants but is so worth it.

Anyway - You'd be crazy not to try it. I bought one for everyone in my family for Christmas who owned a crockpot.

Even when I'm not using the crockpot, I reference this book for recipe ideas. They are just so flavorful.

I actually returned a newer text because I saw this one a day later and preferred it. This book has the right mix between newer and more "progressive" recipes and the good old mainstream dishes you'll want to make every week. The pictures are a real help--they make you want to try certain recipes. So far I have slightly tweaked every recipe I've made from this book (as any good home cook will do)--and everything has come out perfectly. I am still looking for some really baisc items like how to cook dried beans. The book has bean recipes, but I want the "skeleton" recipe I can plug my own ingredients into. I guess that will come with experience. I disagree with another reviewer about the necessity for multiple crock pots...it might help to have multiple units, but you'll do fine with any pot 5qt and larger.

I cooked several recipes from this book and loved every one of them. The dishes are simply delicious. I cooked the Beef Bourguinon for my family and our visiting friends and it was a big hit. A little bit leftover got consumed over buns the next day!

But, I have to admit to two personal biases: I love food with lots of flavors, and I always brown the meat before putting it into soups or stews--and this book suits me in both fronts. (I believe the author does state that one does not need to brown the meat, but that the meat tastes better if it is browned.) With the slow cooker relieving me from keeping constant watch over the food, I find the recipes in the book easy and the payback (of a great meal) more than worth the effort.

I highly recommend this book.

"Send your crock pot on a world tour," one reviewer wrote. Well, if your crock pot can't behave any better than this, you ought to lock it in the cabinet and never let it out.

I borrowed this book from the library and purchased ingredients for 3 recipes. The Savory Cheddar Cheese Soup was a C-. If it hadn't been for all the salt and msg in the beef consomme, I'm not sure it would have had any flavor at all. Next, I tried Shepherd's Pie with Creamy Corn Filling. It was Ok, as in "strictly OK." It looked nothing like the lovely picture of a potato-topped casserole. Instead, it was a sloppy stew-like mixture. As for the third recipe. . . well, I'm not going to try it at all.

As others have noted, the majority of the preparation is outside of the crockpot. Basically, the crockpot is your cooking device - just like you might prepare everything on the stovetop and then put it in the oven. For example, for the Sheperd's Pie, I (1) browned the meat, (2) separately sauted the onions, garlic, and spices, (3) added beef broth and thicken it with flour, (4) made and seasoned mashed potatoes. Then, I layer it in the crockpot and cooked. Definintely not the "dump and go" system that many crockpot users desire.

I wish I could recommend a better crockpot cookbook. All I can recommend is "this ain't it, honey!"

The approach to the slow cooker in this book is a little different than that which most would expect. Some baked beans, some chili, maybe a stew or pot roast -- it's just a matter of choosing a decent combination of raw stuff to dump into the crock, and coming home to mushy vegetables and tender, though flavorless, meat, right?

Wrong. If you are looking for zero prep and mediocre dishes, find another book. Judith Finlayson attacks the slow cooker not as an alternative to other cooking methods, but as an additional tool for those of us who enjoy the occasional meal with a longer cooking time, but don't want to leave the stove or oven on all day just to use a Dutch oven. She starts by discussing things that must be considered when converting recipes for crock-pot cooking. As she mentions, browning foods in a skillet can enhance the flavor of the final results. Without proper browning, foods prepared in a crock pot can be less flavorful than the original recipes. She discusses differences which allow the enterprising cook to adjust their own recipes for crock-pot cooking, and even mentions some ingredients which do not respond as well to slow cooking methods and gives tips for dealing with them. A book of recipes is good, but the introduction should be considered a manual for crock-pot cooking.

Speaking of recipes, every recipe I've tried from this book has been a smashing success. I've made her French onion soup several times. Her Shepherd's Pie recipe was flavorful and easy, her pulled pork was a delight. I used her shredded chicken as a base for her chicken enchiladas, which far exceeded my expectations regarding what was possible from a slow cooker. The best recipe I've tried so far was the Texas-style chili con carne, which was smoky and hearty, with tender meat and wonderful flavor.

This book tries to balance recipe complexity, preparation time, and quality of results. As mentioned in the introduction, several recipes suggest browning meats or softening vegetables in a skillet to enhance the flavor or texture of the final product. However, there are also suggestions that help to manage the difficulty of preparing these recipes entirely in the morning. Most recipes, especially those with long cooking times, include a clear "Make ahead" sidebar which explains which preparation can be done ahead of time and placed in the crock pot in the morning.

In summary: The introduction is wonderful in itself, serving as an introduction both to the book and to the method of crock-pot cooking. The recipes are diverse, covering a range of cultural dishes, soups, dips, main dishes, and desserts, and serving as an inspiration for those who wish to try coming up with a slow-cooker version of their own low-heat favorites.

One reviewer gave a negative comment about measurements, and cited page 73. Curious, I pulled out my copy and checked -- I cannot find a single mention of barley, which the reviewer claimed that the instructions said to add. As the reviewer stated, water was not mentioned in the ingredients list, but the text does say to "[a]dd beans, bacon and water, barely to cover." This indicates that enough water should be added to barely cover the ingredients in the cooker, and the author can hardly be faulted for not knowing the exact capacity of every slow cooker on the market. I believe that this reviewer's misunderstanding does not justify such a poor rating of a useful book.

The only thing I might suggest for a later edition is a clear indication of estimated preparation time and cooking time at the top of each recipe. The book already gives cooking times (for both high and low settings, if the recipe permits such choice) in the instructions. However, it would be helpful when looking for a recipe in a given situation to be able to more quickly determine cooking and preparation time; adding a note above each recipe would provide such additional assistance.

So far I have made the carolina pulled pork, the chicken enchiladas and shaved chicken, and the savory cheese soup. All have turned out WONDERFULLY--no adjustments necessary--and her instructions work down to the letter. Although there is prep time for almost every recipe, it is usually only about 30 minutes or so. If you like to cook without a slow cooker, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm very pleased with my purchase and you will be too!

This is by far the best slow cooker recipe book I've tried. Many others on the market will have you toss in a hunk of meat and some creamed soup and call it dinner. This book guides you through preparation of tastier and healthier meals for the family of the go. I have yet to try one that my fussy family didn't like.

One reviewer gave this book fewer stars because of the prep work involved, namely starting your meal in a skillet rather than popping ingredients into the pot and turning on the heat. There isn't much extra work, and what additional time it takes is worth the better tasting meal at the end of the day. I am fortunatate to own (after much reserach and help from Amazon reviewers)the WestBend Versatility slow cooker which makes any browning/skillet preparation process a breeze. It is a teflon coated cooker that allows you to skillet prepare any part of your meal directly in the pot and then transfer the entire pot to the slow cooker base. It makes a world of difference in the flavor of the meat/fish/veggies and cleans up in a flash. It is well worth the investment.

`The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes' by Judith Finlayson is the third Slow Cooker cookbook I have seen, not counting the recipe book which came along with the slow cooker. And, I can say with more certainty than most other similar comparisons I have made that this is the best of the lot.

I am not inclined to like slow cooking recipes but I am satisfied that they have an important place in a well-furnished culinary repertoire. I took to the method when I wanted a good pulled pork recipe without having to invest in a grill or smoker or any other type of outdoor contraption involving fire and smoke.

It turns out that this book has an excellent recipe for a pulled pork barbecue recipe which should be able to hold its head high, at least outside the borders of North Carolina, where pulled pork barbecue takes on religious significance.

Some slow cooker recipe books remind me of recipes in Church fundraising books. They have a small list of ingredients and the barest minimum of instructions on how to put the dish together. The premium on such books is in the number of recipes rather than the detail in the instructions. This is not necessarily a bad thing when we are dealing with a single method of cooking, especially one where the primary selling point is its simplicity. But, if you are a beginner you may want something better.

Other slow cooker recipe books, especially the type from `Better Homes and Gardens' and `Betty Crocker' are better, but aside from the glossy pics, there is little to warm the hearts of a cookbook connoisseur's heart.

Ms. Finlayson has covered all her bases. She opens with a headnote for each recipe that gives lots of background information on the origins and best uses of the recipe. She also has frequent make-ahead suggestions, especially for those who wish to turn on the slow cooker on the way to work. Finally, her ingredient lists are a real marvel, especially as they give both English and metric units for virtually every ingredient. This may not seem like much unless you have an especially good gadget for measuring small amounts where the tics for milliliters is much more finely divided than the teaspoons and tablespoons. Most people will be especially happy with her exceptionally good prep instructions for all her ingredients.

For those who have never done slow cooking but who are expert braisers, I suggest you get this book even if you have your full complement of braising recipes. You will do better to transpose a familiar braising recipe if you have seen and done a few recipes designed for the slow cooker.

Highly recommended.