Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes [Paperback]

Andrew Schloss (Author), Yvonne Duivenvoorden (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

For the Art of the Slow Cooker, best-selling author Andrew Schloss has developed 80 recipes for soups, stews, succulent braises, vegetarian disheseven dessertsthat bring slow-cooked meals to new heights. Slow cooking gives a wonderful velvety texture to meatloaf, an incredible richness to Osso Buco Milanese, and bold and complex flavors to Curried Vegetables and Dal simmered in Indian spices. Each chapter offers recipes for both simple everyday meals and spectacular dishes perfect for entertaining. With cooking charts to help with timing, advice on finding the right slow cooker for every kitchen, and glorious color photographs throughout, the Art of the Slow Cooker will delight readers looking for easy and amazing meals.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andrew Schloss is a food writer based in Pennsylvania. His most recent cookbooks include Homemade in a Hurry and Mastering the Grill.

Yvonne Duivenvoorden is a Toronto-based photographer specializing in food.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; Original edition (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811859126
• ISBN-13: 978-0811859127
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #62 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques
  • #72 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Appliances

More About the Author

Andy Schloss wants everyone to cook more, and he has devoted his career to ease the way. As a well known teacher, food writer, cookbook author, and food product developer, he concentrates his decades of experience to streamline the tedious and illuminate the intricacies that make cooking good food a pleasure and a passion. Andy has authored 17 cookbooks and countless food articles. His first book Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything was a Book of the Month Club Main Selection. The Science of Good Food (co-authored with David Joachim) won an IACP Cookbook Award, and their book, Mastering the Grill was a NYT bestseller. His latest books Fire It Up, a follow-up grilling guide written with Joachim and Homemade Soda are being published in the Spring of 2011. Schloss is the culinary creator of Cookulus: Ultimate Recipe apps, and the developer and manufacturer of the popular line of seasoning blends, Chef Salt. He is a past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, Karen, and their incredibly well-fed dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best slow cooker recipe books that I have found., December 12, 2008

By 

Khandi Howard "teacher mom" (McGregor, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes (Paperback)

This is a great recipe book for slow cookers. It is not a dump and go recipe collection, there is some prep time, usually between 5 (the shortest amount of time) and 20-30 minutes. About 20 minutes looks to be the norm. But by taking this prep time what comes out of your slow cooker is a great meal. The author states that he only wants to give recipes that would be as good made in a slow cooker as if you had made them in a traditional way. What I have made lives up to this expectation.

Also, there are many recipes that I am looking forward to preparing. That is the problem with many slow-cooker books, there just aren't that many recipes that look all that appealing to me - how many different chili recipes do I need? This book has a good selection of recipes that I had not seen before with easy to find ingredients for foods that I think that my family will enjoy. Not that there aren't several company appropriate recipes, because there are, but, there are also great week-night recipes.

I didn't intend to buy another slow cooker recipe book, I already owned 3 or 4 in addition to my collection of other cookbooks, but after seeing this one in a book store and looking through it, I had to have it. I've only made a couple of recipes from it, but both have turned out great, and there are many more that I intend to make.

Khandi

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Step Up, February 19, 2009

By 

RSD48 (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes (Paperback)

Andrew Schloss has created some slow cooker recipes that really up the flavor interest. I agree that this is not the best collection for someone who wants to dump ingredients and then head off to work. Reading his introduction, Mr. Schloss makes a point of explaining why some of the prep cooking, such as browning meats or veggies before adding them to the crock, develops their sugars and that browning is more than a color --it is also flavor. A crock cannot brown on its own.

He has also been careful in what he chooses to use the slow cooker for, ie cuts of meat that benefit most from slow cooking and some twists on conventional dishes. For example, his brisket recipe is luscious and very tender. That one took me about 20 min total prep, but then the cooker was on its own for 9 hours. Lots of time to spend my day being elsewhere. We also love the mushroom risotto recipe that uses pearl barley instead of rice - wonderful complex flavor made all the more interesting by using dried mushrooms as well as fresh, wine and adding fresh Parmesan at the end. The Teriyaki Chicken is not to be missed.

Most of his recipes call for a 5 or 6 qt cooker, but for just the two of us we found the recipes can be cut in half and they do well in a 3 or 4 qt cooker. The West Bend 3 qt oval slow cooker has done very well with these recipes.

For others like us who are cooking for only one or two, I would also recommend Beth Hensperger's "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two" Both these books emphasize flavors that can only be developed with slow technique and raise slow cooking to gourmet delights.Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two: For the Small Slow CookerWest Bend 84343 3-Quart Oval-Shaped Crockery Cooker

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally I can use my slow cooker and not my can opener, October 23, 2009

By 

Julie Buchanan (USA previously UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art of the Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes (Paperback)

I understand that many people love the slow cooker because with 5 minutes of prep they can have a home cooked family dinner. I would love that too but I can't bring myself to put lovely, healthful fresh ingredients in the slow cooker with 2 cans of condensed soup - the ingredients of which read like a chemistry experiment.

The recipes in this book suit a slow cooker - root vegetables, cheaper, tougher cuts of meat.

Here is an example: Today I made the Tunisian Lamb, it took me about 40 minutes to chop and brown all the meat and vegetables. I wouldn't have thought that a long time to prepare a meal at all if I was then able to sit down and enjoy it but I have to wait 6 to 8 hours. So it would be fair to say that it doesn't take "too" long to prepare, it just seems long because you don't get instant gratification! Also, I could have done it in 15 to 20 minutes if I had peeled and chopped the night before but that would take organizational skills that I don't possess. Anyway, what I get is a hearty, warming, healthy and delicious meal for 6 with only 40 minutes work (thanks to my husband for pointing out that the slow cooker wasn't actually plugged in!) What I don't get is "E" numbers and lots of things ending in "-ate".

Who is it for?
People who have a few too many spices in their cupboard and live to eat.
Who is it not for?
People who have absolutely no time and eat to live.