Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round [Paperback]

Phyllis Pellman Good (Author), Dawn J. Ranck (Author), Cheryl Benner (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2000

This book is bursting with absolutely delicious recipes, as well as Tips for Hosting, Menus for Meals with Friends, and Ideas for Go-Alongs that compliment clow cooker dishes. You'll love cooking, hosting and eating from this treasure of good food.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

    Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining is for busy people who still want to have guests—dinner with neighbors, weekend visitors, friends after a chilly soccer game, a birthday party, a slow-cooker carry-in buffet.

    Get rid of the last-minute pressures of putting food on the table. Visit with your guests until it’s time to eat. Little fuss, lots of flavor.

    This new cookbook—in the Fix-It and Forget-It tradition—has more than 580 irresistible recipes (and no duplicates with the original Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook). --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Good has been part of many cookbook projects, authoring The Best of Amish Cooking and The Festival Cookbook, and co-authoring Recipes from Central Market, Favorite Recipes with Herbs, The Best of Mennonite Fellowship Meals, and From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens. Good and her husband, Merle, live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and are co-directors of The People’s Place, a heritage interpretation center in the Lancaster County village of Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

Ranck has been a convinced slow-cooker user for years. She, along with her many friends, have been lining up their various-sized cookers on their kitchen counters before they set off each morning--and coming home to richly flavored full dinners. Ranck, who lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, is the co-author of A Quilter's Christmas Cookbook and Favorite Recipes with Herbs.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Good Books (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156148377X
• ISBN-13: 978-1561483778
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pick the best , leave the rest & use good common sense, January 19, 2004

By 

littleword (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round (Paperback)

My husband's aunt "loaned" us this book since we're busy quite a few nights each week and she never used it. We weren't crock-pot cooks ourselves but we're learning - and we love the freedom the crock-pot gives when there's not a lot of time to cook.

In a nutshell, let me say this volume is well worth the price of admission for the gems tucked in the pages!

The praise:
- There are some excellent contributors. We've been particularly fond of the submissions by Naomi Fast. Her "Pot Roast Complete," "Fruited Beef Tagine" and "Bavarian Beef," among others, have received rave reviews from friends and family.
- Some of the odd recipes are actually quite good and have encouraged us to put our prejudices aside and give entries we might otherwise have ignored a try.
- This is a good source of inspiration... it's got us thinking about what can be done in the cooker and not just what's printed on the page.

Now that you know we like it, here are the criticisms:
- You'll flip through a number of so-so, and some downright awful looking, entries.
- There are a number of similar recipes, which could have been shown as variations on a basic dish. But, in fairness to the fact that they came from different contributors, we suppose they should be listed separately.
- We've noticed a lamentable tendency toward too much liquid, and/or not enough thickening agent, in some of the recipes. It's almost as though they were originally stove top or oven recipes that someone converted to crock pot cookery (Without testing?? Either that or much of America likes much thinner gravies than we do!). After a while, common sense kicked in and we are getting pretty good at anticipating which recipes will need to be adjusted. We've coped with cornstarch slurries during the last half hour and the occasional packet of gravy mix as a quick rescue.

Some trial and error and, finally, common sense will let you adjust for your tastes before you cook. For example, how appetizing will it be to serve skin-on chicken from a crock pot?? It's not! So, just ditch the skin!

Many happy meals later, we've still got the book and we're sharing the gems with our aunt as we find them!

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes are Fast..., October 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fix-it and Forget it Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round (Hardcover)

While some persons fault this book and the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook by the same authors, for using processed foods...Good and Ranck never said that the recipes did not include them. Many of us have to use canned foods, vegetables and soups, but with these cookbooks, we can make them taste GREAT! If you take offense to canned foods, you don't have to use them. There are plenty of recipes in this book that don't include them.

So if you want tasty food without a lot of fuss, ready for guests or family, this set of cookbooks is excellent. Enough recipes to keep your crockpot hot for years to come.

This new cookbook is for more than just entertaining--my family loves the recipes that have been tried so far!

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Company or the Family....You Fix-It...They Won't Forget-It!!, October 1, 2002

By 

Daniel F. Moore (Yarmouth, Maine USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fix-it and Forget it Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round (Hardcover)

Phyllis and Dawn have done it again! As if their first slow cooker digest, Fix-It and Forget It Cookbook didn't take the cooking world by storm, this is the perfect follow-up to that work. The recipes are a collection of favorites from cooks all over the country and who submits a recipe that doesn't already have a host of fans? The book is divided into Main Course(mostly meat),Soups, Vegetables, Sweets, and 'The Extras'(appetizers, breakfast and beverages) and contains an easy to read index with a larger type size, which is greatly appreciated.

Although the title suggests that this is a book for entertaining, don't be put off. The recipes are simple, the ingredients are readily available and are certainly suitable for serving to the family. I'm fairly certain that most of the contributors serve these offerings to their family more often than to guests. But the great thing is that you know that you can grab this book whenever you need something special and delicious for company.

In the past year I have rediscovered the slow cooker. Like many others, I had relegated my old crock pot to the attic as it was no longer 'cool'. But having little time to cook and with the publishing of several new cookbooks on the subject, I have now purchased several sizes of slow cookers. Let's face it, you can't beat it for simplicity and the results are more often than not, spectacular. I am a big fan of homemade soups and stews and nothing turns them out better than a slow cooker.

In summary...buy this book! If you haven't purchased the earlier book by the authors, buy it too!!! You are guaranteed to have meals that even the pickiest eater will love, and you'll be armed with a vast repertoire of entertaining ideas. And oh yes, the family will love it too!!!