Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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!

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!!!

The recipes are fine- if as many reviewers note you don't mind using processed ingredients. Those that I have tried lack sufficient seasonings. While I'll serve the recipes to my family (trying to improve their heathiness when possible), I would never consider them to be the kind of dishes to serve to guests.

This is the WORST cookbook I have ever read. Obviously, these recipes were neither taste-tested nor selected for any criteria other than someone submitted them and they "must be published." Bottled cheese product, canned soups, little or no seasoning in many recipes and the repetition...oh, the repetition: BBQ meatballs, cocktail meatballs, Italian meatballs, easy meatballs, festive meatballs and the list goes on. If you've got a can of cream of mushroom soup, American cheese, or corn flakes...voila...you can re-name your meatballs and you have another amazingly insipid recipe to add to the collection.

Let the book speak for itself. Nothing could say it better than this recipe for "Hot Chicken Sandwiches" (found on page 123); "1 large chicken, 1 cup of water." (That's it, no seasonings, no salt, even.)
"1. Place chicken in slow cooker. Add water." (You've got to admit it's easy.)
"2. Cover. Cook on low 6-7 hours." (Simple, too, if not time consuming. But, I guess you've got to have some spare time on your hands to think up recipes like this.)
"3. Debone chicken. Mix cut-up chicken with broth.
4. Spoon into dinner rolls with straining spoon to make small hot sandwiches. Top with your favorite condiments." (What??? Like ketchup, or bottled cheese sauce or ???? Boy howdy, can't wait to whip up a batch and invite over some friends to see their faces when I serve this to them!)

Don't waste your hard earned cash. I once worked at Macy's where the employees assembled a collection of favorite recipes on goldenrod mimeograph paper. That was twenty years ago, and I am still using some of the recipes in that "book." "Fix-it" probably can't be, just "Forget-it."

This was a definite surprise! I love the recipes because when you are truly not having the time to pull off an extravagant meal, the last thing you want to do is to have to run to 3 different stores to get the ingredients. Most of the recipes contain ingredients I already have at home. I know there was a complaint about the duplication, but I agree with reviewers from the first book that it gives you a choice if you only have certain ingredients. It's not like you don't have enough different types of recipes in there to choose from. The sweet and Saucy Chicken is excellent as well as the Harvest Kielbasa. I also agree that the ingredients might be somewhat processed, but as someone who is cooking for a Celiac allergic to wheat, you can always work around them....and there is plenty there that are not processed foods at all. Great job with this book!

I love this book, even more than the origianl Fix It and Forget It. The recipes are very easy to put together, and are family friendly. I can put these meals together in the morning before I leave for work and have a good meal ready when I get home. I have used some of these recipes to take to pot-lucks or when having family over. Although they do not make a grand, 12 course meal, thess recipes are perfectly acceptable for friends and family. As a homeschooling mom with three kids and a 30-hour-a-week job, this book has been a lifesaver! It keeps my husband from making pbj every night that I work! Well worth it!

If you love your crock pot, this cookbook will clearly benefit you.

Here's the focus of the book:

1. Crock pot recipes

2. No fuss

3. Common ingredients


While these are not what I'd term "terrific" recipes, they're still pretty solid and will yield supper for your family with no major complaints. I cook from scratch every day and, having borrowed this book from the local library, I found a few recipes in here which I liked.

Here's another feature of the cookbook that I found particularly helpful: there are multiple recipes for the same dish, chili for example -- there are about 20 chili recipes to choose from in here. You'll find that this feature holds true for many of the more common crock pot dishes herein.

On the other hand, be aware that this is a "collection" of recipes from folks all over the country so, in that regard, it's much like one of these local fundraiser cookbooks, only focused on Slow Cooker recipes, and drawing upon a much larger and more diverse source group. As a consequence, there's no way of gauging the quality of these recipes in advance, short of preparing it yourself. For me, I prefer to know ahead of time that I'm already working with a proven, top recipe.

This is the chief shortcoming of a cookbook like this one -- it's just easier for me to go online to a site like Allrecipes or Recipezaar, where others have already tested and rated the recipe for me, to achieve a dish of the highest quality. And of course, THOSE recipes are all free. This practice also eliminates a mountain of cookbooks atop my refrigerator.

In the end, if you're a cookbook person, a crock-pot person, and you additionally know how to modify a good basic recipe to suit your own tastes, this cookbook will likely work for you. There are 580 recipes in all (284 pages with a nice index) so clearly, you'll find something inside which suits your fancy.

This has been a great cookbook! I have a family of 6 and we are always on the run. It is great to walk into a great smelling kitchen at the end of the day and know we will have a delicious homemade dinner---not fast food!

I love reading cookbooks and trying new recipes, and I thought this would be a winner. After all, it's a New York Times best seller! But after reading a number of entries, I have to say I'm shocked! I agree with another reviewer on the "hot chicken sandwiches." Chicken and water?? This is a recipe? Under vegetables we get "Super Creamed Corn" which involves 2 lbs. of frozen corn, an 8oz. package of cream cheese, sugar, and butter. This has to be cooked 4 HOURS! I'm pretty sure you'll get great results in 15 minutes on top of the stove.
To me, slow cooker recipes are for melding complex flavors and seasonings over long periods of time, for tenderizing tough cuts of meat. Chili, spaghetti sauce, soups and chowders, baked beans, and maybe even rice pudding come to mind. And many of the recipes in here deliver just that--and more. In fact, I can't wait to try some of them. But the rest of the recipes are just embarrassing. Oatmeal? Are you kidding?? Oatmeal? We're invited to cook oatmeal for breakfast for 6-8 hours on low. I for one am not putting oatmeal ingredients in the slow cooker at midnight so that I can save 15 minutes at the stove the next morning.
Bottom line, buy it for the many good recipes that are actually in here, but don't be fooled into thinking they're all winners. Some of them are total duds.