Customer Reviews

The Healthy Slow Cooker

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I studiously avoided learning to cook for 50+ years but a friend who's very health conscious recommended trying a slow cooker. This cookbook gave me the additional boost I needed. Finlayson is very knowledgeable about nutrition, and somehow manages to make it interesting to read about. Plus, she gives tips on what to prepare the night before, so you can set up the crock pot in the morning, turn it on, and have a great meal by the time you get home. I love the Thai Pumpkin Soup, which has become a favorite in our household. If you're trying WeightWatchers point system, this has an abundance of good recipes.

If you read some of the reviews on this site you'd think that the author has you going to exotic and bizarre grocery stores and spending hours preparing these dishes. Its simply untrue. If you're looking for a cookbook that has you open 5 different cans of salty foods and throw em all together for some mushy and unrecognizable (yet fast!) food product then don't buy this one. This one outlines how you can create wonderful, filling, nutritious meals for your whole family. Yep, you are required to chop up fresh fruits and veggies and add in whole grains and beans but isn't this what we should be adding to our meals anyway? I've tried probably half of the recipes in this cookbook and I have enjoyed them all. They freeze wonderfully so you can place them in individual portion sized containers to bring for lunch. This is nutritious and thrifty. She uses almost no processed foods in her recipes (except broths but you can make those yourself) which I appreciate as we try to avoid those foods. I highly recommend this cookbook as her approach to "healthy" food is moderate and logical. BTW, I live in a fairly small area and have been able to find all ingredients needed at my local generic grocery store.

THE HEALTHY SLOW COOKER:
More than 100 Recipes for
Health and Wellness

By Judith Finlayson

Slow cookers are different now. No longer do you put all ingredients in to return home and find an non-distinctive, mushy, rather flavor-lacking concoction.

After four books, Findlayson has reached important conclusions for better slow cooker creations. Some of these make her feel zucchini, peas, snow peas, fish, seafood, and milk/cream do not respond well to long cooking. She also feels peppers, hot sauces and curry powder do not do well with long cooking. Her solution? Add these during the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Each recipe has a two-page spread with headnotes, preparation tips, make ahead hints, "Mindful Morsels," and "Nuture Wonders" which expand on the nourishment of the main ingredient, The book also gives Nutrients Per Serving and significant vitamin content.

Besides breakfast, even bread items and tempting desserts, The Healthy Slow Cooker helps you make some tempting, exciting dishes. Here a description of some of the recipes:

Beet Soup with Lemongrass and Lime -
Combines garlic, gingerroot, red bell pepper, red chile, lime zest, coconut cream and cilantro.

(The Spanish favorite) Caldo Verde -
Has cumin, onions, carrots, garlic, chickpeas, potatoes, paprika, collard greens and smoked sausage

(A Moroccan favorite) Harira -
Calls for celery, onion, garlic, tumeric, lemon zest, tomatoes, red lentils, chickpeas and parsley. This is best topped with Harissa made from red chile peppers, caraway and coriander seeds, cumin, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, lemon and sweet paprika

Spicy Peanut Chicken -
Incorporates, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, gingerroot, peanut butter, lemon juice, soy sauce, red curry paste, coconut milk, green peas, roasted peanuts and cilantro.

Cioppino -
Made with onions, fennel, garlic, anchovy filets, tomatoes, dry white wine, fish stock, white fish, shrimp, crabmeat, red bell pepper, chile pepper and optionally topped with Easy Rouille made from mayonnaise, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and hot paprika.

Beef and Barley with Rosemary and Orange -
Includes mushrooms, onions, celery, carrots garlic, orange zest and dry red wine. Can be topped with Persillade of parsley, garlic and balsamic vinegar.

Chili con Carne -
Make with flour, olive oil, onions, garlic, oregano, cinnamon stick, cumin, beer, kidney beans, ancho chili powder, chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, poblano chiles, cilantro, sour cream, red onion and roasted red pepper strips.

Barley and Wild Rice Pilaf -
Calls for onion, garlic, rosemary leaves, tomatoes, vegetable stock and toasted pine nuts.

Tamale Pie with Chili Millet Crust -
Make with onions, olive oil, celery, garlic, oregano, cumin, black or pinto beans, tomatoes, corn kernels, green bell pepper and jalapeno or chipotle pepper.
May be topped with millet, water, black pepper, Monterrey Jack cheese and chopped green chiles.

Review by Marty Martindale, 2006, Largo FL

I think this is an absolutely wonderful book. It makes it possible even for someone like me -- with little cooking experience, even less time, and to boot, a kitchen that is in the middle of a serious renovation -- to prepare delicious and very healthy foods. The food is incredible, the instructions are clear, and the accompanying information is very useful. I can't say enough good things about it. In addition to being healthy, each recipe is unique and subtle, yielding a dish that makes my short time in the kitchen very rewarding. The book is organized well with a layout and pictures that invites browsing through the recipes.

Most of my previous health food endeavors have been limited, primarily, to low-calorie foods. This book takes healthy eating to a different dimension by considering vitamins, ratios of meats to vegetables, and nutritional variety. I've enjoyed reading the information paired with each recipe as much as I've enjoyed the food itself. And that's saying something -- I've prepared perhaps one-third of these recipes, and all have been winners. It includes recipes using a wide variety of ingredients, many of which I would never have tried nor known how to cook without using this book. For me, it's perfect -- this is the kind of food I want to eat, but learning the techniques and cooking it via means other than the slow cooker is not something I have time to do, unfortunately.

My time and budget constraints have meant cutting a few corners prescribed by the recipes, but the recipes have turned out very well for me. The book includes instructions and measurements for grinding your own spices, as well as introductions to exotic and otherwise intimidating (to me) specialty food items that require going beyond the fare at, say, Kroger grocery stores. I don't grind my own spices -- I buy them in bulk to save money, and for these recipes do my best estimations based on guidelines in the beginning of the book and my own tastes. I also try to substitute some of the more expensive food items. (Many recipes call for nothing beyond the ordinary, and the ones that do usually only have an ingredient or two that exceeds my normal food budget.) The recipes are still FABULOUS.

Another aspect of the book that many here have noted is that the cookbook author includes, in each recipe, instructions for "softening" vegetables and browning meats on the stove before putting in the pot. This makes a huge difference in terms of taste. And I must also say that of the other slow cooker cookbooks I own, most say in the introduction that doing this is a good idea, but they don't include it in their recipes. Given that, this cookbook isn't significantly more complicated in its instructions than most others on the market.

I will soon wrap up this long review... but I do encourage anyone interested in a relatively easy way of cooking healthy, truly unique food to seriously consider this book. The results of each recipe are undeniably wonderful, and I believe the ingredients and methods are adaptable to a wide range of cooking abilities and budgets.

This cookbook asks you to brown the meat and veggies ahead of time. This makes a tremendous difference in the taste. No gray, mushy meat here. I do the prep work the evening before (usually less than a 1/2 hour) then set it to cook in the morning. OK, yes, I do put it in the 'frig over night. I find I prefer to cut the time by one to two hours from the one Ms. Findlayson recommends.

I also like the nutrition information provided for each recipe.

My college bound son asked for this cookbook and a crockpot of his own. That's as high praise as I know of.

Unfortunately I have to agree with "too difficult"s review.
This book has wonderful recipes but they are more complicated than if you tried to cook them the standard way using a regular cookbook. This works for people who actually get home from work before 7pm or have time to prep for cooking. Could be a good weekend cookbook.
Really it seems some of these things could be adjusted to the modern working person's lifestyle, it would be better if the cook book gave you alternatives to "browning seeds and grinding them"(!) Healthy cooking doesn't really require all that. But I plan to substitue here and there through out the book........ If I keep it.
On the plus side: Lovely pictures.

I normally cook and cook a lot every single day!
This slow cooker is my first one.
On the contrary of what the recipes advise, I throw everything in the pot and forget it. Nothing prepared ahead as suggested or whatever.
The result? Delicious.
Take my word, don't bother, make your life easy. Collect everything you have and that's it. If the peppers are missing, too bad if they are not essential of course. You do not have fennel but have fennel seeds, that will be it.
It is creative, simple and easy if you want it to be that way :)
And a tip, you've put too much water? Simple: take the cover off...
Enjoy,
Claude

I have made about twenty recipes from this book and, so far, they have all turned out perfectly. I have a demanding job and a bit of a social life so I don't have a lot of time for cooking. This book makes cooking nutritious meals VERY easy -- I prepare the meals on the weekends in large batches and then freeze them to eat throughout the week.


I appreciate the nutritional information provided for each recipe as well as the extensive cook's notes and tips and tricks. The recipes are very easy to follow. I'm not sure about all the criticsm around trying to find "exotic" ingredients -- you can easily find these in a conventional grocery store. If you have trouble finding ingredients, consult a book on cooking substitutions and use whatever is recommended. I've done that with many recipes over the course of my cooking life and it works quite well. (Using substitutions should be common cooking knowledge anyway).

As for prep time....you will spend, at most, 10 minutes preparing food for the cooker (not including chopping, etc.). Yes, you will spend a few minutes browning meat and veggies in a skillet, but you'd have to do that anyway without the cooker and that's how you get slow cooker food to taste REALLY good. As for the comments on the author's recommendation to toast and grind certain spices, take it as just a recommendation. She provides that step in only a few recipes and I've just added the spices out the jar and everything's turned out great. No need to sweat the small stuff -- just use your common sense.

If you don't mind some prep time, this is an amazing cookbook. The author really did a great job with guidance on so many levels - how to prepare, when you can prepare parts of the recipe ahead (and how), what the nutritional values are, etc. I haven't had a single recipe come out poorly, and I am no cook.

This is not a book for someone like me who wants to put together a meal quickly before leaving for work in the morning. Although most slow cooker recipes nowadays do require some advance preparation, such as browning meat or chicken, I draw the line at toasting seeds in a frying pan and then grinding them in a mortar and pestle. I can see where it would be a good book for someone with the time and inclination to do gourmet cooking, though, and it does provide a lot of nutritional information and tips.