Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Incredible meals and extra easy dishes that taste like they're made from scratch

• 120 recipes including chili, hearty soups and stews, one-pot meals, five-ingredient dishes, and slow-cooked desserts
• Tips and hints on how to reinvent slow cooker leftovers and cut fat and calories from comfort food favorites
• Deliciously simple recipes and suggestions for entertaining groups while taking it easy on the cook

About the Author

Sandra Lee is an internationally acclaimed Lifestylist and New York Times best-selling author. She is the premier authority of Semi-Homemade cooking—a quick and easy method of food preparation where nothing is made from scratch, but everything tastes homemade.
“My first book, Semi-Homemade Cooking, was not just a labor of love for me, but an expansion of my philosophy.… I feel fortunate that it has been so embraced by the public.”—Sandra Lee

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (November 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0696232642
• ISBN-13: 978-0696232640
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,043 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #35 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques
  #47 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Appliances
  #77 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Quick & Easy

• This item is part of The Semi-Homemade Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I like it!, December 17, 2006

By	lovestoread - See all my reviews

I will admit to avoiding these books like the plague for a long time. I wouldn't even flip through them to look at the pictures until my mom finally talked me into it. I love the photos. That right there will sell me on any cookbook, but I also like the lay out. I wish Rachael Ray would do the same thing. I think I'd like her books a lot more if they had photos like these do. Anyway, I ended up buying the slow cooker, the 20 minute meals and the grilling book. I took them home and spent a lot of time looking at the photos and reading each recipe and realized these are my new favorite cookbooks. I do cheat, I cut up my own onions, I make my own potatoes and sweet potatoes instead of using canned and pre-packaged ones, I grate my own cheese, and I try to use fresh ingredients over the pre-packaged, which I know defeats the purpose of the cookbook, but the recipes are right there with my own taste buds that its worth the extra time to make as many of the ingredients I can from scratch. I ended up buying all of the books and will continue collecting these as long as she prints them, and as long as they stay the same with the color photos and nice lay outs.

I love the sweet potato sheppards pie. That has to be my favorite so far, though I have enjoyed everything I have made.

I wish I hadn't been so stubborn for so long and found these books sooner. They are great, and remember, just because she says to buy pre-made mashed potatoes doesn't mean we can't make our own without all the added preservatives and junk, or that we can't cut op our own onions, etc. The options are there to help us save time, but if we have time, we can use fresh ingredients in place of pre-packaged.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why did I wait so long?, January 19, 2007

By	Tab "Tabitha" (Bangor, ME) - See all my reviews

I Love this book. Love it with a capital 'L'!! It's got a great sampling of recipes and ingredients. I'm a big fan of the 5 ingredients chapter. It makes it easy where I'm a fresh out of college student so I don't have to buy all kinds of stuff for one meal. I was also amazed by the desserts you can make in the crock pot (Hot Cocoa Cake looks sinfully delicious--mmmmm!) Sandra Lee also put in some helpful hints and tips about using a crock pot that you may not know if you're a first time user or haven't used one in a long time. She addresses issues that affect both the new digital crockpots and the ones that just have a knob for off, low and high settings. I was impressed with the section that also doubles as a casserole section. I never thought about using the stoneware (if you have a removable stoneware of your crock) to double as a casserole dish....so many new ideas! One thing I recommend (and I saw this on her show) is to spray the inside of your crockpot with non stick cooking spray every time you use it and it'll never be a nightmare to clean again! It's worked every time for me.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book but some things needed to be tested before published!, December 22, 2006

By	A. Darling "darlingswe" (Seattle, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I decided to pull the ol' crock pot out again when I went back to work full time. I thought the whole point of slow cooking is to multi task and who does short cuts better than Sandra Lee?

I agree with much in the other reviews such as the great photos. I also like her tips up front especially that slow cookers don't evaporate liquid like stove top so be sure to lighten the liquid measures when converting recipes to the crockpot. I do wish she would have written a little more of an introduction about each dish or how she came up with it, etc.

The Lamb Shanks and Canellini were wonderful! The Lamb with Pomegranate, OK. But I do like a lot of her ideas. One idea that DID NOT work out, as another review pointed out is RICE. YOU CANNOT MAKE RISOTTO WITH A SLOW COOKER. EVER.

I knew in my heart, or else why would cooks bother standing stove side stirring, stirring, stirring, their risottos? My Fig, Arugula and Bleu Cheese Risotto turned out like one big vat on sticky rice, a glutinous mess! I am certain if it had been made the old fashioned way it would have been delicious. Why were these rice recipes not tried out in a test kitchen? That's why I'm deducting one star.

By the way, a bonus to this book are casserole recipes. I have made the Tamale Bake so EASY and so good.