Customer Reviews

Slow Cooker Ready & Waiting: 160 Sumptuous Meals That Cook Themselves

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Being a fan of Rick Rodgers (Thanksgiving 101 and Pressure Cooking for Everyone), I nevertheless held out from buying this book because of the polarized reviews. My old slow cooker, one of the nonstick pot sitting on a warming base types, recently died and although I don't do a lot of cooking of this type, I wanted to replace it with an upscale model. I purchased a Rival Smart-Pot that allows you to press the cooking time and temperature and walk away. Sooo...I decided to give this book a try. I find myself agreeing with the 'dump chili' crowd who cite the extensive amount of prep that goes into the recipes and also with the 'kitchen guru' group that praise the book for the results achieved from that much labor. For my first meal, I made the 'Bistro Beef Bourguignon' and I spent the better part of an hour putting the recipe together. Eight hours later, the house filled with the simmering aroma of wine, beef, onions, garlic and spices, I knew without tasting that this was going to be outstanding. This was without a doubt one of the best stews I have ever attempted. Subsequent to the Bourguignon, I have made the Pumpkin Bread and the Hot Fudge Spoonbread. All I can offer to describe them is 'Yum'.
To be honest, I don't see this as a book that I would use during the week. It just takes too much time to build each meal. But I like to cook on weekends so that I can take something other than a cold sandwich to work. Reheating the Beef Bourguignon in a Tupperware container in the microwave almost got me tossed out of the teacher's room at my school. And like most stews, it tasted even better the second day.
I guess my advice would be thus: If you view a slow cooker as a 'toss it in and turn it on' appliance, give this book a pass. But if you don't mind taking some time to achieve a scrumptious result, this book will delight you.

This is a terrific cookbook for all of us who were seriously traumatized by slow-cooked slabs of gray meat in 1972. Unlike other crock pot cookbooks, the emphasis here is on taste first and then convenience. Yes, you'll probably spend a bit more time prepping ingredients (though not more than 30 minutes), but the payoff comes in great tasting meals that don't look as if they came from a penitentiary cafeteria.

Yes, some of the recipes DO take some time, and others take less, but there's plenty of variety here for everyone. Rodgers often recommends taking certain additional preparation steps, and that's what makes his recipes SOOOOOOO much better than some of the awful things that a few of the manufacturers have published. I especially like Hot Fudge Spooncake, and prepare it regularly--it's great to come home to the smell of of freshly baked dessert! For those recipes that require a precise cooking time, I just use a $4 lamp and appliance timer that I picked up at my local hardware store to turn the pot on while I'm at work--problem solved! Now that I have this book, my slow cooker stays on top of the counter and gets a regular work out.

Well thank you. FINALLY a cookbook with recipes and techniques for the slow cooker that yields excellent vs. mediocre results. It is rare that I write a book review (despite buying most of my books through Amazon) and even rarer that I truly hope the author might sometimes log on and read his Amazon.com reviews, but I really hope Rick that you do! Just so I can say thank you. I cook a lot but I work long hours. I cook and bake and I have high expectations and most of what I do is from scratch, without skimping on prep or method. . . and the busier my workload has become this past year, the more desperately I wanted to be able to use my crock pots to make those "delicious one pot meals" that so many books and recipes and websites rave about . . only when I made them, they tasted .....strange...or bland....or just plain -- well, mediocre. Even when I tried to do some things like reduce/thicken the sauces, it just wasn't enough. After 20 years of cooking, creating and baking in my kitchen I can honestly say I believe the crock pot is the HARDEST appliance to get excellent results from - until I bought this book I had only five good recipes (all of them that I'd made up myself) for my crockpots and about 8 crockpot books - all of which had sounded great but yielded substandard results. This one is so different. It is about time. And if you're one of those cooks who wants to just do the minimum, throwing ingredients in at 7am and slopping them out at 7pm without regard to the basics of the cooking methods necessary to yield tasty good quality meals, you'll not want this book. It's like cookware - if you're more interested in how easy it is to cleanup your pots and pans vs. the actual results of the food that is cooked in them, then stick with the low budget teflon t-fal stuff.....same concept.

If you're a frustrated semi-gourmet type cook wishing those darn slow cookers lived up to all they claim but never getting decent results, you'll love this book. I do think the book should be retitled though - to something that reflects that this book holds to a higher standard.

When I got my first slow cooker recently, I had no idea how to use it, so I set off to find a book to get me started. I had always looked down on slow cookers, primarily because I always associated them with Campbells "cream of" soup cooking. This book impressed me because the recipes are healthier and more sophisticated than the other books I looked at.
So far, I have made 6 recipes from the book. All have been good and some really delicious. I made very good veal stew and pot roast and some decent pasta sauce. Right now I have his beef chili simmering away and it smells fantastic. Here are some of the negatives:
*There is some minimal prep work involved in most of his dishes, such as browing the meat, sometimes sauteeing onions and vegetables, etc. This is not really a downside for me, as I think it is ridiculous to expect to be able to just toss things in a pot and have a dish come out well. The prep work doesn't usually take more than 15 minutes or so, and that is time that I will gladly put in to improving the quality of my meal.
*Many of the dishes are, to my tastes, underseasoned. The spicy dishes are not hot enough, garlicy dishes need more garlic, etc. If you have a bolder palate, you will need to learn to adjust the seasonings. I don't consider this a real downside to the book either, as I bought the book more to learn slow cooker technique.
*Almost all of the recipes in the book are geared to a 3 1/2 quart cooker. Most cookers sold these days are larger-- mine, and the ones I mostly see in the stores, are 6 quart. So the timing he uses in the book will ususally have to be adjusted for a larger cooker, sometimes as much as a few additional hours in my case.
But despite these drawbacks, I like the book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for some tasty slow cooker recipes or pointers on technique, and won't freak out spending a few minutes on prep work. If you are new to slow cooking like me, after trying a few of these recipes and understanding the methods involved, you will be much better equipped to branch out on your own and become creative with your own recipes, too.

Every time I use this cookbook, my husband says, "Gee, you're a good cook!"
Rick Rodgers has been one of my favorite cookbook authors ever since I stumbled on his Christmas 101 several years ago. That and his companion volume, Thanksgiving 101, are my favorite cookbooks for year-round entertaining, and the best cookbook bargains around. His recipes are interesting and innovative without being in any way fussy or pretentious, and I thoroughly enjoy his writing style--amusing, candid about his own successes and failures in the kitchen, and full of a deep understanding of the connection among food, the rituals of life, and our relationships with family and friends. So I was excited to see that he had written a slow cooker cookbook. I am one of those who has never been satisfied with slow cooker recipes. I got married in the mid-1970's, the heyday of the slow cooker, and I thought it was a great concept. After a few disappointing meals, my new husband asked me to cool it."This seems like a lot of effort for something that tastes like it came off a cafeteria steam table." I had to agree--slow cooker food tasted blah, the texture of the meats was unappealing, and often everything ended up swimming in watery liquid with a thick layer of grease on the top. Yuck.
Rick's recipes have been a revelation to me. It should be moderately obvious that browning meat and sauteing onions and garlic before putting them in the crockpot would greatly improve the results, but somehow I had never figured this out! His suggestions for even cooking of chicken parts--stack them with the dark meat on the bottom--produce perfect results. I have made The Pot Roast, the coq au vin, the Good Woman's Chicken Pot Roast, the Chinese Country Style Ribs, the Potatoes Euphoria, the Spaghetti with Herbed Tomato Sauce and Parmesan Meatballs and the Hot Fudge Spooncake. All came out great. The prep time was not excessive, nor was the last-minute work. Before reducing or thickening the sauce, I remove the meat and vegetables to an oven-proof platter, cover them with foil and put them in a 200 degree oven while I finish the meal. It couldn't be easier. There are dozens more recipes I want to try, and intend to make my holiday turkey stock in the slow cooker as Rick advises.
These recipes open up a whole new world for serious cooks who want to take advantage of the convenience of a slow cooker without sacrificing good food. Great job, Rick!

For slow cooker cookbooks I have this one and Fix it and Forget it. Of the 2 I vastly prefer this one. The added preparation is worth the extra taste. I also find that the ingredients in this book are much, much healthier. Many readers criticise that the extra preparation negates the advantage of a slow cooker. My answer is "Don't do it -- just follow the ingredients". IF you don't brown the meat or reduce your sauce it still tastes good, but not as good as if you had. If you have the time, then reduce the sauce, or whatever. In either case, you have a healthier meal than adding 1 cup of Velveeta cheese and a can of cream of mushroom soup. I regard the advantage of using a slow cooker as not so much saving overall time, but moving my preparation and cooking time to a better time for me. Hence I am spending 1/2 hour in the morning preparing dinner and it cooks all day. Otherwise I would be spending 1/2 hour when I get home from work, then it has to cook and I don't eat until 7:30 or 8:00.

So I bought a new crockpot after 20 years of not using one. I went to B&N and looked at every slow cooker book on the shelf, and brought home about 6 of the ones that looked the best, including this one, which has turned out to be my favorite of them all in terms of the recipes. The prep time is often a lot more than with other slow cooker books. But the returns of some extra work are enormous in terms of flavor. The philosophy here is not to have prep speed a priority, it's not the "dump everything in and cook all day" type of cookbook. The goal is to use certain cooking principles (pre-browning meat and sometimes veggies, etc.) and then take advantage of the slow cooking technique to bring out all the flavors. My top favorite recipe is the exquisite Bistro Beef Bourguignon, and the prep time took a full hour. But oh, my, the taste of this dish is not to be believed and this is a dish worthy of serving to guests. So what if it took an hour? You do that in the morning, and by evening you have a meal fit for a king! I take notes on and "rate" every recipe I try, and this book is getting filled with superlatives. I haven't made an uninteresting recipe yet....everything has been delicious and worth making over and over again...the Farmhouse Beef & Vegetable Stew, Beef Stroganoff, Summer Garden Vegetarian Minestrone (I made the Vegetarian Stock the day before in the crockpot, and used it the following day as the base for the Summer Garden Minestrone recipe...fabulous!), Little Italy Chicken Cacciatore, Moroccan Chicken & Vegetable Stew....well, the recipe list goes on and on. I highly recommend this book as an addition to your slow cooker cookbook library. Like with me, it will undoubtedly become the one you reach for when you want to make an exceptional crockpot meal.

As a person who frequently purchases cookbooks, I was hesitant to buy another bad cookbook, especially for slow cookers. So, after reading a couple reviews mentioning prep work before putting the food into the cooker, I hesitated. But, after giving it some thought, I realized that I had never purchased a good slow cooker book. So, I put it on my birthday wish list, and low and behold, it was lovingly wrapped for me!!!

The first dish I tried was the Asian Pork Ribs. Yum! The recipe required that you broil the ribs for 10 minutes and mix a couple ingredients before putting in the cooker. The ribs came out tender and juicy.

This past weekend, I was planning what I would bring with me to an "Post New Year" type party. I looked through a couple cookbooks. I thought I would be adventurous and try another slow cooker recipe from my cookbook. BBQ beef seems to always be a hit, so I headed to the market early and picked up what I needed. I caramelized the onion and mixed the other ingredients. In all, it took about 15 minutes. I put everything in the cooker (without doctoring up the recipe with additional ingredients). 8 hours later.... out came the most tender, delicious beef. No additional ingredients were needed.

From what I've read and experienced myself, there is no possible way you can produce a quality slow cooker meal without at least ten minutes prep before the beef/chicken/pork is put in. It's not possible. Otherwise, half the veggies won't taste right or the food will taste bland. And if you think about it, if the food comes out ho-hum at the end of it's cooking cycle, you'll spend valuable time once the meat is done trying to fix it up.

I'll be honest, this book is great. It's easy to follow, you can find all the ingredients in your cabinet (without having to shop at Fante's or the like to find all the ingredients if they were gourmet), and the product you make is definitely worth the effort. And, he explains where everything comes from. His book doesn't just give you a tireless amount of recipes. Your family and friends won't be disappointed.

I received a slow cooker as a wedding gift three years ago, and considered giving it away since I had nothing but negative associations that stemmed largely from memories of 1970s childhood "crockpot" meals--all of which invariably included the likes of cream-of-whatever soup, processed cheese products, and canned vegetables. However, I decided to give the newly acquired apparatus a try and went to Amazon.com to search for a cookbook designed especially for this type of cooking. Based on the reviews on the website, I purchased Rick Rodgers's book because it seemed to be the one most geared toward people who actually enjoy cooking, appreciate good food, and, most importantly, who did not want to consume the often unhealthy ingredients called for by most slow cooker recipes. All of that said, this is one of my most consistently used cookbooks--and I own at least thirty. I usually prefer to cook Asian food, particularly Indian and Thai, but when I want to cook more "classic" recipes, such as roasts and stews, I always find myself returning to Rodgers's book. His recipes call for lots of fresh, easily obtainable ingredients and the prep work is minimal considering the quality of the final product. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone one who is looking to use a slow cooker but who has been put off by the "dump and stew" methods typically offered by other books.