Slow and Easy: Fast-Fix Recipes for Your Electric Slow Cooker [Paperback]

Natalie Haughton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2008

Slow cookers are incredibly popular among home cooks, and with good reason -- easy to use and cost, time, and energy-efficient, slow cookers are an ideal way to get dinner on the table fast. This book will provide slow cooker aficionados with expert advice on choosing the right slow cooker, tips on ideal foods for slow cooking, and of course, a wide range of great-tasting recipes.Whether you're a busy working parent cooking for a family or a hostess preparing make-ahead appetizers for a party, there's no question that the slow cooker makes preparing any meal quick and hassle-free. Haughton includes chapters on Appetizers, Dips, and Drinks; Soups and Chowders; Pasta and Pasta Sauces; Chicken and Turkey; Beef, Pork, and Lamb; One-Pot Meals; Vegetables and Sides; Breakfast and Brunch; Preserves, Chutneys, and Salsas; and Great Slow Cooker Desserts. The huge range of recipes highlights the versatility of the slow cooker -- there are 253 recipes in all, for tempting dishes such as Hot Artichoke Dip, Sweet Corn Chowder, No-Fuss Lasagna, Turkey Mole, Hungarian Goulash, French Toast Casserole, and Chocolate Creme Brulee. All the recipes include straightforward instructions and call for basic, fresh ingredients, and most dishes require only one pot to prepare. With expert advice on all things slow cooker and recipes for beloved classics and innovative new dishes, Slow and Easy is a must-have for every slow cooker devotee.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Ultimate Slow Cooker Cookbook

If you're looking for new ways to make the most of your slow cooker, you've come to the right place. Natalie Haughton shares more than 250 delicious, no-fuss recipes that take slow cooker meals to a whole new level—and make the slow cooker your most valuable kitchen appliance. Soups, stews, and braises are the slow cooker's greatest hits, and Haughton gives you lots of fresh ideas to add zip to these old favorites. Her recipes feature vibrant international flavors and popular contemporary ingredients, including a whole chapter of vegetable, bean, and whole grain dishes. You'll never run out of crowd-pleasing dinner choices!

But Haughton also takes your slow cooker to places it doesn't often go. You'll discover how to produce complete pasta dinners—like lasagna and mac and cheese—as well as salsas and preserves. And for dessert, prepare to be amazed. You'll find more than 30 ways to indulge your sweet tooth. Best of all, Haughton keeps her recipes simple, with no advance browning or other time-consuming steps in most recipes. Complete with "Tricks of the Trade"to ensure perfect results every time, Slow & Easy is the one cookbook you need for a lifetime of great slow cooker meals.

More than 250 great recipes

Appetizers, Dips, and Drinks

• Greek Spinach Dip

• Cheese Fondue Stuffed Bread

• BBQ Chicken Wings

• Rich Hot Chocolate

• And 22 more

Soups and Chowders

• French Onion Soup

• Ribollita

• Mexican Turkey Tortilla Soup

• Shrimp Chowder

• And 20 more

Pasta and Pasta Sauces

• Gorgonzola and Walnut Ravioli Bolognese

• Wild Mushroom Sauce with Pancetta and Rosemary

• And 13 more

• chicken, turkey, and seafood

• Pulled Barbecued Chicken

• Lemony Chicken with Olives and Capers

• Turkey Molé

• And 23 more

Beef, Pork, and Lamb

• Thai-Style Beef with Peanut Sauce

• Easy Black Bean Chili with Beer

• Asian-Style Country Ribs

• And 36 more

One-pot Meals

• Hungarian Goulash

• Sweet-and-Sour Pineapple Chicken

• Red Lentil and Vegetable Curry

• And 21 more

Vegetables, Grains, and Side Dishes

• Curried Cauliflower with Potatoes and Peas

• Artichoke-Parmesan Risotto

• And 38 more

Breakfast and Brunch

• Overnight Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Bananas

• Ham and Cheese Brunch Strata

• And 14 more

Preserves, Chutneys, and Salsas

• Apricot-Pineapple Jam

• Maple-Pumpkin Butter

• Mango-

• Ginger Chutney

• Corn and Black Bean Salsa

• And 7 more

• great slow cooker desserts

• Warm Chocolate Lava Cake

• Pineapple-Coconut-Macadamia Cheesecake

• And 30 more

About the Author

Natalie Haughton has been food editor at the Los Angeles Daily News for more than 25 years and is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, including The Best Slow Cooker Cookbook Ever. Her food columns appear in newspapers nationally, and she has won numerous awards for her food writing. Her Web site is nataliehaughton.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (December 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470229403
• ISBN-13: 978-0470229408
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #435,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Neither Slow Nor Easy, October 29, 2011

By 

Poniplaizy (Mount Joy, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slow and Easy: Fast-Fix Recipes for Your Electric Slow Cooker (Paperback)

I've owned a crock pot for approximately 30 years, and I find it invaluable for a few things, like beans, certain soups, and pot roast. However, this means that most of the time it sits there unused, and I thought surely there must be more I could be doing with it than checking every so often that the lid is stored partway off the liner.

So I read through the reviews and decided to buy this cookbook. While I can't fault the author for her sincerity and desire to (a)expand uses for the slow cooker and (b)streamline wherever possible, I just didn't find that the recipes and techniques were really any simpler or faster than stovetop or oven cooking.

If your vision of crock pot cooking is "throw the stuff in before I leave for work and then take it out when I get back," this is not the cookbook for you. Only a tiny fraction of the recipes cook longer than a few hours. To me this does not make sense, since I could cook them on the stove in the same amount of time and with, quite frankly, a better flavor. The crock pot's major limitation--that stews and soups come out watery and insipid--is very apparent in this comparison. The recipes that I tried had this problem, and one (polenta) didn't turn out at all.

Another problem is that each recipe calls for a different size or shape cooker. So if you see a recipe you like, you must read carefully, and then, if necessary, scale back the ingredients to fit the size cooker you have. My arithmetic is good, but calculating quantities to 2/3 to fit a 6-quart recipe in my 4-quart cooker isn't something I really want to do when it's time to assemble a recipe.

I would say if you are interested in using your slow cooker in a greater variety of ways, and you are home all day to make recipes that only cook for several hours, this book might be for you. If you were hoping for a bunch of new "set it and forget it" recipes, then this is definitely not the book you want.

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars slow pot cooking, May 16, 2010

By 

Mary K. Lowe "maklow" (Indiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Slow and Easy: Fast-Fix Recipes for Your Electric Slow Cooker (Paperback)

I enjoy cooking with the slow cooker. This is an excellent book with many easy recipes. If you like good, easy to put together, meals this is a good cookbook to have on your bookshelf.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Culinary Adventure!, January 3, 2011

By 

E. Willi - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Slow and Easy: Fast-Fix Recipes for Your Electric Slow Cooker (Paperback)

"Slow & Easy" has been a fast-fix for my family's mealtimes, which had hit the doldrums of SOS "Same-Ol'-Stuff". Now, armed with our first slow cooker [an oval 6-Quart Crock Pot SCCPTM600S with manual settings] and this cookbook, we have a spirit of adventure in the kitchen again. Who would have thought of doing Ginger Bread in a slow cooker?! I did the Pot Roast, too, and bought Cauliflower today to do the curried Cauliflower with potatoes and peas. So many interesting recipes to try! Beautifully designed and printed book. This like any other cookbook depends to a certain extent on the ingredients used; for example, the first time I did the whole chicken recipe (doing one chicken, not two), it came out beautifully -- almost like oven baked. The next time I used a different brand whole chicken, which apparently had a high water content, and it turned out a non-appetizing boiled mess.