Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series) [Paperback]

Beth Hensperger (Author), Julie Kaufmann (Author)

Book Description

Series: NYM Series | Publication Date: December 21, 2004

The slow cooker is perfect for today's lifestyle, in which everyone is time- and energy-conscious, economy-wise, concerned about nutrition, and demanding of great flavor. This book offers a way of traditional cooking that's new and fresh.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to the authors, 80% of American households own a slow cooker. This whopping collection of 350 recipes is reason enough to unearth that Crock-Pot from the attic or invest in one of the new high-tech models. The title, however, is a misnomer, and not just because the book includes a recipe for "Mom's Beef Stew." Much of what Hensperger (The Bread Bible) and Kaufmann (coauthor, with Hensperger, of The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook) present is exactly the kind of comfort food typically associated with childhood snow days or family gatherings. To use the word "hearty" in describing these recipes is to state the obvious. There are more than a dozen oatmeals and porridges, ranging from Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal to Creamy Cornmeal Porridge. Soups include Vegetarian Split Pea, French Onion, and White Bean with Bacon. Twenty-four types of baked beans are mere prelude for the 14 chili options, including "Senator Barry Goldwater's Arizona Chili" (which gives new meaning to the phrase "bowl of red"). Other recipes are for poultry, meat and fish dishes, and New and Old World dishes are plentiful. The only letdown is the "Not-from-the-Slow Cooker Accompaniments" chapter, with its uninspired choices like Baked Rice, and Mixed Green Salad. But the concluding pages, full of puddings and fruit desserts, atone with sinful treats like Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Cake and Rum-Butterscotch Bananas. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

A treasure trove exploring all the potential available in a slow cooker pot. -- Library Bookwatch

A wide range of sound recipes and advice for every meal . . . A comprehensive and multicultural guide back to slow food. -- San Francisco Chronicle

Gives slow cooking a hip new twist. -- Slow Cooking (Woman's Day special)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (December 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558322450
• ISBN-13: 978-1558322455
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (195 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Appliances

More About the Author

Beth Hensperger, a New Jersey-born who now considers herself a California native, has been educating, writing, and demo-lecturing about the art of baking bread and cooking for thirty years. In the last few years, she has shifted focus from baking bread to countertop appliance-driven cookbooks that embrace the use of seasonal ingredients, merge convenience with cooking from scratch, and modernizing the home kitchen: the bread machine, the rice cooker, the microwave oven, and now a four-volume compilation specifically for use with the electric slow cooker, stressing care in preparation and personal creativity.

Hensperger's writing career began when she was chosen as the guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appétit. Now she is the author of over twenty cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook series, which includes Not Your Mother's Recipes for Entertaining, Not Your Mother's Family Favorites, Not Your Mother's Weeknight Suppers, and NYMSC Recipes for Two along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Also from The Harvard Common Press are The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, and The Best Quick Breads. She is also the author of The Bread Bible, winner of the 2000 James Beard Book Award in Baking, and nominated twice for an IACP Cookbook Award.

Hensperger wrote a food column, "Baking with the Seasons," for the San Jose Mercury News (which was nominated for a James Beard Award in newspaper journalism) for over 12 years until the newspaper downsized.

She is a contributor to dozens of national and online cooking & lifestyle magazines, such as Food and Wine, Rachel Ray Magazine, Prevention, Veggie Life, Working Woman, Family Circle, and Cooking.com, as well as being a sought after radio interviewee speaking on cooking, baking, and entertaining. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Visit Beth's website at BethHensperger.com and her weekly blog at notyourmotherscookbooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

505 of 510 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow cooker cooking without canned or packaged foods!, June 24, 2005

By 

A GOOD FIND (Greater Indy Area, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series) (Paperback)

I love my crockpots (I have two oval ones in different sizes). I have several crockpot cookbooks in my bookshelf and have also read many others which I borrowed from the library. After reading these books, I came to a sad conconclustion that most people who use crockpot are not "real cooks" from many cookbook authors assumption; they write books for those who use a crockpot to make "canned soup+meat+frozen/canned veggie dishes."
I like quick and easy dishes and use canned soup occasionally but I don't want them to be the main item of my cooking.

With this thought, I was surfing the net a couple of days ago hoping to find a crockpot cookbook using fresh wholesome food and I came across this book.

The authors of this book created crockpot recipes for a cook like me (if you agree to my comment above, you will be happy to see this book!). After I read a couple of reviews by other Amazon users and bought this book (along with the Gourmet Slow Cooker Cookbook) from Amazon.

Yes, it requires more prep time and more ingredients but isn't it worth making that much efforts for healthier and tastier meals?! YES!!

Also, most ingredients appeared in this book are common items in my kitchen.

The only minus (4 stars istead of 5 stars) is the lack of photos of the recipes. I read cookbooks for plesure and those sumptuous looking photos are important to me. I know it makes the book more expensive if you have photos but it would be great if there are several pages of photos under each category to show how good these dishes look! I would definitely pay several more dollars for the photos for this book!

224 of 225 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will fall in love again with your crockpot!, November 19, 2005

By 

Chris (Cerritos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series) (Paperback)

I love cookbooks and I love to cook. Until now my least favorite cookbooks have been my crockpot books. BORING! So my crockpot only gets pulled out when I need to cook a pot of beans or take something to a potluck. What a shame. I mean, what could be more convenient, safe, and economical than cooking with an appliance that you can leave unattended for hours and that doesn't heat your whole kitchen?

"Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook" is facinating and exciting. Why? Because of so many healthful, whole grain ideas, such as the "From the Porridge Pot" and "Rice and Other Grains" chapters. And soups! We will be eating soup all winter....I can't wait to try all of the recipes included in this section, including all of the stock recipes (chicken, turkey, beef, vegetable, and variations). From my bookshelves full of cookbooks, this has taken its place as one of my top two or three favorite cookbooks.

This cookbook is substantial, with over 500 pages of recipes and slow cooker how-to. Casseroles, poultry, beef, pork, fish, side dishes, stews and desserts are all included. The only pictures are on the front and back covers. They are beautiful and I do wish there were a few more pictures included.

It has been a while since I have been this excited about a cookbook (quite an accomplishment, as I do get quite excited about cookbooks). I wish there were a forum where I could read reviews of the various recipes, just to help me decide which recipe I will try next! Highly recommend.

391 of 401 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Primer, Lots of Good Recipes, March 29, 2005

By 

CMCM (Nevada City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook (NYM Series) (Paperback)

This is a great book for those new to slow cookers, or for those who have previously been disappointed with slow cooker recipes. The first 20 pages offer a solid body of information about all things pertaining to slow cooking: What is slow cooking? About the stoneware insert; Slow cooker shapes & sizes; how to use the new "smart pots"; temperature settings; breaking in a new pot; high altitude slow cooking; the basic "rules" of slow cooking; cooking times; adapting conventional recipes; useful cooking techniques, and more. Each section of recipes includes a nice introductory informational section, and each individual recipe has some introductory information as well. Recipe groups include soups, veggie stews, side dishes, a rice section, and there's a whole section on cooking various types of porridge...cinnamon apple oatmeal, overnight steel-cut oatmeal, maple oatmeal with dried fruit & spices, and various other grain type porridge recipes. Put all the ingredients in the pot at night before going to bed, and wake up to warm, creamy porridge of one type or another. Each recipe indicates number of servings, general type of crockpot to use, and cooking time. My main complaint, and the reason I can't give this 5 stars, is that nutritional information is not given for any of the recipes. Also, a minor layout complaint is that sometimes a recipe will start on one page and finish up on the next so you have to turn the page to see the rest of it. I would prefer to see one recipe per page. Other than these two things, this is a good cookbook with a nice selection of recipes, and definitely very useful for someone new to slow cooking as it will familiarize you with all the techniques necessary to successful slow cooking.