[.ca] The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes (ISBN 0778800415)

A great slow cooker recipe book for adventurous cooks:
If you're a purist about using *just* the slow cooker, even though the browning step produces more intense and balanced flavours and only one extra item to clean, this book isn't for you. If you aren't interested in a mixture of English/North American standards along with a number of spicy recipes (Korean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Hungarian, etc.), or if you will have a difficult time finding the ingredients because your supermarkets has a limited selection, this book may not be for you. But if you love a variety of national cuisines and can get the ingredients, you'll love this book. The Easy Chicken Paprikash (using canned soups and sweet paprika, easy to find anywhere) was amazing. The New Potato Curry (using curry powder available in any supermarket, although I made up my own mixture) was wonderful, even though I left out the fresh cilantro as I didn't have any on hand. Time required to clean the cast iron skillet for each recipe: 30 seconds. There are a lot of slow cooker recipe books out there with great recipes for beans, stews, and soups. Get one of those if all you want to make are those great standards. Keep in mind, though, that you will find similar recipes in this book, such as Bakers' Potatoes with Onions, Creamed Onions, Shredded Chicken for tacos and sandwiches (no pre-browning!), Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole, Homestyle Chicken with Gingersnap Gravy, Pork Ribs and Beans, Pork Chops with Onions in Mustard Sauce, Pot Roast with Tomato or Gingersnap Gravy, Beef Noodle Casserole with Cheddar-Crumb Topping, Meat Loaf, Southwestern Brisket, Shepherd's Pie, Swiss Steak, Smothered Steak, Chicken Fried Steak, Mushroom Barley Soup, Black Bean Soup, and Seafood Gumbo. But you'll also get Indonesian and Spicy Chinese Chicken, Chicken and turkey curries (spicy and mellow), Caribbean Pork Roast with Rum, Portuguese Pork with Clams, Pork Vindaloo, Morroccan Lamb, Lamb Keema and Korma, Greek Beef Stew with Onions and Feta Cheese, Korean Style Short Ribs, Osso Bucco, Potato and Cauliflower Dahl, and Caribbean Pepper Pot Soup. If you're counting, that's nowhere near 150 recipes yet. And did I mention the desserts? Flans, crips, cobblers, custards, pudding, cake and, yes, cheesecake. This is a great book. If you want to move beyond the standards, here's your chance!

"In a skillet..." defeats the purpose of a slow cooker:
This lavishly illustrated, obviously well-researched cookbook suffers from a mistake so fundamental that it veers into self-parody: at least 95% of the recipes (I'm not exaggerating - I checked) start with or contain the phrase "In a skillet..." What is the point of using a slow cooker if I have to haul out a skillet first? I mean, if I'm going to have to tangle with the skillet, I might as well skip the slow cooker and use the Le Creuset dutch oven. Since I can brown and simmer in one pot, I save on clean-up. This author clearly cares deeply about her cooking. But she's insane. The slow cooker is helpful because you can dump everything in at once, turn it on - and forget about it. Once you turn the stove on, you're not in slow-cooker country anymore. I'm sure many of her recipes produce lovely results. But that's not the point: they don't keep within the limitations of the device they're supposedly written for. That means they're useless. Even if you're e.e. cummings, you don't produce free verse when a sonnet is required.

Excellent book for the slow cooker cook:
I actually returned a newer text because I saw this one a day later and preferred it. This book has the right mix between newer and more "progressive" recipes and the good old mainstream dishes you'll want to make every week. The pictures are a real help--they make you want to try certain recipes. So far I have slightly tweaked every recipe I've made from this book (as any good home cook will do)--and everything has come out perfectly. I am still looking for some really baisc items like how to cook dried beans. The book has bean recipes, but I want the "skeleton" recipe I can plug my own ingredients into. I guess that will come with experience. I disagree with another reviewer about the necessity for multiple crock pots...it might help to have multiple units, but you'll do fine with any pot 5qt and larger.

Some unusual recipes:
Clear directions, good photos, and some good basic recipes make this a fairly good cookbook. Many of the recipes, however, have unusual/exotic ingredients that the average person would not have on hand. Personally, I would have preferred for the majority of recipes to use more basic/easy-to-find ingredients.

From dips and main dishes to desserts and even roasts:
From dips and main dishes to desserts and even roasts, 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes packs in a range of tips and recipes for using the slow cooker to maximum effect. Add color photos of finished results and tips on using different sizes and shapes of slow cooker and you have a guide which is appealing and delicious.