Rating: 
Summary: The World's Best Vanilla Ice Cream
Review: ... I was excited to find a slow cooker book that did not use canned soup or onion soup mix and was willing to put put in some extra prep time up front for a superior meal. While I greatly enjoyed browsing through the book, I found actually using it to produce hit and miss results. So far the score is Hits-1, Misses - 3. Extremely disappointing given the amount of time I invested in prep work. I have found several misprints e.g. cook on high, instead of low; incorrect measurments for ingredents, which definitly contributed to the poor results. A large percentage of the recipes are for duck which we don't eat. Given I fell "victim" to the missprints in the chicken and beef recipes, I don't have the confidence to swap other items for the duck. This book may be wonderful for very experienced cooks who require a recipe only to obtain a bit of inspiration but it was a disappointment for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Sounds Good - But turns out to be disappointing
Review: ... I was excited to find a slow cooker book that did not use canned soup or onion soup mix and was willing to put put in some extra prep time up front for a superior meal. While I greatly enjoyed browsing through the book, I found actually using it to produce hit and miss results. So far the score is Hits-1, Misses - 3. Extremely disappointing given the amount of time I invested in prep work. I have found several misprints e.g. cook on high, instead of low; incorrect measurments for ingredents, which definitly contributed to the poor results. A large percentage of the recipes are for duck which we don't eat. Given I fell "victim" to the missprints in the chicken and beef recipes, I don't have the confidence to swap other items for the duck. This book may be wonderful for very experienced cooks who require a recipe only to obtain a bit of inspiration but it was a disappointment for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Fancy, quick, time-shifted cuisine
Review: Background (why you might care what I think): I love/live to cook without deadlines and time limits, but I am also extremely busy, so I finally bought a slow cooker to save time, sure, but also to time-shift my prep time, so that my family could eat Boeuf Bourguignon on Wednesdays, at 7pm, without also having to go visit their daddy in the psych ward at 8pm. All of the slow cooker books I found at first called for (always): frozen vegetables; (often) cans of soup; (far too often) "liquid smoke." Sure, I tried them, and some were certainly teenager-pleasing, and weirdly interesting in their own way, but I would prefer a little less convenience in exchange for more authentic recipes. So, this book delivers exactly that. As I write, my family is collapsed in a heap after GORGING on Ms. Brody's bourguignon. It took me a full hour to prep, but next time I'll save 20 minutes and considerable mess by browning the meat before marinating (I'll also double the recipe!) Over time, I'll doubtless make other changes until I get the recipe exactly the way I want it, but that is true of any recipe in any cookbook. Too many duck recipes? This is a cookbook, not the Constitution! I've made two of the duck recipes so far, with no sighting of an actual duck anywhere, and I've been delighted with both. So, this is a nice little book, full of welcome ideas. However, when one can get (say) 400+ pages of Daniel Boulud for about the same price, it becomes a rather expensive, slim volume. I have lived with it for a month now, and I am nonetheless quite happy with it. What follows are some of my further observations: The "Pantry" section is excellent, probably the core of the book. The black bean and chickpea recipes effortlessly deliver fresh-cooked beans ready for use in anything. For example, the total working time to transform a pile of raw chickpeas into an catering-size vat of hummus is about 15 minutes. The infused oil recipe is a bit hit-and-miss. However, the idea itself is great. The addition of an oil thermometer and a partially-closed lid quickly transforms the cooker into an accurate scientific apparatus, capable of very precise, effortless infusions. Try infusing olive oil with lemon zest next time you need your senses stimulated (then use the oil in a bread recipe, next time you need your whole house stimulated :-) If your cooker is big enough (oval, preferably) The lamb stew with potato and feta crust can be economized and much improved by using a well-trimmed 1/2 leg. Let it cool when done, then shred the meat off the bone by hand. The Chicken Merlot with Mushrooms is wonderful, with the mushrooms still crisp after cooking for 4 hours. Rather too much liquid, though (true of many of the recipes here). The Morroccan Chicken with Prunes & Couscous is my favourite so far, but it would better served with plain couscous and a separately-cooked side dish, as the flavour is otherwise too intensely uniform. Only one significant gripe (apart from the price): The layout designer sometimes sacrificed utility for artsiness, unnecessarily spreading some recipes across three pages, with little or no indication that there is more to come.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Finally, a slowcooker cookbook with recipes that sound GOOD! I have been valiently trying to find some recipes that appeal to me(and yes i tried the Rick Rodgers book -- those recipes required way too much work) and this book has 'em! I agree with the reviewer before me that there are too many duck recipes, but every cookbook has plenty of things to skip over. This book has carmelized onions and ideas for using them, baked garlic, again with ideas for using it, hummus, several recipes for dried beans & lentils, risotto,scallops, lamb, and stocks in addition to stews, brisket, and deserts. It works for me!
Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I am a working mother and a relatively accomplished cook who bought this book with great enthusiasm and I have been moderately disappointed. The "Pantry" section of the book is really useful, and I have made several of the recipes with wonderful success, but the rest of the book falls short of the standard set by her introductory chapter. Many of the recipes are clearly not written with the needs of a working person in mind (ie recipes that cannot be assembled the night before or require alot of prep work), which is an inconvenience I would gladly tolerate for a tasty meal, however, having made 4 or 5 of her recipes now, I must admit I have been at least a little disappointed with all of them. I have also used Donna-Marie Pyles "America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes" and have had much better success, both in terms of taste and convenience.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I am a working mother and a relatively accomplished cook who bought this book with great enthusiasm and I have been moderately disappointed. The "Pantry" section of the book is really useful, and I have made several of the recipes with wonderful success, but the rest of the book falls short of the standard set by her introductory chapter. Many of the recipes are clearly not written with the needs of a working person in mind (ie recipes that cannot be assembled the night before or require alot of prep work), which is an inconvenience I would gladly tolerate for a tasty meal, however, having made 4 or 5 of her recipes now, I must admit I have been at least a little disappointed with all of them. I have also used Donna-Marie Pyles "America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes" and have had much better success, both in terms of taste and convenience.
Rating:
Summary: buyer be warned
Review: i collect cookbooks and do a lot of experimenting with recipes. every dish i've made from this book has had a strange, unappetizing flavor. i've just ruined a $30 piece of lamb, so i don't plan to cook from this book again.
Rating:
Summary: You will be tempted to ignore this review
Review: I ignored all the reviews the came before it and bought this book. Like the others I was disappointed when it arrived. If you are looking for a book to help you make simple but amazing meals for your family this is not the one. Although it does contain about 5 recipes for entrees that are easy to prepare, delicious and don't use canned soup, four of these same recipes can be found online. All of the others require so much prep or such arcane ingredients that they aren't suitable for everyday cooking. I think to appreciate this book, you have to stop idealizing the crock pot as a device to make life easier and instead see it as a means to elevate your gourmet cooking. If braised beef tongue sounds impressive or you think you could get into waiting 12-14 hours for your onions to perfectly carmelize than perhaps this is the book for you. Otherwise like me you'll have to keep waiting for the perfect crockpot cookbook
Rating:
Summary: A bit too glam for me....
Review: I pre-ordered this book and waited with great anticipation, being a big fan of Lora Brody's other cookbooks. I plan to try a few of the recipes but I was, overall, a bit disappointed with the content; only 3 chicken recipes but 7 for duck? And several recipes involve ingredients I've never seen (even living in 3 large cities); cipollini onions, anyone? The techniques used look very good; none of that old method of tossing all ingredients in the crockpot here. I'm definitely interested in the author's recipes that involve putting your crockpot insert into the oven or microwave, since I've never tried either. I have a feeling that most of these recipes may not appeal to my family of six, but perhaps this was never the author's intention. If she wanted to venture to the opposite end of the culinary spectrum from usual crockpot recipes, she certainly succeeded.
Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to like this book....
Review: I recently bought a crockpot and have spent a lot of time on Amazon.com's website looking at crockpot recipe books. From what I can gather from reviews, there are two basic types of recipe books: 1) those that use a lot of prepared ingredients like frozen vegetables, canned soups, salad dressings etc. as time-savers, and 2) those that involve more cooking "from scratch" using a crockpot instead of the stove.
This book falls into the second category, which is what I was looking for. But I sent the book back for a refund and I'm only giving it 3 stars because the book description says the author "pushes the slow cooker to places no one ever expected it to go..." There are recipes that are more exciting and I want to acknowledge them, but there are too many simplistic recipes: chicken stock, vegetable stock, black beans, slow cooked chickpeas, black bean dip, 2 types of mashed potatoes. I think the book description just made too strong a claim for this book.
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