Rating: 
Summary: Mostly disappointed
Review: I've made 3 or 4 recipes from this book now - the only one that turned out was the caramelized onions, which were wonderful, but how could one screw that up? I had thought that perhaps my idea of what tastes good was just different from the author's, but after reading some of the other reviews here I see it's not just me.My expectations aren't usually all that high for crock-pot books, but Lora Brody has such a good reputation that I was expecting more than usual. I even tried one recipe twice thinking I must have made a mistake - it was worse the second time. Oh well. I was disappointed enough to be inspired to write my first-ever Amazon book review. I guess that's something!
Rating:
Summary: Mostly disappointed
Review: I've made 3 or 4 recipes from this book now - the only one that turned out was the caramelized onions, which were wonderful, but how could one screw that up? I had thought that perhaps my idea of what tastes good was just different from the author's, but after reading some of the other reviews here I see it's not just me. My expectations aren't usually all that high for crock-pot books, but Lora Brody has such a good reputation that I was expecting more than usual. I even tried one recipe twice thinking I must have made a mistake - it was worse the second time. Oh well. I was disappointed enough to be inspired to write my first-ever Amazon book review. I guess that's something!
Rating: 
Summary: The World's Best Vanilla Ice Cream
Review: The author has revealed how your slow-cooker can enrich life by protracting the task of making an insipid, sickly-sweet ice cream to three hours. Hopeful cooks made this ballsily named recipe with the best available ingredients and exact measurements. The other dessert attempted with equal care, Mont Blanc, was also disappointing. The windy, cliche-clogged, and hyperbolic recipe blurbs (assuring us e.g. that we "haven't lived until" we've eaten dulce de leche) ask for high expectations for such methods as chestnuts braised in a Crock Pot, when really this turns out not to be a good way to cook them at all. (Slow braising robbed the fresh nutmeats of the flavor correct roasting intensifies, steeping them for many hours in a liquid embittered by their shells, and in the candying step the amount of sugar was again over the top, resulting in a mealy mess like stale oversugared red bean paste.) These trials of relatively simple recipes warn against risking any cut of meat on the giddily blurbed, tantalizingly titled entree recipes. Amounts often seem wild or chosen to have round numbers--another reader warned of many mistakes, and arguably, for adult palates at least, the sugar amounts in both desserts tried here were mistakes. These failures and the book's editing and design make it seem slapped together at the last minute, so it also seems miraculous that all these recipes were tested. I use my Crock Pot often, usually simple recipes with results that bring smiles to friends' faces, but this book's recasting of it in a refined, France-trotting, all-purpose role is, so far in this kitchen, a complete crock.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: The best in this arena. Try the lamb shanks and you will be in heaven, feasting on the sunshine of Provence.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: The best in this arena. Try the lamb shanks and you will be in heaven, feasting on the sunshine of Provence.
Rating:
Summary: This one is great
Review: This book gives elegant and just "real food" to cook in the crockpot. I love it and can not wait to try alomost every recipe!
Rating:
Summary: buyer be warned
Review: This cookbook was not good in my opinion at all, unless you are a gourmet cook, eat like one every night and have your pantry stocked with exotic foods. If you're looking for a cookbook to make your life easier with "everyday" type foods, this is NOT it. However, if you eat rabbit, duck or lamb on a regular basis, you will love this cookbook. There were only a few recipes that included foods such as a beef roast and chicken.
Rating:
Summary: Good cookbook if you eat like a gourmet every night
Review: This cookbook was not good in my opinion at all, unless you are a gourmet cook, eat like one every night and have your pantry stocked with exotic foods. If you're looking for a cookbook to make your life easier with "everyday" type foods, this is NOT it. However, if you eat rabbit, duck or lamb on a regular basis, you will love this cookbook. There were only a few recipes that included foods such as a beef roast and chicken.
Rating:
Summary: Best Slow Cooker Cookbook
Review: When I try a new recipe I have never done before, I get nervous. But EVERY recipe from the book has come out totally amazing. The directions are clear and the results are more gourment than the boullion cube and gravy garbage in other slow cooker cookbooks.
As another review said, there are many recipes for duck and things that are easily found in my neighborhood. However there are excellent recipes like the Morroccan Chicken with Prunes, Chicken with Wine and Mushrooms, and Horseradish Potroast that continue to amaze my husband and guests with minimal effort. Last night I made the Honey glazed Ribs but substituted beef for the pork. AMAZING!
My only negative comment is that there aren't more crockpot books by the same author.
Rating:
Summary: You have to make the Zucchini Soup in this cookbook!
Review: When you think of "slow cooking" you might imagine a full day of cooking, yet really with slow cooking, you can get out of the kitchen for most of the cooking time. The most delightful thing about slow cooking is that you don't have to worry about burning something on the stove top and you can hardly ruin a meal even if you let it cook way over the suggested cooking times. Evenings are fun times to use the slow cooker to make a stock. Often in the past, I found the cooker invaluable for making chicken stock while I was happily sleeping. With Lora's new book, I finally learned how to make a delicious vegetable stock. She recommends roasting the vegetables first and this adds more intensity to the stock. You can roast the vegetables, then toss everything into the slow cooker and then head off to bed while the cooker does all the work. You will find recipes for chicken and vegetable stocks in the pantry chapter. I highly recommend you make these stocks for the recipes. A powdered or base stock does not do the recipes justice. If you are vegetarian, you will enjoy the fact that you can substitute a vegetable stock for the chicken stock in many of the recipes. One thing I noticed with some of the recipes was the times seemed a bit short. I would take the times that say "2 hours" with a pinch of salt. I doubled those times and the recipe worked much better. I also found you could leave the stock on high heat all night and let it go way over the recommended 6 hours. I left the vegetable stock in the cooker for 10 hours and it was even more flavorful. Before you start a recipe, check to see if you have to make another recipe first! If you need to make a recipe for "Duxelles" before making the stuffed mushrooms, Lora gives you the page number. You don't have to stand in your kitchen staring at the page and wondering where you are going to find duxelles (dook-SEHL). You simply turn to page eleven and see that in fact, you are only making a thick paste used to flavor sauces, soups and other mixtures. It is just mushrooms and shallots and Lora shows you how to make this paste in the slow cooker. Many of the recipes are gourmet, but that is what makes cooking fun. Lora used to work in a French restaurant and it shows! There is also a definite Italian flair to many of the recipes. In the recipe calling for "cipollinis" you will have to look for the bulbs of the grape hyacinth and they are used in Italian cuisine. You could substitute pearl onions. I also found it difficult to find baby zucchini where I lived so I just used regular sized zucchini and cooked the soup a bit longer. While this book is written for cooking at home, you will feel a bit like a chef when using a hand-held immersion blender to transform vegetables and stock into a satiny smooth soup right in the cooker. If you have never tasted a homemade soup, you owe it to yourself to pull out that slow cooker. It is very satisfying to make homemade soup and it is so delicious. Most of the recipes in this book say to season to taste. You add the salt and pepper at the end. In a way, I wish she had given a basic measure of the salt and pepper, but if you are trying to cook with less salt, you will like the fact that you can add just enough for your own taste. Many recipes include a "Variation" or a "Note." If you can't find herbes de Provence, Lora shows you how to make it yourself. Lora also includes fun headnotes so you feel that you know her better. "I wandered into an Indian grocery store in my neighborhood and perused the shelves for an ingredient I hadn't tried before. Tamarind paste caught my eye....." and so this is how the recipe for Tamarind Sweet Potatoes came into existence. You will especially like the design of this book. It has a beautiful blue cover and the binding will last a long time. The index is well organized, although it is easy to find anything you are looking for just by flipping through the 200 pages. There is not a color picture to be found, yet that does not seem to detract from the book. I like the artsy style of the layout with a light gray border at the top of each page and a slow cooker design element running through the book. You will find recipes for appetizers, soups, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, pasta, breads, grains and desserts. Using smoked Gouda cheese in the Smoky Stuffed Chicken Breasts might give your mother's slow cooker a bit of a shock but it sounds delicious to me! Your slow cooker might just become indispensable! I am really looking forward to making the Vanilla Ice Cream recipe in which you make the base in the slow cooker in order to infuse the cream and sugar with vanilla essence from a vanilla bean. Tonight I am serving the Cream of Zucchini Soup that is quite good with a sprinkling of paprika and a few toasted pumpkin seeds. I added 1 teaspoon of seasoning salt to the soup. You might prefer more or less salt. I just took a taste and the flavor is just superb. The color is an almost mustard yellow and the texture is smooth and creamy. While you are making the soup, you could also make some bread in your bread machine. After all, Lora is famous for her bread baking skills.
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