Ready and Waiting: 160 All-New Recipes to Make in the Slow Cooker

Rating:
Summary: The best Home-cooked meals in your slow cooker!
Review: It seems that life is getting busier by the day. So many things scream for our attention that good home-cooked meals seem to be a distant memory. But, isn't that why they invented crock pot cooking! Throw in the ingredients, plug it in, come home after work and your piping-hot meal is ready to be eaten. That's the idea anyway. Unfortunately, many people have not had a great deal of success with their slow cookers. I'm not so sure that the source of the problem does not lie in the cookbooks available for slow cookers and crock-pots.

I have found Ready and Waiting by Rick Rodgers to be a great slow cooker cookbook. Rick begins the cookbook with a section that explains that slow cookers are not entirely hands-off cookers. The effort you put into preparing your ingredients directly effects the outcome of the meal. So far, he has proven himself right in my kitchen. Rick gives a great run-down on the care and cleaning of slow cookers as well as cooking times for different vegetables, using herbs and spices for all-day cooking, and using milk products in all-day cooking.

After the Introduction the cookbook contains many of the sections found in other cookbooks. Everything from Dips and Appetizers to Main Dishes to Desserts can be fixed in your crock-pot. I was pretty surprised to find bread recipes for the crock-pot, but Rick includes about a dozen recipes for various types of bread.

I have not tried all 160 recipes in this cookbook. The ones I have tried have turned out well. Among my favorites are: Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia, Cajun Pecans, Black Bean and Smoked Turkey Soup and Ravioli Casserole. My wife fixed Joy's Mexican Pot Roast today and it was great too.

Ready and Waiting has added a new dimension to our kitchen. I think every cook will enjoy using a slow cooker once some basics are established for using one correctly. I know we enjoy cooking in our slow cooker - we also enjoy eating the results.

Bon Appetite!

Rating:
Summary: The best Home-cooked meals in your slow cooker!
Review: It seems that life is getting busier by the day. So many things scream for our attention that good home-cooked meals seem to be a distant memory. But, isn't that why they invented crock pot cooking! Throw in the ingredients, plug it in, come home after work and your piping-hot meal is ready to be eaten. That's the idea anyway. Unfortunately, many people have not had a great deal of success with their slow cookers. I'm not so sure that the source of the problem does not lie in the cookbooks available for slow cookers and crock-pots.

I have found Ready and Waiting by Rick Rodgers to be a great slow cooker cookbook. Rick begins the cookbook with a section that explains that slow cookers are not entirely hands-off cookers. The effort you put into preparing your ingredients directly effects the outcome of the meal. So far, he has proven himself right in my kitchen. Rick gives a great run-down on the care and cleaning of slow cookers as well as cooking times for different vegetables, using herbs and spices for all-day cooking, and using milk products in all-day cooking.

After the Introduction the cookbook contains many of the sections found in other cookbooks. Everything from Dips and Appetizers to Main Dishes to Desserts can be fixed in your crock-pot. I was pretty surprised to find bread recipes for the crock-pot, but Rick includes about a dozen recipes for various types of bread.

I have not tried all 160 recipes in this cookbook. The ones I have tried have turned out well. Among my favorites are: Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia, Cajun Pecans, Black Bean and Smoked Turkey Soup and Ravioli Casserole. My wife fixed Joy's Mexican Pot Roast today and it was great too.

Ready and Waiting has added a new dimension to our kitchen. I think every cook will enjoy using a slow cooker once some basics are established for using one correctly. I know we enjoy cooking in our slow cooker - we also enjoy eating the results.

Bon Appetite!

Rating:
Summary: Teaches you how to make good food in the slow cooker.
Review: Most recipes for slow cookers seduce you into simply throwing everything in the pot and running off to play, but as Rick Rodgers points out in Ready and Waiting: 160 All-new Recipes to Make in the Slow Cooker, the tasteless results of such flings have led many people to abandon this appliance. In contrast, Rodgers shows you how to have a long-term relationship with it. On the basis of this book's introduction and wide variety of recipes, I've adapted many of my favorite recipes for slow-cooking. The recipes are inspired and cover a wide range of tastes, but they aren't nearly as important as Rodgers' theory of slow cooking. Fortunately, the theory is a simple one: follow the principles of good cooking you already know. Start by browning the basic ingredients to release their flavor; skim off the unwanted fat; reduce the remaining sauce to concentrate its flavor, etc.
Unfortunately practicing Rodgers' theory means that slow cooking is neither as easy nor as frugal as certain of its advocates claim. In fact, I've found that it requires a certain energy extravagance: browning in the skillet before tossing in the crock, reducing in a saucepan afterward, warming on a platter in oven while this procedure is taking place--that's a lot of appliance to run and utensils to be washed. But, when you have no time to cook dinner in the late afternoon you can use the slow cooker to cook it in the morning or even the night before. And, unlike pressure cooking, which lends itself to similar recipes, and accomplishes them quicker, you do not need to hover. The slow cooker works while you do. At the end of the day, as Rodgers' title promises, your dinner is "ready and waiting.