 |
|
Title: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker: 200 Recipes for Healthy and Hearty One-Pot Meals That Are Ready When You Are
ISBN: 1558322566
Author:
Robin Robertson
Publicate Date: 2004-01
Publish: 2004-01
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $8.94
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.25
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.17
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Great for the lover of all things crock-pot
I recieved this book for Christmas and was thrilled to get it. I returned to being a vegetarian just over a year ago and when I still ate meat I would use my crock-pot atleast weekly. Since going to the dark side, my crock-pot was collecting dust because I wasn't exactly sure what to cook in it. This cook book solved many of those questions. I have made the blackbean soup, chicken potpie, and several other recipes. The blackbean soup was delicious, not quite the typical Cuban style, but my Cuban husband still loved it. The potpie also came out very tasty. There is a tip in the book to make a drier crust by removing the lid for the last bit of cooking, which I did, and was happy with the outcome. Most of what I have made from this book even fills my meat and potatoes eating husband up with no complaints! There are also many other kinds of recipes in the book besides dinner. There are breakfast foods, sides, desserts, and drinks. The drink part could have been left off, b/c really and truly what drink isn't vegetarian? None the less, I still gave the book 5 stars because of the in depth recipes in the remainder of the book.
|
2: WRONG cooking times, not very good recipes
This cookbook has two huge problems. One, the cooking times have NOTHING to do with reality, unless you want your food so overcooked it's like baby food mush. I might be willing to live with that (though why would I buy a slow cooker cook book if I wanted to do all the experimenting myself to figure out how long things should cook?) But the second problem is that the recipes really aren't very good; there's been nothing so far that I would make a second time, let alone enough times to really figure out the correct cooking time.
I've tried five or six recipes and I keep thinking I should try more but I just can't make myself. Some of the leftovers of what I did make went in the garbage, some of them we managed to finish but with no gusto, so it's not very encouraging.
Also, a LOT of the recipes have multiple steps, dirtying plenty of pots and dishes than just your slow cooker. So, even if the times were right, these really aren't recipes to throw in the cooker in the morning and come home to at night.
|
3: Low Sodium, Too!
I've made a wide variety of these recipes since I got the book a few months ago--I'm addicted! (I particularly recommend the No Hurry Vegetable Curry and Vindaloo Vegetables.) It's worth noting that most of these recipes are low-sodium as well as healthy and delicious. As someone on a low-sodium diet, this book is a godsend. It is not advertised in the book, but almost all of the recipes are (or can be) made using virtually no sodium. The main source of possible salt is canned beans, but there are instructions in the book for how to cook dry beans. Not only are home-cooked beans sodium-free, they are notably cheaper than canned ones. Soups often call for vegetable stock, but you can find very low sodium versions of these if you look around. Even when recipes rarely call for soy sauce or other salt-heavy ingredients, it's almost always a very small quantity, which is quite negligible when divided among the multiple servings that the slow cooker yields. Recipes often call for "salt to taste," but you can omit this (as I do) or use a salt-substitute. Otherwise, you're just cooking with naturally sodium free vegetables and spices.
The best part is that you don't even miss the salt in these recipes. Given the long cooking time and the wonderful combinations of tangy spices and fresh vegetables, meals come out delicious and salt-free everytime.
|
4: Go directly to the Onion Soup
The Onion soup is wonderful. I just made it for Saturday lunch, cooking the onions as directed all night Friday night. It works, and it couldn't have been better. My sister is visiting and she said it was as good as the soup in France. A lot easier and cheaper, too. Can't wait to try more.
|
5: More versatile than just a slow cooker cookbook
Many reviewers have hailed the excellent variety of vegetarian menus in this book. What really surprised me was some of the unusual and creative techniques for using a slow cooker for things like bread and desserts. These more esoteric offerings get a little complicated and require an insertable pot and a very large slow cooker, but they show you ways to use a slow cooker that you might never have imagined.
I think the author unnecessarily limited the scope of this book by providing only slow cooker variations for her recipes. As you put together most recipes in this book, you realize that they could just as easily be baked in an oven, stewed on a cooktop, or simply microwaved instead of slow cooked. Slow cooking serves an important purpose and produces great results, but the author could have highlighted the versatility of her recipes by also including options for baking, microwaving, or stewing them. Occasionally I see a cookbook that provides multiple cooking options; most recipes in this book deserve that kind of showcasing.
One disappointment I had with the book was with the bean recipes. With the exception of lentil and split pea dishes, all the bean recipes called for precooked or canned beans. The author seems to think that you can't cook dry beans and vegetables at the same time. Maybe so, but she should have explained her reason for that somewhere in her text.
Overall, this is an excellent collection of vegetarian recipes. But don't make the mistake of thinking these recipes are just for your slow cooker - these recipes are much more versatile than that and can be cooked in a variety of ways.
****
|
|
|
|
|
