Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker
Cookbook, By Beth Hensperger, Julie Kaufmann
Reviewed by Publishers
Weekly
According to the authors, 80% of
American households own a slow cooker. This whopping
collection of 350 recipes is reason enough to unearth
that Crock-Pot from the attic or invest in one of the
new high-tech models. The title, however, is a misnomer,
and not just because the book includes a recipe for
"Mom's Beef Stew." Much of what Hensperger
(The Bread Bible) and Kaufmann (coauthor, with
Hensperger, of The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook)
present is exactly the kind of comfort food typically
associated with childhood snow days or family gatherings.
To use the word "hearty" in describing these
recipes is to state the obvious. There are more than
a dozen oatmeals and porridges, ranging from Cinnamon
Apple Oatmeal to Creamy Cornmeal Porridge. Soups include
Vegetarian Split Pea, French Onion, and White Bean with
Bacon. Twenty-four types of baked beans are mere prelude
for the 14 chili options, including "Senator Barry
Goldwater's Arizona Chili" (which gives new meaning
to the phrase "bowl of red"). Other recipes
are for poultry, meat and fish dishes, and New and Old
World dishes are plentiful. The only letdown is the
"Not-from-the-Slow Cooker Accompaniments"
chapter, with its uninspired choices like Baked Rice,
and Mixed Green Salad. But the concluding pages, full
of puddings and fruit desserts, atone with sinful treats
like Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Cake and Rum-Butterscotch
Bananas. (Jan.)
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