book on slow cooking
How is the book?
This is a great book on slow cooking.  It has a ton of tips and tricks that only apply to slow cooker cooking.  I thought that the book was well worth it just for these targetted slow cooker tips.At the same time, I will say this....slow cookers does not equal "automatic cooking."  I think that's the biggest mistake that people make - thinking that you throw in all the ingredients and walk away "set it and forget it" doesn't work with crockpots.  I have found that crock pots are a great and important part of cooking.  For example, I love to make ropa vieja (an old cuban dish) but it's really hard to make it in a crockpot in one step.  Rather, I slow cook the meat in the crock pot until it falls apart and then I spend 30 minutes mixing it with green peppers and the other ingredients in a skillet to finish the dish.  The crock pot saves me a ton of time but it's not always a one stop.  If you learn to put the crock pot in its place, you'll be that better off.At the same time there are some receipes that are fool proof and work great right out of the crockpot.  This book has over 200 receipes and you can pretty much tell which ones are "set and forget" vs ones where you'll need extra work.So what is the premise of this book?  Well there is a group in Vermont called the "test kitchen" where basically they set up a bunch of crockpots (literally a whole line of them) and they proceed to test and tweak receipes until they collect a few hundred good receipes tha they have fine tuned.  So, the knowledge that comes is first hand and they taste test all of the receipes in the book.  Of note, the receipes are mostly "crock-pot" rather than crock-pot + additional work.....but they do share the tips.They're also careful to note which receipes might benefit from a final step like broiling for a few minutes in the oven or some other similar step. I think this is wonderful that they realize that not everything can be a one stop shop.  Also, they are clear to note which cuts of meat are best for crockpot cooking.The book  is very "tip centric" so they talk about:- things you might have to do after you cook something in a crock-pot- flavor enhancers- picking the right cut of meat- placement of meat (upside down chickens to keep breasts moist) etcOverall, they're trying to pass along all the tips and tricks that they learned and gathered in their "test kitchen."Overall, a very neat concept - this test kitchen thing.Anyway - I love crockpotting --- I hope you do too.  This book really does help. 