Slow Cook Modern: 200 Recipes for the Way We Eat Today

What can I say about this cookbook? Oh, so very much, but I'll try to hit only the most salient points, because I don't want to be mean. I'm sure the author meant well.First off, I bought this book because while I'm a pretty accomplished cook, I think slow-cookers are a great, convenient tool and I don't really understand how to make the most of it. I know no more about that than I did before. The only really useful information in this book was in the back, where I learned how long to cook certain types of beans.The book is cheaply designed using fonts straight out of Microsoft Word. The photography isn't bad but the book just looks like someone's vanity project. Which it might be, given the quality of the recipes.It's clear that the author has no understanding of the cuisines she's mixing and matching. Here you will find "dal" with quinoa, miso-ghee "corn chowder", "Sichuan" lamb shanks, and, most frighteningly, "classic" tofu-mushroom chili. I'm sorry, before she slapped the word "classic" on there, no one in the history of intelligent life had ever contemplated making chili out of tofu and mushrooms, and rightly so. It's a vegetarian stew. It is not chili. I've had excellent vegetarian chilis. None of them has ever contained mushrooms or tofu. That's because those are not appropriate ingredients for chili.Look, I'm all for experimenting, but WTF. There's fusion, and then there's bodgery by someone whose previous exposure to cuisine consisted entirely of 1950s-era "aspic" made from green Jell-O(tm) and mayonnaise, studded with olives and cherry tomatoes and drizzled with thousand island, served over oven fries.The recipes themselves are just not that appealing. It seems very much as though the author wrote a much more traditional cookbook, and then was told by the publisher that they needed to jazz it up. So they went back and threw in some trendy ingredients at random, and their editor was one of those people who refuses any food that isn't white and has no idea how actual human beings eat. I have been over and over it, and there's literally not a single recipe that appeals to me.To be fair, I'm pretty fussy; I'm fond of trying new cuisines and I make a serious effort to understand them before I start messing around with the recipes. You won't catch me putting mayonnaise or sriracha in my guacamole or breading schnitzel with panko. Does that make me a snob? Maybe. But I love cooking, I love to eat, and I demand a certain level of quality from a cookbook.Look, I've spent enough time on this review, it's not very nice, and I need to go make miso soup and gyoza out of a completely different cookbook. I'll sum up by saying this: if you actually care about food, if you appreciate well thought-out, balanced, authentic recipes, this is just not the cookbook for you. If you don't mind eating any old slop that's thrown on a plate, however, I think you'll enjoy it.

I work. I am very hungry when I get home, and I don't have a lot of patience to start cooking when I am very hungry. This book has several wonderful features: the meals (meat and vegetarian) are all 8-hour meals; she tells you what to do in the morning (or the night before after you have eaten!), and that is most of the work. She gives you time-saving tips for what you can prepare so you just walk in and finish up the meal quickly after work. She tells you what you can freeze if you want to, and how to do it. And — unlike many slow-cooking books — it's not just 1001 variations of the same lame meal! It's food I actually want to eat. I borrowed it from the library, had to own it. I use it every week.

Chip before first use when I placed the lid on

I love this book. I have many slow cooker books, and I think this is the most approachable and well thought out of all of them (as far as the new batch of slow cooker titles out this past fall, I own Martha Stewart's, Hugh Acheson's, and Adventures in Slow Cooking, and I've cooked from Texas Slow Cooker and left a review there).It is my favorite for several reasons. First, it contains almost only dinners (except for the last chapter, which has some recipes for staples, including a recipe for slow cooker Quark, if you happen to be baking through Classic German Baking). Though some may like to use their slow cooker for sides and entertaining, my main use is for it to cook meals when I know I will be away from home all day and come home starving.This leads me to my second reason for loving it. Every recipe in this book is designed to cook for eight hours. Many other slow cooker books will have recipes for 2 or 4 hour dishes. I understand why, but again, that is not the main reason I use my slow cooker.Third, Krissoff includes recipes to round out each meal, which I love. I don't have to put much though into pairing a side dish, and she breaks down every task by what you can do in the morning and what you can do in the evening.Fourth, though there are many of the favorites you might expect in a slow cooker book, there are also many exciting new things to try, but not too exciting that they are not approachable. I think it strikes the perfect balance in this regard.Finally, there is a fairly substantial vegetarian chapter with great meat-free dishes, which is usually hard to find in slow cooker books (especially ones that cook for eight hours).Every recipe I have tried from this book has been really good. I made the lamb with turnips and yogurt, and I am still dreaming about it. The chipotle chickpea stew was really hearty and filling, and relied mostly on pantry ingredients. The creamy giant limas with sun-dried tomatoes were also very easy, extremely tasty, and super cheap to make. Tarragon and creme fraiche chicken was really good, as was the pilaf she pairs with it (and the easy steps she advises to take in the morning so the side is ready to go at night). I also made the spinach meatloaf, which I adored, especially as a sandwich (though I don't think it needed the crunchy breadcrumbs).I look forward to trying many more recipes in the coming months.

This is the foodie's slow-cooker cookbook. But unlike most "modern" slow-cooker books, this one requires only basic cooking knowledge and a somewhat adventurous palate. I've made at least 15 recipes, and each one has been great to excellent. As other reviewers mentioned, the author thoughtfully includes accompaniments and sides to round out each meal, as well as shortcuts for easier prep. (Like freezing tablespoonfuls of tomato paste instead of tossing two thirds of a can. Brilliant!)Here are some of the recipes that have made our regular rotation:Miso-ghee corn chowderChipotle chickpea stewChicken soup with tomatillosChicken with sour cherries, caramelized onions, and lots of dillGarlicky short ribsSlow Cook Modern has made me a much more confident, adventurous cook, and drastically reduced our take-out frequency. I hope she writes a second volume!