These days, electric pressure cookers are the hot culinary appliance. And while I love the ability to cook and braise quickly, slow cookers will forever be at the top of my kitchen helper hit parade (as I type this, I have two running in my kitchen).
Happily Liana Krissoff, one of my favorite cookbook authors, is also a devoted slow cooker fan. Her brand new book, Slow Cook Modern, is the most useful and practical take on making dinner in the slow cooker that I’ve ever seen. It’s also a ridiculously beautiful book.
There are a lot of things that are brilliant about this book. First is the fact that all the slow cooker recipes are designed to cook for 8 hours. That means, you can set up your slow cooker in the morning, go to work, and actually come home to a meal (if you have a long commute time, make sure to use a slow cooker that will switch to ‘Keep Warm’ after a pre-programmed amount of time). So many slow cooker recipes are written to cook for 3-4 hours, which is not at all useful for people who work outside their homes.
The second thing that’s really inspired about this book is that every soup, stew, braise, and roast comes paired with a side recipe, as well as suggestions for other sides in the book that would go nicely with that dish. These sides are worth the price of admission alone.
All the recipes are organized by what you need to do the in the morning and what you’ll do just before serving. There are pages with ideas for what to do with leftovers. There are a handful of recipes for slow cooker stock. There’s a chili base that I want to make this week. There’s even a recipe for slow cooker quark that I’ll be sharing on Friday! So much goodness!
I feel like this is a book that I could spend the next couple years work through and exploring. I can’t wait to dig in (and the two eggplants in my fridge mean that the Eggplant Tian on page 28 will be happening this week).
Thanks to the lovely folks at Abrams, I have a copy of this brilliant book to giveaway this week. Let’s do this one the old school method.
- Leave a comment on this post and share your favorite slow cooker dish.
- Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Sunday, September 17, 2017. Winners will be chosen at random and this post will be updated with the winner.
- Giveaway open to United States and Canadian residents.
- One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.
This giveaway is now closed. The winner is #66/MaryKay Lawrence. Congratulations MaryKay!
Disclosure: Abrams provided both review and giveaway copies at no cost to me. No additional compensation was provided.
Beans!! Can’t call ’em ‘baked’ beans but that’s what they essentially are. Never crusty and overcooked, just almost soft and sweet. But soup…. any kind is always brilliantly easy in the slow cooker too.
Any type of bean – they come out perfectly cooked and don’t get broken up.
Like you, the slow cooker is my favorite small kitchen appliance. My family’s favorite dish made in a slow cooker is beef stew. But I recently started using it for fruit butters and I can’t get enough of them!
OMG I’m making it today! Food & Wine magazine’s Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Brisket! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/slow-cooker-sweet-and-sour-brisket
Pulled pork, pulled chicken, applesauce
Thanks for a chance to enter! I’m so excited to have found your blog!! My favorite by far is Mel’s Sweet Balsamic Glazed Pork, found at https://www.melskitchencafe.com/sweet-balsamic-glazed-pork-loin-slow-cooker/. Can’t wait to try your recipes! Thanks again!!
I love our beef, tempeh and black bean chili, but the thing we make most often is stock. So nice to use up veggie scraps and put those bones to use. Thanks for the chance.
Love to make the filling for chicken lettuce cups.
I love to use my slow cooker to make carnitas. Sometimes I use venison rather than pork– equally delicious. I invite friends over and have a taco party.
I see some recipes in posts that I would love to try!
Liana’s Canning for a New Generation has become my go to resource for canning! Easy, delicious and creative! Charred tomato and chili Salsa—YUM! I give jars as gifts.
My all time fav is apple crisp! A crock pot is divine for apple butter
Pinto beans. There is nothing like the taste and smell of freshly cooked pinto beans to take me back home, except maybe homemade flour tortillas… I have a 1980s Rival crock pot that I received as a wedding gift. It outlasted that marriage and has survived five moves, making its way with me from New Mexico to New England. The glass lid has a chip in the side that I sanded smooth and now makes a perfect venting hole for my beans. And for apple butter.
Thank you for the offer and for such a thorough review of the cookbook 🙂
Love new slow cook recipes maybe a new chili
A tasty beef stew.
I love making soups, stews, and roasts in my slow cooker. My current favorite is a “Greek” pulled pork that feeds us all week! I’d love more recipes like that one.
Taco soup
I like to make African Groundnut Stew and of course Pot Roast.
This book looks marvelous!
Curried lentil soup, followed closely by a deconstructed chicken pot pie!
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only used my slow cooker for mulled wine so far! That’s why I really need this lovely book!!
Slow cooker steel cut oatmeal or Marisa’s apple butter – it is a toss up!
Barbecue country style pork ribs!!
Pulled pork. I know low temp grilling or smoking is authentic, but the slow cooker makes it just as tender and it’s so easy.
Hands down it’s a tomatillo chicken taco recipe in a slow cooker book from America’s Test Kitchen. Freezes beautifully and makes such a good weeknight meal. I always have some on hand.
I love Liana’s books! Her first cookbook got me started with canning. I use my slow cooker at least 3 times per week. I love the pork carnitas recipe from Skinnytaste.
Pot roast…I know, predictable but I love it with carrots and potatoes
Butternut squash and farrow stew
My grandkids like my slow cooker macaroni and cheese.
I love using my slow cooker to make the filling for pumpkin chicken tamales 🙂
I mostly do fruit butter in mine! This book looks perfect for branching out!
Mississippi Roast! Better than cheesecake!
I just made a broccoli beef dish that my family all enjoyed quite a lot! and I agree with you, I always will prefer a slow cooker over a pressure cooker any day!
I love the slow cooker for doing fruit butters (apple, peach and pumpkin), but also for chili!
My top slow cooker dish has to be pulled pork though.
My hands down favorite slow cooker dish is my Grandmother’s old fashioned beef stew!
I would love to try your Grandmother’s recipe!
My favorite slow cooker dishes are beef stew, chicken & dumplings and pork & sauerkraut.
Overnight pumpkin steel cut oats
I would love to try your recipe!
Apple butter is soon easy in a slow cooker!.It’seems the only way I will make it!
I love making pizza sauce in the crockpot!
My favorite slow-cooker meal is something our family calls “Lumberjack” and we served it at our restaurant. It’s basically a roast cooked in a mushroom and onion gravy until it pulls apart. We like it on buns or baked potatoes.
Now that I’m vegetarian, I’m still searching for the perfect black bean slow-cooker recipe.
When I was a kid, we called this ‘roots’ because the way the eat pulled apart looked like roots to us! yummy and still a favorite
I eat a lot of legumes during the work week and the easiest way to make perfectly cooked beans is to cook them in the crock pot. I love that I can forget about them and then eat them in different dishes through out the week.
One of my favorite slow-cooker items is kielbasa in a ketchup (or BBQ sauce) and jelly sauce. It’s always a hit at parties, and it’s the easiest thing ever to make.
Definitely chile con carne.
I think my favorite is a pork posole recipe I make often.
I have never used a slow cooker, but my husband likes them and wants to get one. Maybe this would be a reason to get me in gear?
Breakfast Casserole!!
The cook book looks really interesting. Made lots of different things in the slow cooker over the years but beef stew still remains the favourite.
I’d love to have more ideas about what to cook with a slow cooker. This book looks lovely. Mostly I use mine for pot roast – very good comfort food on a winter day.
Bavarian pot roast: http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/2009/03/bavarian-pot-roast.html
i made a delish mushroom Stroganoff, served over egg noddles the other week!
Definitely anything taco filling: protein of choice, jar of salsa, spices of choice. done
Roasted Tomato Sauce
Roasted Tomato Sauce!