Adventures in Slow Cooking: 120 Slow-Cooker Recipes for People Who Love Food – Innovative Techniques for Quality Dinners, Breakfasts, and Desserts

by Sarah DiGregorio

The James Beard-nominated food writer revamps the slow cooker for the modern home cook, providing ingenious ideas and more than 100 delicious recipes for maximizing this favorite time-saving kitchen appliance and making it easier than ever to use.

Sarah DiGregorio shares the nostalgia most of us feel when it comes to slow cookers. Her first memory of slow-cooker cooking is her grandmother’s pot roast. While these handy devices have been time savers for incredibly busy lives, traditional slow cooker food is sometimes underwhelming. Now, Sarah, an experienced food professional, has reinvented slow cooking for a generation that cooks for fun and flavor, taking a fresh approach to reclaim this versatile tool without sacrificing quality or taste.



For Sarah, it’s not just about getting dinner on the table—it’s about using a slow cooker to make fabulous dinners like herb oil poached shrimp or the most perfect sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It’s about rethinking how to use this magic appliance—such as throwing a biryani dinner party with the slow cooker at the center of the table.



Showcasing a beautiful, engaging design, inviting color photographs, and 105 original, innovative recipes thoroughly tested in a variety of brands of slow cookers, Adventures in Slow Cooking provides a repertoire of delicious food for any time of day. Inside you’ll find ideas for flavorful sweet and savory slow cooker dishes, including:




Whipped Feta, Red Pepper and Olive Dip
Granola with Pistachios, Coconut and Cardamom
Savory Overnight Oatmeal with Bacon, Scallions and Cheddar
Turkey-Spinach Meatballs Stuffed with Mozzarella
Spicy Kimchi and Pork Ramen
Orange, Olive and Fennel Chicken Tagine
Daal with Mango and Mustard Seeds
Farro Bowl with Smoked Salmon, Yogurt, and Everything-Bagel Spice
Oxtail and Short Rib Pho
Corn, Mushroom and Zucchini Tamales
Proper Red Sauce Eggplant Parm
Peach-Orange Blossom Jam
Matcha-White Chocolate Pots de Crème
Cardamom-Molasses Apple Upside-Down Cake
Star Anise-Black Pepper Hot Toddy
Sarah also provides ingenious tips and tricks that will help cooks get the most out of today’s slow cookers, and have them saying, "I never knew my slow cooker could do that!" With a foreword by Grant Achatz, a modernist chef and huge advocate of the slow cooker, Adventures in Slow Cooking makes this convenient appliance an indispensable tool for the modern kitchen.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 10, 2017

About the author

Sarah DiGregorio is the critically acclaimed author of EARLY: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human and TAKING CARE: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World. She is a journalist who has written on health care and other topics for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Insider, and Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter and husband. She welcomes invitations to book clubs and other gatherings. For more information and to contact her, please visit her website: sarahdigregorio.com

Reviews

[jess ~has abandoned GR~]

I'm not going to rate it, because I'm not sure I'm the intended audience. I can't make any of these recipes tonight because I am not willing to drive 45 minutes to the nearest Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to buy obscure ingredients.

If you're into trying new, trendy flavors and exploring different ingredients, I recommend this book to you. If you're trying to make a slow cooker meal using ingredients found in the typical lower/middle class pantry, then lol good luck.

[Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought the “parties” section of this book was funny bc my company is lucky if i put frozen onion rings in the oven for them

[Becki Iverson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite parts of the day is reading the NYT food column in my email inbox. The writing is comfortable and witty, and I always glean unexpected ideas for freshening up my at-home meals. When I saw that one of their frequent contributors had written a new cookbook about slow cookers (and with Minnesota winter on the way), I knew I had to pick it up. I'm SO glad I did! I rarely purchase books, but I know this is going to become a thorough reference guide for me this winter. There are so many really exciting ideas here - like poaching meats, beautiful desserts, warm boozy party drinks, and detailed appetizers - that I can't wait to try out. Anyone looking for a way to ramp up home cooking and make it more efficient needs to read this easy, thorough, foolproof guide to slow cookers!

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned so much about using the slow cooker as a tool instead of dump and ignore to make more gourmet meals

[Sarah Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book claiming to be different from other slow cooker cookbooks, this has a lot of recipes similar to what I’ve seen elsewhere.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Innovative, diverse set of recipes for the slow cooker. The ones I’ve tried so far have been great! I just wish calorie information was included and that ingredient lists didn’t go across pages, in some cases on the front and back of pages. I suspect it’d be really easy to miss some ingredients when grocery shopping given this format. More of the beautiful photography would also be welcome.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very interesting recipes. The Parmesan Garlic Broth and the risotto made with it sound amazing.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed all of the sumptuous yet relatively easy to make recipes. What really sold me on this book is the chapter on Warm Cocktails. I can use my crock pot to make big batches of Star-Anise-Black Pepper Hot Toddies, Warm Triple-Citrus Bourbon Punch, Kentucky Nightcap, & Brown Buttered Rums? Yes please. I would like to go to there! Those recipes alone are enough justification for buying the entire book!

Some of the other recipes that I absolutely must try: Garlic and Rosemary Oil-Poached Shrimp, Ricotta-Spinach Polenta with Tomato Salad, Honey-Poached Pears with Orange and Star Anise, Pumpkin Challah French Toast Bake, Peach Rye Shortcakes with Ginger Sugar, and the Cardamom-Molasses Apple Upside-Down Cake. Ohhhh, little crock pot! I've got such plans for you!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is truly a gourmet slow cooker book. The best chapters for me were the apps and drinks - that's what I see myself using most. She has a lot of fairly exotic recipes, and cooks things in the slow cooker I wouldn't have thought possible (shakshuka?). I disagree with her fish cooking method - not that it yields bad results, but all the oil doesn't come off the fish and I wouldn't re-use it for anything.

Many of these recipes involved several non-slow cooker steps, or odd cooking times that wouldn't allow you to just 'set it and forget it.' There are also several ingredients in here that the average home cook might not have on hand. And not all the recipes are family friendly.

Reading Acheson's book right before this sparked an interesting debate. He argues against slow cooker deserts because you're really just steaming things. She argues for them. While many of the deserts are steamed, like the chocolate cheesecakes, the slow cooker might be a good vehicle for that (as opposed to the oven) because of the smaller size and ease of control. It was interesting to consider each viewpoint.

If you use your slow cooker a lot, this is worth checking out for some truly unique recipes.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will really only appeal to a very specific type of person. I'm a chef, so many of these recipes are very simple for me. Most people probably will not feel that way. Most chefs, on the other hand, will also not be using a slow cooker in a professional kitchen... I'm just a weird exception.

I work alone, and have a 12pm service for 60 people and sometimes I also have a 1pm service for 10 people. It helps if I have the main dish for the 1pm service going in a slow cooker, so I can focus more on my 12pm service and not be scrambling to finish in time for the 1pm service. Many of these recipes will work well for this! I tested the Italian Wedding Soup, it's a simple recipe, but very nice.

Again, this is really not a book for the every day home cook. You need some skills that aren't typically seen in household kitchens. Many of the ingredients are also difficult to find - the book actually does address this, though.

This is a great book, don't get me wrong! I love it. Lots of variety, and definitely the kind of cookbook I wanted. But if you're considering buying it, make sure that you're not expecting this to be a book of dump and go meals. Because it is faaaar from that.

[Clwseattle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adventures in Slow Cooking: 120 Slow-Cooker Recipes for People Who Love Food is an interesting book with lovely photos of the cooked recipes.

However, slow cookers remind me of end of season sports dinners, of church celebrations, neighborhood potlucks and large family gatherings. The recipes in Adventures in Slow Cooking simply do not lend themselves to those events. And the events that need those recipes wouldn't have cooked them in a Crock Pot.

I found two recipes intriguing. The first, The Parmesan Garlic Broth, I read and wondered what the heck you would do with it. The second, Spring Vegetable Risotto with Parmesan Broth, is the answer, but I can't imagine soft, fluffy risotto that needs almost constant stirring, cooked in a slow-cooker. I'll cook it the right way.

3 Stars for interesting recipes but with the wrong vehicle.

[Ariste Egan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Slow cooking brings to mind easy, no fuss cooking that results in food your family and friends will love. The recipes in this book offer neither.
The ingredients required for many dishes are obscure and not available at the local grocery -- dried bonito flakes, Sichuan peppercorns, whole spelt berries, dried pasilla de Oxaaca chiles. Any time I would save using my slow cooker I would spend on my scavenger hunt for ingredients.
The actual recipes may result in some tasty dishes, but certainly not crowd pleasers or recipes I would go back to over and over again -- not going to make the Mumbai Chaat Chex Mix, the Chawan Mushi, Swedish Spiced Wine or Coconut-Almond Tiki Coffee in my slow-cooker any time soon.
On the plus side, the photographs are lovely.

[Sarah Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good cookbook, uses mostly ingredients from scratch which is what I like the most in a cook-book. It does have some meals in here that are not your traditional slow cooker standards, but that is part of why I liked this book. You might have to hunt down a few ingredients, but as I have been learning more about eating healthy and searching out ingredients I have more of these built up in my home and know where and how to easily find them or substitute them for other ingredients that will work in their place. It might be an intimidating cook book for someone just learning to cook and trying out a crock pot but they are solid recipes that will work.

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a well-researched book with slow-cooker recipes. I love the notes at the bottom of each recipe, letting you know how long each can stay in the cooker on warm, how long the prep and finish times are, and how long the dish takes to cook in the crockpot.

So many slow cooker books are either meat with cream of soup dumped on them, or like the Williams-Sonoma book, basically cooking it outside the cooker before or after an hour in the cooker, senseless.

This has many tips on how to really get the most use out of the slow cooker and avoid common problems, such as today's cookers overheating!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah DiGregorio has childhood memories of her grandmother's pot roast from the crockpot, but in this cookbook she takes us beyond the traditional crockpot foods like pot roast. She has recipes for everything from stocks and condiments to drinks and desserts. There were definitely a few things I'd like to try like her risotto. After making risotto once, I would LOVE to make it more often if it's as easy as it seems to be in the crockpot. This is taking crockpot cooking to the next level - definitely worth checking out.

[Jodi Geever · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for the pretty pictures which accompany most recipes and for the spirit of adventure this book inspires.

This book leaves a lot to be desired.

The recipes use exotic, hard to find ingredients (hard to find in my small Southern city anyway) and the recipes assume the reader is already a solid cook, (I'm a novice in the kitchen) and already comfortable with the slow cooker. (My slow cooker and I are in that awkward 'getting to know you' phase of our relationship). Maybe I will pick this book up again if my flirtation with cooking continues.

Not a book for beginners.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book, I don't know if there were too many recipes that I found that I would make but everything sounded so delicious, that I may just have to try. There were a good amount of pictures and most recipes seemed simple enough to make. Though I will admit there were quite a few that required a lot of ingredients. That is pretty much par for the course when dealing with slow cooker recipes. This book is well worth the look through.

[Kimberly Mccune · Rating 4 out of 5]

it is so refreshing to see a collection of recipes for the slow cooker that don't involve a cream of condensed soup or end up with a mushy result. The creativity and ingenuity in these recipes make this a worthwhile read. While some of the recipes seem a little too sophisticated for my family of two small children, there's a lot of great jumping-off point that I hadn't considered using my slow cooker for before.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very inventive ways to use a slow cooker or instant pot. Not the usual recipes I've seen in other books. Ms. DiGregorio makes everything from foundational stocks and broths, to jams and dips, and drinks such as coffee, a nightcap, hot chocolate as well as appetizers, salads, grain bowls, main dishes that use different grains. The introduction also tells how to choose, and use your cooker to saute, or line your cooker for easy serving and clean-up. Each recipe is easy-to-read and doesn't contain many ingredients or unusual, hard to find ingredients. Her recipe for duck confit uses butter instead of added duck fat for this very reason - duck fat is hard to find in stores.

I was most inspired by her use of a slow cooker as a bain marie for a pot de creme or a cheesecake made in a loaf pan inside the cooker. I've never seen a slow cooker used in the same way as one would use an oven. She also suggests using paper towel under the lid to catch the moisture.
Her cheesecake recipe was easy to do and the paper towel really helped keep excess moisture off the surface of the cheesecake.

Interesting cookbook, but not many recipes I would try. I'm not a foodie; I just want basic recipes that taste good. I tried the cheesecake today. The cheesecake was great! It was easy to do and very moist with no risk of burning and no risk of drying out the top. I'm going to try broth, beans, jams, and the duck confit. Then I may adapt a few of my own recipes, such as maple or pumpkin pot du cremes, to a slow cooker and follow DiGregorio's lead.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listen, I love food and trying new things, but this definitely isn’t a cookbook for the casual cook. I was really excited for more than just dump slow cooker recipes using canned soup. This book takes it pretty far from that and includes ingredients that are not available in the average store or even the average mega store.

[Christiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty disappointed in this one. A lot of really precious recipes with hard to find ingredients. If they were precious but amazing recipes I would maybe be convinced, but I made the shakshuka and feel like all I got out of it was a lot of expensive ingredients I’m not sure I’ll use again.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting recipes. Learned some innovative ways to use a slow cooker and why for some things a slow cooker is still better than an instant pot. Would not have thought of using a slow cooker as a bain marie for cooking custards.

[Beka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous photography and great sounding food. It probably tastes better than your average slow cooker fare, but that requires a little more work than usual too. Doesn't fit my personal needs, but I love the ideas.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but not great. Too many recipes require additional steps before or after the slow cooking. I just want easy peasy! The stratas do look interesting, but I'm not sure why you'd do slow cooker over oven for those. Might check 'em out.

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent--thoroughly contemporary slow-cooked cuisine. My biggest complaint is that most of these recipes have relatively short cooking times, which is inconvenient with my household's working schedules. But the recipes look truly fantastic, and I can't wait to try them out.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my style of cookbook. The recipes were too fancy, required too much time, called for too many odd or expensive ingredients (like smoked trout or duck), dirtied too many dishes. I am looking for simplicity!

[Gina Zappa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to make almost everything in this book. Let me rephrase that. I want to EAT almost everything in this book. Where to start...possibly the Spicy Kimchi and Pork Ramen. Yummy in my tummy.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great tips on using a slow cooker and wonderful pictures but not one recipe I wanted to try.

[Michelle Rome · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an insightful and creative cookbook! Beautiful pictures and great ideas to make delicious meals and desserts. I had no idea a slower cooker could be used to make so many dishes!