Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Family Favorites: Healthy, Wholesome Meals Your Family Will Love
By Beth Hensperger
Read How You Want, (2010)
EasyRead Large Print, in 16 Point Font
(Originally Published in Standard Print by The Harvard Common Press)
ISBN: 9781458764867 Genre: Cookbooks

Reviewed by Auggie Moore—April 15, 2011

Slow cooker recipes have come a long, long way... No longer are slow cookers relegated to just cooking stews and roasts. Thanks to cooks and authors, such as Beth Hensperger, the slow cooker has now taken center stage as an all-purpose cooking device that allows you to easily prepare a variety of dishes ranging from main course items to desserts and breads. Hensperger is the author, or coauthor, of several cookbooks, including, Not Your Mothers Weeknight Cooking and Not Your Mothers' Slow Cooker Recipes for Two. In her new cookbook, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Family Favorites, Hensperger presents a tasty selection of recipes that are both kid-friendly and suitable for adult taste-buds. Most important, the recipes in this cookbook are easy to prepare and require minimal preparation time, both important considerations for today's all-to-busy cooks.

If you are not familiar with slow cooker cookery, never fear. This book begins with a handy section entitled Slow-Cooking 101which covers the basics of slow-cooking from how a slow cooker works, to what size you need for your family, and how to adapt conventional recipes for use in a slow cooker. Even if you are already familiar with using a slow cooker, I recommend that you take a look at this section as Hensperger has included some handy tips that will prove useful to both novice and seasoned cooks. From here, it is on to the recipes...

In the realm of recipes, I think that you'll be amazed at the wide selection that are available in this book. Here you'll find not only traditional stews, chilies, and soups, but also recipes for drinks, breakfast dishes, pasta dishes, side dishes, vegetarian main course fare, and even recipes for barbecue ribs, chicken wings, and even one for a Spinach and Cheese Souffle. The recipes in this cookbook are organized into traditional categories, with the exception that this cookbook does not include recipes for breads or desserts, although you can use a slow cooker to make these items as well.

Overall, I found these recipes to be excellent and easy to reproduce. For the most part, Hensperger uses whole, natural ingredients, although some of her recipes do call for items such as canned, condensed soups, and prepackaged gravy mixes or bottled barbecue sauce. However, you can easily substitute homemade versions of most of these items if you so desired, and in some cases, such as the barbecue sauce, she offers recipes for those who want to make their own. Speaking of barbecue sauce, one of the most surprising recipes that I discovered in this cookbook was one for barbecue burgers, a recipe in which you cook the hamburgers in the slow cooker! Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Family Favorites is a must have cookbook for anyone who is a fan of slow cooker cooking, or who is simply looking for tasty, easy to prepare dishes that are sure to please the entire family!