Allen Rinne - Slow cook modern: 200 recipes for the way we eat today

Dear reader, I dont know what your life is like, but I do know that if you work during the day youre probably not all that interested in slow cooker recipes that require less than eight hours of cooking time or some sort of intermediate attention during the cooking process. Youre probably not going to need a bunch of slow cooker recipes for shellfish, or desserts, or side dishes, either.

What you need, Im guessing, are recipes for slow cooker main dishes that can cook completely unattended for at least as long as the typical workday, that are delicious and family-pleasing but also interesting and varied. And you probably wouldnt mind some easy, streamlined accompaniments and suggestions for rounding out each meal. You probably want dinners to come home to.

If this is an accurate representation of your needs and desires, youve opened the right book.

All the main dishes here can be put in the slow cooker in the morning, left unattended for at least eight hours, and finished up in the evening (or just served without further ado). The very simple side dishes and accompanimentsbreads and grains, vegetables, salads, toppings, and saucescan either be made in the morning and stashed in the fridge or be thrown together in the evening just before serving. Some of them are so simple that they really dont need a recipe at all, while others are just a little more involved.

Ive tried to match slow cooker main dishes with accompaniments in such a way that the timing makes sense: If youre doing a fair amount of prep on one of them, whether in the morning or evening, ideally you wont have to do too much work on the other at the same time; if you have to puree a sauce in the slow cooker or do some other finishing task in the evening, a side is either already waiting or roasting quietly on its own in the oven. In short, youll never have all the burners going, literally or figuratively.

As you flip through these recipes, youll note that some dishes will need a bit of attention just before serving. Please dont feel discouraged because you know how exhausted you will be by the time you get back to your kitchen. Heres a mental trick Ive learned over the years thats really helped me cook better, more complete and interesting meals on a reasonably frequent basis: Its easier to motivate yourself to finish up meal preparations if you have a plan, and especially if that plan is already in motion when you walk in the door. There will be fooda lot of food, a finished meal or an almost-finished mealwaiting for you in the slow cooker, and all you have to do is this and thisand look, the bowl and immersion blender you need to do that are out and ready, the brown rice to accompany the slow cooker dish has been parboiled and is already in the steamer basket (thank you, barely caffeinated morning self!), and all you have to do is move it to the stove and turn on the heat

The point is to free yourself from having to make decisions and develop a dinner strategy after a long day of work. If I had to do that every day, my brain would implode and Id probably declare make-your-own-sandwich night or order delivery more times than Id prefer. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with sandwiches and delivery food (I adore both options and invoke them pretty often), but I think we all can benefit from as much culinary variety as we can manage, and improving our home cooking organizational and planning skills is a fine way to do that.

At the risk of this becoming incredibly goofy and awkward, lets walk through a recipe together. How about the first one in the book, Eggplant Tianmy version of a classic French vegetable casserole thats usually baked forever in the oven, the cook pushing it down with a spatula every half hour or so. Here its paired with a side dish of olive-marinated fresh mozzarella, but there are other accompaniments throughout the book that might go well with it too, so Ive listed those just after the recipe title. If on any day another side dish in the book appeals to you more than the one that accompanies the recipe, use a cover flap to mark it.

After a little introduction, youll see the plan, a skeleton version of the recipe that tells you the main tasks the recipe will ask you to complete in the morning and in the evening. Youll see that, to make this tian, in the morning youll load up the cooker (pretty easy), and in the evening youll be sauting some bread crumbs (also easy, but it does require the stovetop).

Still on board with the tian? Okay! Round up the ingredients. The recipe instructions begin with your morning tasks. Do those, and set the slow cooker for eight hours on low. Youve had a cup of coffee by now and are feeling energetic. Any other morning tasks listed? Nope, all clear. Check your side dish recipe. Anything you can do in the morning? Yep, go ahead and do those tasks, too.

Now, what Id do before heading off to work is skim the evening instructions to see if youll need any skillets or spoons or spatulas to finish up your meal when you get home. In this case, you can see youll need a skillet and a spoon, so dig those out so theyre ready when you walk in the door. You can even measure out your bread crumbs and display themhint, hintnear the skillet. Keep this beautiful book propped open and out on the counter too.

When you get home, youll be greeted by the ridiculously enticing aroma of basil and garlic and roasted peppers and fruity olive oil. Youll suddenly remember you put a tian in the slow cooker, and be pleased with your foresight. Dont forget theres a tangy-salty mozzarella salad marinating in the fridge; pull it out and set it on the table to warm up a bit, maybe sneaking a shred as you doits been a long day. Youll notice next to the stove a little cup of what looks like bread crumbs? What the? And youll remember your plan: Quickly fry those up for a crunchy topping for your tian, which smells even better when you finally lift the lid of the slow cooker to take a peek. Its a little watery, which is understandable because its been simmering here under a lid all day, so you scoop off some of the liquid: now, perfect. Let the tian settle a bit while you set plates and forks out and pour drinks, spread those toasty bread crumbs over the top, and dig in.

All the slow cooker main dishes in this book were developed for 3- or 4-quart (3.3- or 3.8-L) slow cookers, which I find to be the most useful for a small family. Our family of three always has leftovers from dishes cooked in a cooker of this size, and rarely do I cook a slow cooker meal that requires more than three or four pounds (1.4 or 1.8 kg) of meat. I do use a larger, 6-quart (5.7-L) slow cooker for making stocks (), since it doesnt make much sense to prepare small batches of stock.

If what you have now is a larger slow cooker, and you dont wish to donate that one to charity and replace it with a smaller model, consider increasing the quantities in these recipes by at least 50 percent to keep the ingredients from cooking too quickly.

Ive tried out many, many slow cookers over the years, and, honestly, the different makes and models are all pretty comparable in terms of the finished product, so you should just choose the one that has the features that are important to you: a countdown timer, say, or an automatic keep-warm setting, a lid that can be clamped down for leak-free transport (to the local bar if you live in the Midwest, for example), an extra-low simmer setting for more-than-eight-hour days, or an attractive housing.