Hensperger - Not Your Mothers Slow Cooker Cookbook

For Agra: Thank you for sharing your
understanding of the cosmos that flows through you,
dear friend and gentle heart.
BH

For Ben, who supports me in everything I do
JK

The Harvard Common Press
535 Albany Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02118
www.harvardcommonpress.com

Copyright 2005 Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hensperger, Beth.
Not your mother's slow cooker cookbook / Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55832-244-2 (hc : alk. paper)ISBN 1-55832-245-0 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Electric cookery, Slow. I. Kaufmann, Julie. II. Title.
TX827.H39 2005
641.5'884dc22
2004018564

ISBN-13: 978-1-55832-245-5

Special bulk-order discounts are available on this and other Harvard Common Press books. Companies and
organizations may purchase books for premiums or resale, or may arrange a custom edition, by contacting the
Marketing Director at the address above.

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15

Cover and interior design by RLF Design
Cover photography by Eskite Photography
Food styling by Andrea Lucich
Prop styling by Carol Hacker

Cover photographs--front: Thas Pork with Peanut Sauce, ; spine: Crock-Roasted Root Vegetables,
.

Not Your Mother's is a registered trademark of The Harvard Common Press.

We started this project because we love to cook, and we both are advocates of quick cookingmaking our favorite recipes as easy and effortless as possible. Since food writing and editing are our professions, we are both in the kitchen a great deal, but the dilemma we face of coming up with tasty, healthful meals in a short amount of time every day is the same one that challenges any working person or busy parent. We love ethnic and traditional American cooking, but we take a very flexible approach. We like to play with our favorite seasonings and flavor combinations. We like to experiment, substitute ingredients as needed, and enjoy our time in the kitchen, rather than have it be a chore. We don't want to save our favorites for guests; we want to eat them when we choose. The slow cooker, to our surprise, fit into our culinary lives with perfection.

As its name implies, cooking in the slow cooker takes longer than conventional stove-top or oven cooking. But we found it was quick in other ways: the no-fuss assembly was efficient, we could still be imaginative in our choice of ingredients, and the slow-cooking process took virtually no hands once the cooker was loaded and turned on. This method was a return to truly traditional cooking and was extremely useful in our busy lives.

We collected recipesthe nostalgic and the new, the exotic and homeyover two years of testing with the one requirement being that they taste good. We found the slow cooker style of cooking is designed to complement the way we liveit is time conscious, economical, energy conscious, and reliable. We cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients, and we could cook the same dishes as easily for a dinner party as for a family supper. It was simple to make enough so we had leftovers and extras for the freezer.

We ended up appreciating our slow cooker meals and the appliance's ability to enhance our daily lives. We found that wonderful food does not need to be complicated. The goal of this cookbook is not only to give you lots of ideas for recipes and ways to use your slow cooker, but to enhance your time in the kitchen with home-cooked dishes you may have forgotten or have never known. Since most of the recipes constitute one-dish meals, all you need is some bread or a salad and dinner is on the table. Happy slow cooking!

We offer a special thank you to Pam Hoenig, our meticulous and painstaking editor, for guiding this book project with sensitivity, intelligence, and good humor. Her support made this book a pleasant experience. Also thank you to Deborah Kops, our copyeditor and much more, and to Valerie Cimino and the staff at The Harvard Common Press.

Additional thanks go to all our friends and other cookbook writers who have been generous enough to share their slow cooker recipes and food philosophies with uswe have acknowledged them individually in the recipes.

And we want to thank our friends Nancyjo Rieske, Batia Rabec, and Vivien "Bunny" Dimmel, who were diligent with testing, tasting, and giving us advice. We appreciate the help.

It is the happiest of circumstances that we have had Martha Casselman as the same literary agent for all our books except one way back when. Now well into retirement, she will be remembered for three lovesthe love of the craft of writing, which she inherited from her father, the old newspaper man; her generous love of community, from the food bank to nonprofit fundraising benefits; and, of course, her love of good food.

Americans are known throughout the modern world for their love of new technology in the mechanical and electronic realms. Any piece of equipment or tool that can do the job better and faster is immediately embraced and touted. So who could have predicted the success of a kitchen appliance that does the job more slowly? In 1971, the Rival Company, known for manufacturing home kitchen electric appliances and for its invention of the electric can opener (in 1955), introduced a revolutionary countertop appliance (originally designed to be an electric bean cooker called the Beanery), which it dubbed the Crock-Pot. And what a smash hit it was.

Originally marketed as a boon to the busy working woman who still wanted to serve her family homemade food, the appeal of the slow cooker has broadened considerably, reaching across gender and generational lines. The pot itself has become something of a phenomenon, with sales to date of more than 80 million units in 350 different models. To some, the slow cooker became unfashionable over time, and its avocado green and harvest gold colors seemed to be hopelessly out of tune with current style. But the slow cooker's devotees just went right along cooking in slow motion, assembling savory one-pot meals in their trusty cookers and sitting down to eat the delicious results hours later.

The slow cooker, a fat tub on short legs, is actually the modern embodiment of a centuries-old method of preparing food: enclosed cooking in earthenware. Today's slow cookers are made by a bevy of manufacturers that market worldwide from the Far East to Mexico and Europe, but the cookers share certain characteristics. They have a thick stoneware insert housed in a metal casing. Electrical heating elements within the metal casing carry the heat up and all around the stoneware as it sits in the casing.

Incorporating elements of stove-top and oven cooking methods, a slow cooker works by keeping the food constantly simmering at the lowest possible temperature for a very long period of time. Once you have mastered the skill of cooking in it, you can assemble and cook a dish that does not require any tending. In fact, you can leave the house or go to bed without worry. Today's heavy, fully glazed stoneware cooking vessels are so versatile and attractive that you can, in most instances, assemble and refrigerate the ingredients in the insert (if you have a removable one) at night, and in the morning, place it directly in the metal housing containing the heating elements. Turn on the cooker, let it cook for hours, then serve the meal directly from it. Think of it as a large oven-to-table casserole or soup tureen. It permits you to cook back-to-basics cuisine at its bestsimple and economical, yet sumptuous and hearty.