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A review by cyndin
The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester
4.0
Creative and innovative recipes using slow cookers. All vegan and most are gluten and/or soy-free or give alternative ingredients. With few exceptions, cookbooks written by a single author tend to rely on the same set of ingredients. Hester uses a lot of nutritional yeast, soy sauce, and other ferments to create her flavors and relies heavily on tomato sauce and potatoes (which is fine except I personally can't eat any of them). Although she has sections for side dishes and sauces and desserts, many of the remaining recipes have little protein, so aren't suitable for main dishes, despite being labeled as such. For those that do have protein, some have beans but mostly she relies on tofu, tempeh, and seitan. She advices readers who are gluten-intolerant to use the soy and readers who are soy-intolerant to use the seitan, leaving no room for someone who can't have either or who wants more variety.
Where she really shines on variety is in preparation. Her recipes range from 5 minutes of morning prep (grab stuff from the freezer, load the slow cooker, turn it on, and head out) to fairly involved, with lots inbetween (most recipes have some evening prep, then in the morning you load and go).
The sheer number of things she cooks this way is astounding. While most are dinner dishes that cook all day, there are also many breakfast meals that cook overnight, sauces, fillings, and more to make ahead then freeze to add back later, plus a few extras like cakes and pizza.
I read cookbooks like novels and enjoyed this one, including her side notes. I haven't yet tried any but that is on my to-do list!
Where she really shines on variety is in preparation. Her recipes range from 5 minutes of morning prep (grab stuff from the freezer, load the slow cooker, turn it on, and head out) to fairly involved, with lots inbetween (most recipes have some evening prep, then in the morning you load and go).
The sheer number of things she cooks this way is astounding. While most are dinner dishes that cook all day, there are also many breakfast meals that cook overnight, sauces, fillings, and more to make ahead then freeze to add back later, plus a few extras like cakes and pizza.
I read cookbooks like novels and enjoyed this one, including her side notes. I haven't yet tried any but that is on my to-do list!