Notes about Recipes in this book

• Beef in Barolo

  • Breadcrumbs on November 27, 2011

    p. 141 - I used a top sirloin roast since there was a great sale so with the slow braise and wine-infused broth, our Barolo Beef was fork tender! This dish comes together in no time then just simmers away all day, making the house smell so enticing I might add. We especially loved the tomatoes in sauce for this dish. The first night we served the roast sliced over garlic mashed potatoes and the second time around we made Chicago-inspired Italian beef sandwiches. We though this was outstanding and will definitely make this again.

• Lamb stew with sun-dried tomatoes

  • TrishaCP on December 21, 2014

    This stew was fine but nothing mind-blowing. I used a beef shoulder roast rather than lamb because that was what I had on hand. The sun- dried tomatoes cook down and add lots of umami to the dish, but if I hadn't made this, I wouldn't have known they were in there (that may be the point). The rosemary wasn't discernible either. Finally, you really don't need a slow cooker for this recipe- you still have to brown everything before adding it to the stew and it only cooks 6 hours in total.

• Pork stew agrodolce

  • TrishaCP on December 15, 2018

    This was a very good stew-simple ingredients and fantastic flavor. I think this is a great candidate for an Instant Pot conversion, because it's an annoying slow cooker recipe. (Everything must be browned or softened first, and it only cooks six hours on low.)

  • nicolepellegrini on November 13, 2014

    Excellent - so far my favorite recipe from this cookbook. Nice complex flavor for a pork stew, I will definitely make this one again.

• Butternut squash and potatoes with rosemary

  • nicolepellegrini on February 08, 2019

    A very easy to throw together side dish that I was impressed by. Mixing the squash in with the potatoes lightens it up and I found it was all cooked through and tender, but not mushy, in about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

• Springtime veal stew

  • nicolepellegrini on June 21, 2018

    Pleasant if nothing particularly exciting. I found 4 hours on low was not enough time to really end up with tender veal stew meat; I upped it to high for an hour and then it was fine. I would make sure to use a nice rich stock and perhaps add some white wine next time if I make this again.

• Milk-braised pork loin

  • nicolepellegrini on March 18, 2014

    Came out "okay" but I'm not sure I'd make again. That is, I don't think cooking it in the slow cooker really did anything to the flavor and it would have been better off completely braised. As it was, I had to finish it in the oven to reduce down the sauce and give the meat the kind of browning I wanted.

• Pork chops with fennel seeds

  • nicolepellegrini on September 08, 2021

    I made this with thinner pork chops than I usually like to cook with and it was a nice way to keep them moist and flavorful instead of dry and tough.

• Beef shanks with red wine and tomatoes

  • nicolepellegrini on August 08, 2019

    Delicious - much, much better than I expected given the simplicity and few ingredients, and without browning the meat first! I did basically let the meat "marinate" with all the other ingredients overnight in my fridge so I could just dump it all in my slow cooker before work the next day. Let it cook for nine hours and it was perfectly tender and juicy. Although the recipe says serve with crusty bread, next time I think I would like it with some polenta or mashed potatoes.

  • chawkins on February 15, 2013

    I had an extra 3/4 lb of meat. Cooked at low for 7.5 hour and the meat was not quite tender yet. I cooked it at high for another 4 hours the next day to get it to fall off the bone.

• Chicken with vinegar and garlic

  • nicolepellegrini on June 02, 2020

    This was a good one. Not a huge amount of liquid added here so the flavor became very concentrated, and yet the garlic was extremely mild. Also very flavorful for few ingredients and easy to prep. I would definitely make it again.

• Chicken with pancetta, peas, and herbs

  • nicolepellegrini on June 28, 2020

    This was pleasant, but one of those slow-cooker meals that just seemed to come out bland and lacking in much flavor punch, despite using a far amount of fresh herbs. I think it would come out better if the chicken was browned in the bacon drippings - with skin on - instead of removing the skin and just cooking them completely in the slow cooker.

• Farro salad

  • nicolepellegrini on July 23, 2021

    This was fine. No real benefit in cooking the farro in a slow cooker - in fact it's faster/easier, I'd say, to do it stove top.

• Braised halibut steaks

  • nicolepellegrini on October 29, 2018

    Honestly this was better than I expected, considering the simplicity of the recipe. I'm always hesitant to cook fish in the slow-cooker but the halibut did come out very moist and cooked through in 1.5 hours on low. A couple notes on the recipe, however: I coated the cooker with some olive oil before placing the fish in it and glad I did, because it still almost was starting to stick to the bottom. Also the recipe only calls for 2 fresh tomatoes and that they should yield 2 cups of pulp after seeding and squeezing out the excess juice? Those must be really big tomatoes. I ended up using a whole 28oz can of plum tomatoes to get 2 cups of strained pulp.

• Tuscan seafood stew

  • nicolepellegrini on November 05, 2018

    This was one of those recipes that seemed like would be more work to make via slow cooker than stove top...so I just made it stove top. That way I didn't need to saute the onion & garlic (to which I also added some celery) in a separate pan and it was all done in about 90 minutes (since I cooked down the tomatoes and broth in an hour instead of three.) Pleasant enough results but not really a standout fish stew.

• Butternut squash soup

  • nicolepellegrini on September 19, 2020

    Interesting. Different from the usual flavor profile I'm used to with butternut squash or pumpkin soup - the sage and potatoes add a unique taste. I'm not sure I'd rush to make it again vs. more spicy/curry-flavored soups that I'm used to, but it's comforting for this time of year.

• Pasta fagioli

  • nicolepellegrini on March 20, 2014

    Thought this was quite bland. Needed a lot of extra seasoning and some grated cheese to give it any real flavor and depth.

• Sicilian-style orange chicken

  • nicolepellegrini on June 09, 2018

    Not bad. Chicken came out very tender and juicy, but not a lot of distinct orange flavor, I have to say. Be sure to season well.

• Lemon chicken and potatoes

  • nicolepellegrini on December 31, 2018

    Pleasant and easy, nice dish for a lazy Sunday. I used baby potatoes and they were perfectly cooked doing the 5 hours on low setting.

• Braised beef with anchovies and rosemary

  • L.Nightshade on August 01, 2012

    This starts out in a skillet, where the beef is browned, as is the pancetta. The instructions state to brown them together, but the beef needed to be done in batches, and I thought it would be too hard to scrape out all the pancetta if it started getting overdone. So the beef was browned first, then the pancetta, then anchovies and garlic were added. The pan is deglazed with white wine, and it all goes into the slow cooker with a sprig of rosemary, and cooks on low for six hours. The entire house smelled lovely, as did the final product. One little sprig of fresh rosemary certainly does not overwhelm two to three pounds of beef. And the flavor was nice. I made polenta using a very dark demi-glace, and the sauce from the meat was quite good over that. The meat was tender, but rather dry. Cooking time too long? Perhaps. So, next time I guess I'll try a shorter cooking period. But it kind of defeats the purpose if you have to stand over it and check it periodically, no?

• Chicken with cherry tomatoes, capers, and olives

  • chawkins on October 20, 2015

    What a disappointment. You would think that with the olives and capers, this would be very flavorful, but the chickens were just bland to me. The olives and capers were added at the last 15-30 minutes of cooking, probably not enough time for the flavor to blend. My husband liked the dish though. So far this book has been a dud for me.

• Country-style pork ribs with tomato and peppers

  • foodgloriousfood on March 29, 2022

    Six hours was too long. Five would probably be long enough. Next time I think I would roast and skin the peppers, and add part way through. The skin on the sliced peppers after 6 hours cooking time had slipped off and was texturally unappealing.