Cook it Up – A Cookbook Challenge
Trish is hosting a fun event to
encourage us all to dig a bit deeper into our cookbooks. So I decided to join
the fun and check out a Mediterranean cookbook.
The Mediterranean Slow Cooker
Cookbook
by Salinas Press
★★★
I am a huge fan of my slow cooker.
When everyone in your household works full time, having a slow cooker can be
the difference between a stressful night and a relaxing meal. Lately I’ve been
on a Mediterranean food kick, so this was a perfect pairing.
There are 101 recipes split into
different categories. I love that the ingredients focus on fresh vegetables,
fruits, fish, whole grains and heart-healthy fats. I love using my slow cooker,
but I am not a fan of recipes that tell you to dump in three cans of condensed
soup and a stick of butter. Eating a meal that I cook fresh in the evening lets
me control the ingredients I’m using, so I love that this slow cooker cookbook
does too.
(Sausage Fennel Minestrone)
Now the down side to that is that from what I saw most of the recipes require a lot of prep work. For me, this isn’t a deal breaker, it just depends on my mood. If I make a slow cooker recipe that has lots of prep, I make the whole thing the night before and pop it in the fridge. Then in the morning I just start up the slow cooker.
One aspect I loved about the book was the inclusion of slow cooker tips at the beginning of the book. I’m new enough to the world of cooking that I learn something new every time I read one of those. One thing I disliked was the prep time and cook times were not included in each recipe. I also wish that I’d had a hardcopy of the cookbook instead of an e-book. I like to make notes on my recipes while cooking and I really like seeing photos of the finished product with each review. I definitely don’t think cooking with e-cookbooks works well for me.
There were a ton of soup recipes that looked great, but the first one I tried was the Sausage Fennel Minestrone. It turned out well, great flavor and consistency. It did take a ton of prep work and in the end the Huz and I both thought it was good but not worth the work. I did love that it got me to use a few ingredients that are outside of my comfort zone like fennel and orecchiette pasta.
BOTTOM LINE: A good cookbook if you love Mediterranean food, which I do. A little too much prep work for some people and it would definitely work better as a hardcopy cookbook instead of an e-book. I'm looking forward to trying more recipes from it.
I received an ebook version of the
cookbook for an honest review.
Photo of minetrone by moi. 
