Fresh From The Vegan Slow Cooker: 200 Ultra-Convenient, Super-Tasty, Completely Animal-Free Recipes

Fresh From The Vegan Slow Cooker: 200 Ultra-Convenient, Super-Tasty, Completely Animal-Free Recipes

Robin Robertson has built a publishing record of successful books in the vegetarian/vegan category. Her earlier cookbook, Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow-Cooker, established her bona fides as an expert on the creative use of slow-cookers, and her entire body of work speaks to her ingenuity in the kitchen and the breadth of enticing ingredients and flavors with which she works. Fresh from the Vegan Slow-Cooker provides practical guidence on how to work with different models of slow-cookers, taking into account the sizes of various machines, the variety of settings they offer, and the quirks and personalities of each device. She addresses any lingering skepticism readers may have about whether slow-cookers can have delicious, meat-free applications, and she shows how to take into account the water content of vegetables and the absorptive qualities of grains when vegan slow-cooking. Fresh from the Vegan Slow-Cooker includes eleven recipe chapters, four of which focus on main courses. There are homey and comforting foods in the American and European style, such as a Rustic Pot Pie Topped with Chive Biscuits and a Ziti with Mushroom and Bell Pepper Ragu, and there are lots of East Asian, South and Southeast Asian, and Mexican/Latin dishes, too. Beans, which cook slowly under any circumstance, are fabulously well-suited to the slow cooker, and Robertson includes such appealing recipes as a Crockery Cassoulet and a Greek-Style Beans with Tomatoes and Spinach. Eighteen robust chilis and stews - two more categories that do well in the slow-cooker - include a warming Chipotle Black Bean Chili with Winter Squash and a surprising but yummy Seitan Stroganoff. Beyond the mains, there are chapters devoted to snacks and appetizers, desserts, breads and breakfasts, and even one on drinks. The many soy-free and gluten-free recipes are clearly identified. Altogether, the collection offers readers loads of ways to expand their vegan repertoire and to get maximum value from their investment in a slow-cooker.About the AuthorRobin Robertson is a veteran restaurant chef, cooking teacher, and an acclaimed writer. She pens a regular column for VegNews Magazine and has written for Vegetarian Times, Health Naturally, Restaurant Business, National Culinary Review, American Culinary Federation Magazine, and Better Nutrition. She has written numerous cookbooks including the best-selling titles Vegan Planet, Vegan on the Cheap, and Quick-Fix Vegan. Robertson currently writes, promotes her books, and teaches classes on her innovative vegan cuisine from her home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where she lives with her husband and two cats. Her website is robinrobertson.com.Excerpt. ?Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction The irresistible appeal of a slow-cooker is its convenience and simplicity. Turn it on, and it cooks dinner while you do other things. You have no pot to watch. It doesnt burn or spill over. Just set it and let it do its work. Next thing you know, your kitchen smells heavenly, like a home-cooked meal, and you feel like your personal chef did all the work. Slow-cookers first appeared in the 1970s, and you could get your crock pot in harvest gold, avocado green, or maybe decorated with orange flowers. Back then, the Crock-Pot (as the Rival Company, which is now a brand of Sunbeam Products, trademarked it) was mostly favored for cooking tough cuts of meat. The Crock-Pot left the limelight for a while, but in 2002, when I wrote my first slow-cooker cookbook(Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, The Harvard Common Press), slow-cookers were enjoying a comeback. The goal of my first slow cooker book was to show how versatile slow-cookers are for vegetarian cooking and?an be used to prepare everything from breakfast to dessert. Fast forward ten years from that first book, and the popularity of slow-cookers shows no sign of waning. In addition, more people are enjoying a plant-based die