I received Everyday Gluten-free Slow Cooking by Kimberly Mayone & Kitty Broihier as a gift at Christmas, and have made several recipes from it. If you’re looking for beginner-friendly, gluten-free recipes to make in a slow cooker, this cookbook includes an excellent introduction to the gluten-free diet in general (reasons for it, precautions to take, stocking your pantry, etc.) and also to slow cooking in general (Slow Cooking 101). The authors also write about adapting your usual slow cooker recipes with g/f alternatives.
The authors outline many good reasons why using a slow cooker works well with maintaining a gluten-free diet or preparing meals for someone else who is. Another reason is that a removable crock insert can be washed in a dishwasher and usually doesn’t have scratches where trace amounts of gluten could be retained, or you could even buy disposable liners to be even more on the safe side.
The cookbook has a good variety of family-friendly, basic recipes like Corn Chowder; Easiest Pulled Pork; Cincinnati Chili; and Mimi’s Classic Pork Roast and Vegetables with Gravy, but there are many that would also appeal to more adventurous tastes, such as Brazilian Black Bean Soup; Easy Vegetable Dal; Shrimp and Scallop Thai Curry; and Garlicky Salmon with Leeks and Wild Rice.
You’d expect plenty of meaty and vegetarian soup, stew, and chili recipes from any slow cooker cookbook, and there are many of them here, but there are also chapters for Breakfast and Brunch; Appetizers and Snacks; and Sweets. I haven’t tried any of those yet, but the Tex-Mex Egg Bake and the Chocolate Risotto are a couple of the ones I would like to try sometime when we have a crowd.
The recipes for the pictured meals are not available online, but check out the authors’ Gluten-Free Slow Cooking blog for several recipes you can sample and to see their style of cooking and writing. In case you’re thinking that it’s time to put the slow cooker away now until the fall, there are seasonal recipes for spring and summer posted there. I found a Ham and Navy Bean Soup recipe there to use up the ham bone and leftover ham that I put in the freezer after Easter!
There are no photos at all, which I don’t mind, but others might. (Most slow cooker meals aren’t very photogenic, anyway!) It’s a very nicely designed book, though, and stays open to your recipe, even near the beginning or the end.
Everyday Gluten-Free Slow Cooking
Mayone, Kimberly & Broihier, Kitty
Sterling, 2012
978-1-4027-8553-5
225 pp.
$22.95
Happy Weekend Cooking!
This post is part of Weekend Cooking, a weekly feature on Beth Fish Reads. Click on the image for more Weekend Cooking posts.