kaye16's Reviews
11 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 11Sort by: Title 
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The Italian Slow Cooker
By Michele Scicolone
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
"Big Meatball" Meat Loaf : page 154
Not sure why meatloaf the crocklpot is so much better than meatloaf from the oven, but it is.
I made a halfish recipe of this in my 3-qt crock. Used Gruyère rather than Romano because I had some to use up.
We enjoyed.
useful (0)
Beef Shanks with Red Wine and Tomatoes : page 149
As recipes from this book go, this one was a flop. The meat never got "so tender that you can cut them with a spoon". No idea why.
The sauce is pretty good. Might try to turn it into some kind of soup.
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Braised Beef with Anchovies and Rosemary : page 147
Tasty; sauce especially nice.
Made a half recipe for my old 3.5-qt crockpot, although I expect the full amount would have fit fine.
There is no taste or smell of anchovy in the final product, just a nice "complication" in the sauce.
The recipe suggests meat cut in 2" cubes. I made mine somewhat smaller and we both thought they should have been smaller still, more like bite-sized.
The sauce seemed a bit thin, so I thickened with some potato starch shortly before serving.
The half recipe would have served three, as advertised; leftovers will make a soup for lunch I expect.
useful (2)
Butternut Squash Soup : page 19
Soup for dinner tonight.
This was easy and good.
I finally realized that I'm still using an old crockpot (old enough the crock isn't removable) with lower cooking temperatures, while this book, no doubt, expects a newer crockpot with higher cooking temps.
Thus, I cooked this on High for four hours. And the potatoes got done -- yay!
Then I whizzed it all with my immersion blender and there was soup.
Very good for relatively little effort.
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Calamari Soup : page 42
4.5 even
- This was DEElicious, a nice thick soup with squid rings, rice, potatoes, carrots, celery, and peas. My calamari were quite overdue to be used after too long in the freezer. No matter.
- I had about 600g of squid, so made about a 2/3 recipe. We both thought the 1/2" rings were unwieldy. Might be better to cut them into bite-sized chunks, which is what we did at table.
- Low in my old crockpot was not sufficient to cook the potatoes and carrots. I put it on High at some point during the cooking. To finish, I turned it all into a Dutch oven before adding the peas, rice, and S&P to finish.
- Long-grain rice (basmati) got rather mushy. I think arborio or another risotto rice might be better.
I see no reason for this to be made in a crockpot. It would be much faster and easier (and less clean-up) if cooked in a Dutch oven from the beginning. But make it, do!
Leftovers were just as good. My 2/3 recipe was 4 generous servings.
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Cauliflower with Prosciutto and Olives : page 182
Maybe 4.5
- Serves 3 (or 4 possibly) as a main over pasta; the 6 servings indicated would be as a side.
- The whole recipe was fine in a 3qt crockpot.
- Be careful adding salt. I added a generous pinch at the beginning, because my (homemade) stock is unsalted. But the kalamata olives I used were very salty, so the end dish was saltier than either of us like.
- The cauliflower bits are not submerged in the stock. Best to pile them in a cone so that the ones not in liquid are not touching the sides of the crock, otherwise they get a bit too browned.
- It too a bit longer than 1-1/2 hours to get the cauliflower to the "almost tender" point. This could be because I'm running a 110W/60cycle crock through a transformer on 220W/50cyces and it takes a bit longer to heat up.
We liked this dish, but I'm not sure that it couldn't be done easier on the stovetop. When you're cooking for only 1-1/2 hours, you're losing the crockpot advantage of being able to walk away for a good bit of time. I was making fresh pasta, so it worked kind of okay for me.
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Meat and Mushroom Ragu : page 60
4.5?
Really tasty. I used dried porcini and champignons de Paris, your regular sort of brown shroom. Imagine if there had been some really flavorful fresh shrooms!
Used the food processor for all the chop-chop, of which there is a lot.
Made all, which was ok in my 3qt crock. Three of us ate about half. We'll have two more dinners for two with the rest.
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Peppery Beef Stew : page 143
Made a half recipe in my 3qt crock. Cut beef bits smaller than 2", which we find too large.
Mine cooked overnight, closer to 11 hours rather than just 6, on Low, but it's not the kind of thing that matters.
Tasty stuff.
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I made a full recipe in a 3-qt crock, so it was quite full. After 6+ hours, the lentils were still quite crunchy, so I moved this to a Dutch oven to finish cooking. Used ditalini for the pasta; I had thought they might be too small for the chunky veggies, but they were perfect. Used about a cup of chicken stock that needed to be used as part of the liquid (otherwise water).
We thought this had a surprisingly full taste considering that it's just veg and water.
useful (2)
Spiced Beef Stew : page 146
Not hot-spicy, but spicy with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, this is really a venison stew made with beef. Curiously Scicolone says in the headnote that this is sometimes made with venison.
Whatever, it's still good. This is easy and tasty.
Mine cooked overnight, closer to 11 hours rather than just 6, on Low, but it's not the kind of thing that matters.
We found the 2" pieces too big.
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Tomato and Red Wine Sauce : page 52
My half recipe made about 1-1/2 cups of sauce; a whole recipe would make about 3 cups (NOT 6 cups as stated), which is sensible considering it starts with two no-longer-2-cup cans.
My crockpot being otherwise occupied, I made this on the stove. It was quite tasty as I put it up.
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