Cover Image: The Plant-Based Slow Cooker

The Plant-Based Slow Cooker

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Member Reviews

This book really is packed with recipes. The book contains fourteen chapters, thirteen of which are full of recipes. The first chapter introduces the basics of using a slow cooker and the remainder include: snacks; soups; stews; beans; pasta; desserts; breakfasts; bread and hot drinks. There are no pictures to illustrate the finished recipes, but each recipe is clearly set out. I am very impressed with how versatile the slow cooker is. This is clearly an excellent book for anyone following a plant-based diet, but also perfect for anyone with vegan family and friends looking for a good selection of appetizing and reliable recipes. Thank you to Robin Robertson, Net Galley and Quarto Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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I really like this book. The recipes are easy to follow and are delicious. I have especially liked so far the African-style peanut stew and the Mulligatawny soup. Great inspiration for a few new staple recipes!

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I'm a big fan of Robin Robertson and know from experience that her recipes tend to be very tasty. I love her book Vegan Unplugged, which has easy recipes you can make when the power is out, you're traveling, etc. (a black eyed pea dip from that book has become a family New Year's Eve favorite). This book will surely please her fans, as it has her trademark style of recipes with a variety of flavors and styles. It is mostly whole foods based, which I appreciate. She provides recipes in the back for vegan staples not made in the crock pot like cashew based cream cheese and almond based parmesan. Many of the recipes call for these staples but you can of course buy processed versions from the store if you wish. She also goes into a lot of details about crock pots at the start. I also appreciate how short and succinct most of the recipes are. While the ingredient lists often look long, that's generally because she cooks with a fair amount of (easy to find) herbs and spices. The recipes themselves tend to be very short and easy. Often, the paragraph explaining the recipe was longer than the instructions for making it. Some of the recipes did sound very good, like BBQ homemade seitan and homemade sausage links. These sorts of dishes have been out for our family for a long time since we have kids who are allergic to gluten, but those who can have seitan will probably appreciate them (and the homemade BBQ sauce in the crock pot also sounded delicious).

All that said, there were some reasons this cookbook didn't work well for me. For starters, it does not contain nutritional information. This was an even bigger disappointment to me than usual since Robertson just published a vegan cookbook last year of high protein dishes and she talks in that book about how important protein is as we age. Then there is no information for any of the recipes on protein, carbohydrate, fiber, sugar, salt, fat or calorie counts. While an author may not choose to monitor these, many readers either choose to or must keep track of at least some of these. As someone who is currently monitoring my fats, carbs, proteins and fiber very carefully for health reasons, that alone makes this cookbook pretty worthless to me.

The recipes tend towards high carb and low fat and protein. They are "healthy" carbs, but again, this is a disappointment from an author who just published a book about many vegans needing more protein. Also, these recipes are very low fat, which coincides with many vegans' preferences but does not coincide with mine. I seek out healthy fats like avocados, olive oil, coconut milk, etc. so the fact that many of the recipes have no fat at all is not a selling point.

Lastly, as other reviewers have mentioned, there are no photos. There are over 200 recipes and the book would probably have to be much larger and much more expensive if photos were included, but many cooks like to see a recipe to see if we want to make it, and in today's market it's harder to sell a cookbook with no recipes.

There are still lots of wonderful recipes in here and it succeeded in making me consider finally buying another crock pot after my old one died years ago (I thought my Instant Pot would work fine but she convinced me that it's a poor slow cooker). I would have to adapt any of the recipes I chose to make to meet my nutritional needs though, and at this point I don't have the energy. For vegan readers who are looking for this sort of recipe and who don't mind the absence of photos, it will be a wonderful resource.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

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There are a lot of great vegetarian recipes here! Of course there are soups and stews, but also meals like pizza and lasagna, which is a nice variety.

The recipes are vegan, but seem like they could be easily adaptable if you wanted to add some cheese ;-)

This seems like a great book for after the holidays, when you want to eat healthy meals that are still delicious, The only thing is, that I wish there were a few photos throughout the book. I bet the images would have been so colorful and gorgeous. But, still, this is a great book for vegetarian and vegan inspiration, and when you want healthy but exciting slowcooker meals.

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The Plant-Based Slow Cooker is a cookbook and recipe collection for plant-based food in the slow cooker with recipes developed by Robin Robertson. Released 10th Nov 2020 by Quarto on their Harvard Common Press imprint, it's 352 pages and available in paperback format.

I love my slow cooker and use it all the time to prepare soups and stews. I've never been very adventurous but I liked the idea of incorporating more plant-based food into our diets and this book has a lot of nice recipes from which to choose. There are some less-than-ideal aspects of this book, but all in all, there are a bunch of tasty recipes representing a wide variety of world cuisines.

The author provides an excellent introductory tutorial about slow cookers, methods, uses, and considerations. The information is mostly general and will be applicable to almost all slow-cookers. Important info is highlighted in concisely written, colored text sidebars. The recipes themselves are grouped by category: snacks & appetizers, soups, stews & chili, beans & grains, pasta, hearty main dishes, stuffed dishes, vegetables, condiments, dessert, breakfast & breads, and hot drinks. There are a number of partial ingredient recipes included also. Many of these extra recipes seemed more or less superfluous and labor intentsive to me (I will never use them, but they will likely appeal to cooks who are well organized and into slow-food clean cooking).

Recipe ingredients are listed bullet style in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard with metric equivalents in parentheses (yay!). Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. Icons in the headers highlight gluten-free, soy-free, oil-free, etc.

Most (but not all) of the ingredients are easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store. Nutritional information is not included. Tips and optional variations for each recipe are included in a text box at the end.

The book also includes a cross referenced index. The formatting, typesetting, and margin illustrations are attractive, but the biggest drawback for me personally was the utter lack of photos. There are no serving suggestions or process photos. I find that I'm a very visual cook, and the lack of photos was a surprisingly big deal for me.

Three and a half stars. This would make a good selection for busy cooks wanting an accessible way to incorporate more plant based food in their diets and who can get along without photos. I'm not insensitive to the fact that incorporating photos in this huge cookbook would have rendered it prohibitively expensive (and massive).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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Being relatively new to vegetarianism & enjoying vegan cooking, I was really looking forwards to picking up some ideas on how to use my slow-cooker. This book is really detailed about how to use a slow-cooker and it has several pages about the basics. I enjoyed the tips for things like ‘too much liquid’, something I have noticed on many occasions.
There are many recipes, covering every area possible from snacks and soups to breads and even hot drinks. It is a very comprehensive book with clear instructions.
My two areas that held me back are: I would like to have had pictures of some of the recipes; the list of ingredients for each dish is massive. This is not a ‘pick up and go’ book but if you have time to plan, then there is plenty of choice for you here.

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When I started flipping through The Plant-Based Slow Cooker book by Robin Robertson I was pleasantly surprised to find that the whole first chapter was information on different slow cookers, tricks and tips for getting the best result from your slow cooker, and some basic descriptions of commonly used vegan proteins. The book then is broken down into 13 additional chapters each covering a different genre of dish. I drooled looking at all the ‘Soups That Satisfy’ which is chapter 3, as well as Chapter 8’s “Simply Stuffed”. But my largest complaint is often one recipe will have 10-15+ ingredients. We live a pretty low-waste, minimal life, and to make most of these would require many new additions to our cupboards. There also was ZERO pictures, which says a lot for this 300+ page book. Overall I enjoyed, but don’t think I’d add to my personal collection of cookbooks.

Thank you NetGalley and Harvard Common Press for an ARC in return for my honest review.

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This is a fantastic plant-based cookbook! Not only does it have a ton of delicious-sounding recipes, it also goes into the differences between plant-based, vegan, and vegetarian. I love that this book not only wants to teach you how to cook but also fundamental ideas and concepts related to plant-based lifestyles.

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#ThePlantBasedSlowCooker #NetGalley

Special thanks to NetGalley and Quatro publishing for providing me with ARC.

This book by by Robin Robertson is yet another great book by Robertson. I loved it and learned so much.

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I learnt a lot from this book as I changing my diet as a result of long covid.

I have been cooking a lot of the recipes over the last few weeks and found them interesting - who knew re pizza.

But there were terms that I had to look up as not familiar but not a deal breaker.

What I struggled with was the lack of pictures, that is the only reason not giving a full review. I just needed to know if I was on the right track or would have liked the recipes. No, I don't know if this is because I was given an advance copy - if that is the case then once published I will gladly buy it to keep as it was relatively easy to use.

I was given an advance copy by NetGalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

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The Plant-Based Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson is yet another great book by Robertson.

The slow cooker has never been a very used appliance in my house, either growing up or now. It is a tool I want to start utilizing more. I REALLY appreciate all the tips and tricks at the beginning of the book, as someone who is new to slow cookers and someone who also likes to make her own recipes, this section is the most valuable part of the book.

The recipes were all amazing! I think I will work through every recipe in this book. This is a must buy book for me! Plus, there are so many recipes to choose from!

I highly recommend this book not only for the recipes but for the valuable insight.

I received an eARC from Harvard Common Press and Quarto Publishing through NetGalley. All opinions are 100% my own.

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I've been on the prowl for a good plant-based cookbook for a while. I was vegetarian for a while several years ago, transitioned into pescatarian, and have been wanting to shift back again. This led me here, and I was looking forward to add some new and exciting recipes to my diet.
Well, first there are no pictures of any of the recipes, which I found very odd in a cookbook. Just lots and lots of text. The primary issue with this is that it led to a lot of skimming of text, and in my initial skim (then again later on when I was actively reading through the recipes), I felt there was a surprising lack of variety. A lot of the same herbs and seasonings, a lot of the same vegetables (there are SO MANY veggies, so I couldn't believe how many recipes looked almost exactly the same), and a lot of the same flavor profiles. I like marjoram and thyme as much as the next person, but I also like to mix it up every now and again.
The pros, though: a very solid basic ratatouille recipe, veggie recipes from multiple cultures, recipes for vegan alternatives to popular dairy products such as cream cheese and sour cream, fun drink recipes (I did love the rum punch), chai-spiced breakfast bread (!!), and the strange comfort of knowing that I'll never run out of uses for beans and lentils because I know of a book that has more uses for them than I could have ever imagined.

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The plant-based slow cooker is a wonderful collection of delicious recipes. Tons of soups and stews perfect for fall/winter. Lots of highlighting of vegetables! I'm not sure if it's my format but I didn't see any photos which are a must have for me. Otherwise would recommend to any veggie or vegetarian curious cooks!

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Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book via netgalley!

Great book containing lots of globally inspired recipes! The book starts with a good explanation of how to properly use the crockpot. It gives great tips and important need to knows. Also, great addition at the end to be able to
Make your own main ingredients such as creams. This part of the book has also information on how long each item will last being refrigerated. It would have made this book greater if that was also part of the details In all the recipes: how long they can be refrigerated. Considering you are making meals in a crockpot, there will be plenty of leftovers!

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This cookbook is wonderful for anyone trying to learn more plant based recipes. I loved several of the recipes and would highly recommend.

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I love using my slow cooker at this time of the year so I’m always on the lookout for more vegetarian recipes as I tend to stick to the same kind of recipes - chillis, curries etc, so I was excited when I saw The Plant-Based Slow Cooker book.

It’s filled with recipes but not all of them are my kind of thing sadly, I don’t eat tofu or seitan which are featured quite heavily in the book, there are a couple of recipes I’m looking forward to trying though.

As someone from the UK, I really appreciated that the measurements are given in grams as well as cups, it makes following along much easier. I would have also preferred photos to go alongside the recipes, I think that would have improved the overall look and feel of the book.

Overall, I’d say this was just okay. It’s not the best plant-based cookbook I’ve ever had but it’s by no means the worst.

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I'm not really sure what to think about this book. I love the idea of being able to cook more veggie meals in my slow cooker - I often find the texture is off, or the flavour isn't quite right. I thought this book would be helpful, but I just wasn't a fan of many of the recipes.

The book starts off with a chapter of appetizers - all of which I just thought "but it would be easier and quicker to make using the cooker!" Not a great start. Then it moves on to the more classic soups, stews and chillies. There were some nice sounding recipes here but nothing I desperately wanted to make. I also found that a lot of the recipes use seitan or tofu, which I don't use.

Overall - it was ok.

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As a reader from the UK, I'm pleased it had US and UK measurements in the book. I have been so frustrated in the past with books that just have the 'cup' measurements when trying to make a recipe. So liked the fact it had grams/ml as well as cups!

I must confess I am a meat eater- however I do cook a lot of vegetarian dishes too. I wanted to read this book to give me more inspiration and ideas when it comes to veggie recipes.
I wasn't overly impressed with the recipes on offer here. There were a few that stood out but not many.
I enjoyed some of the soups (don't know why but i've never cooked a soup in my slow cooker before)

It definitely made me think outside the box when it comes to cooking with my slow cooker - but wasn't overly keen overall with the recipes.

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This book has some fun slow cooker recipes. I'll definitely be breaking it out during the winter months!

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Very meh. This book has three problems, two that are common to plant based recipe books and one that isn't. The first is that my copy had no pictures, which always causes me to lose interest. The second is the inclusion of ingredients that I have to make, with the handy recipe for that in the back of the book. This happens a lot with plant based cooking as the authors are trying to appeal to the Clean Eating crowd. Is it heathier to make my own vegan sour cream, sure. Will it taste better, maybe. Am I ever going to actually make the ingredient, no. Does that mean I won't make the main recipe, 100%. And the last problem is the long lists of ingredients. This is obviously because many of the ingredients are dried spices that most people have on hand. So it's not an unreasonable list. But almost every recipe has a long list. It turns me off cooking and the book as a whole when I see this.
These recipes may be good. But nothing in this book is enticing me to try them.

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