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.

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.

#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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

Some excellent and wide-ranging recipes, particularly good for new Vegans/Vegetarians looking for fresh ideas for warmer meals in the winter months - tried the Spice-rubbed Cauliflower and some of the apple recipes which worked perfectly.  The lack of illustrations/photos is a little disappointing, but slow cooker meals are not always the most photogenic so can understand the reasons why.  Recommended!

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.

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.

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

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.

This is the book I've been waiting for.

After flicking through the pages of every single vegan or vegetarian slow cooker cookbook I'd ever seen and still being left uninspired, I'd almost given up. But this is incredible. It's got such variety, from simple dips to hearty (vegan) classics. If you're looking for beautiful pictures, this is not the one for you. But if you want a whole load of real recipes to give your cooking some serious variety... give this a go,


ARC via Netgalley

This is a fantastic vegan cookbook that has a variety of recipes from around the world. From interesting dips, to pasta, stews and desserts there is something for everyone. The recipes are easy to follow and execute, but as the author is from the USA some ingredients were unknown to me and required some research. 
As I do eat dairy, I adapted some recipes and they turned out well. It’s unusual for me to find a cookery book that includes this many recipes that I actually want to try. I am working my way through them all, but that may take some time. The Cuban bean soup was delicious, but I did have to Google ‘liquid smoke’.

Date reviewed (Canada) - October 31, 2020
Date reviewed (UK) - November 3, 2020
... I am bi-country at the moment


When life for the entire universe and planet turns on its end and like everyone else you "have nothing to do" while your place of work is once again closed and you are continuing to be in #COVID19 #socialisolation as the #secondwave is upon us,  superspeed readers like me can read 300+ pages/hour, so yes, I have read the book … and many more today.

I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.  

From the publisher, as I do not repeat the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it as they do it better than I do 😸.

This revised and updated edition of the best-selling cookbook Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker—now with a plant-based focus—offers 225 extremely convenient, delicious, and completely plant-based recipes for everyone's favourite cooking machine.

In this inventive cookbook filled with enticing ingredients and flavours, veteran chef, cooking teacher, and acclaimed vegan cookbook author Robin Robertson shares her expertise on the creative use of slow cookers. ​Fresh from the Plant-Based Slow Cooker includes 17 new recipes throughout 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 many 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 Robin includes such appealing recipes as a Crockery Cassoulet and a Greek-Style Beans with Tomatoes and Spinach. Over 20 recipes for robust chilis and stews 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, loaves of bread and breakfasts, and even one on drinks. The many soy-free and gluten-free recipes are clearly identified.

Fresh from the Plant-Based Slow-Cooker also provides practical guidance 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. Robin 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 plant-based slow-cooking.

Altogether, this new edition offers you an abundance of ways to expand your plant-based repertoire and to get maximum value from your investment in a slow cooker.

IF YOU WANT ME TO GET EXCITED ABOUT A COOKBOOK, I NEED PHOTOS!!!   Now maybe there are photos in the book in hard copy but my digital copy had zero...so every recipe seemed, well, brown...brown and boring.  Sure, there are some really good recipes here if you want to eat plant-based foods (and it seems like everyone wants to take out books on plant-based/vegan foods) but nothing is enticing to me when all I do is read instructions. 

A great book if you don't care about photos, or are looking for vegan foods to add to your cooking repertoire = they are also very adaptable if you want to add animal products such as meat or my beloved cheese. 

Ergo, middle of the road rating (2.5 stars rounded up to 3 and I am being nice and rounding it up) as pages and pages of instructions do not excite me at all.

As always, I try to find a reason to not rate with stars as I simply adore emojis (outside of their incessant use by "🙏-ed Social Influencer Millennials/#BachelorNation survivors/Tik-Tok and YouTube  Millionaires/snowflakes etc. " on Instagram and Twitter... Get a real job, people!) so let's give it 🍆🍆🍆

Date reviewed: November 1, 2020

When life for the entire universe and planet turns on its end and like everyone else you "have nothing to do" while your place of work is once again closed and you are continuing to be in #COVID19 #socialisolation as the #secondwave is upon us,  superspeed readers like me can read 300+ pages/hour, so yes, I have read the book … and many more today.

I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.  

From the publisher, as I do not repeat the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it as they do it better than I do 😸.

This revised and updated edition of the best-selling cookbook Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker—now with a plant-based focus—offers 225 extremely convenient, delicious, and completely plant-based recipes for everyone's favourite cooking machine.

In this inventive cookbook filled with enticing ingredients and flavours, veteran chef, cooking teacher, and acclaimed vegan cookbook author Robin Robertson shares her expertise on the creative use of slow cookers. ​Fresh from the Plant-Based Slow Cooker includes 17 new recipes throughout 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 many 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 Robin includes such appealing recipes as a Crockery Cassoulet and a Greek-Style Beans with Tomatoes and Spinach. Over 20 recipes for robust chilis and stews 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, loaves of bread and breakfasts, and even one on drinks. The many soy-free and gluten-free recipes are clearly identified.

Fresh from the Plant-Based Slow-Cooker also provides practical guidance 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. Robin 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 plant-based slow-cooking.

Altogether, this new edition offers you an abundance of ways to expand your plant-based repertoire and to get maximum value from your investment in a slow cooker.

IF YOU WANT ME TO GET EXCITED ABOUT A COOKBOOK, I NEED PHOTOS!!!   Now maybe there are photos in the book in hard copy but my digital copy had zero...so every recipe seemed, well, brown...brown and boring.  Sure, there are some really good recipes here if you want to eat plant-based foods (and it seems like everyone wants to take out books on plant-based/vegan foods) but nothing is enticing to me when all I do is read instructions. 

A great book if you don't care about photos, or are looking for vegan foods to add to your cooking repertoire = they are also very adaptable if you want to add animal products such as meat or my beloved cheese. 

Ergo, middle of the road rating (2.5 stars rounded up to 3) as pages and pages of instructions do not excite me at all.

As always, I try to find a reason to not rate with stars as I simply adore emojis (outside of their incessant use by "🙏-ed Social Influencer Millennials/#BachelorNation survivors/Tik-Tok and YouTube  Millionaires/snowflakes etc. " on Instagram and Twitter... Get a real job, people!) so let's give it 🍆🍆🍆

Another great plant based cookbook! I love having the option for slow cooked plant based recipes because sometimes you just want something ready when you get home from work. Lots of great recipes with easy enough to find ingredients!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.