If you’re looking for a gigantic cookbook with a huge selection of recipes for your slow-cooker, this is the one for you!
The Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook by Phyllis Pellman Good is an enormous cookbook with a recipe for pretty much anything you could desire. Well, anything you can make in a slow-cooker, that is. As an added bonus, the recipes tend to be short and have a limited number of ingredients, so you don’t need to empty your entire pantry and refrigerator to make these meals.
While I’m going to recommend this cookbook (have I panned one yet?), there are a couple of things you need to know before you jump on Amazon or drive to your local bookstore to order it.
First off, the recipes are a collection, in the sense they’ve been gathered from different creators. Thus= each recipe has its own tone and style. There is very little consistency from recipe to recipe. I’m kind of a stickler for consistency in abbreviations and measurement descriptions, but the Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook lacks that. Honestly, it’s not a big deal if you’re making one recipe, but if you’re making an entire meal (or a week’s worth of meals) then the inconsistencies can be irritating.
Secondly, there are a lot of recipes  are near-duplicates of each other. The upside is, if you don’t have all the ingredients for a particular recipe in stock, there’s likely one containing almost the same ingredients with the substitute you need. The downside is, if a particular recipe doesn’t appeal to you, you’re going to have to skip a bunch of them to find one you like.
Finally, I’m still trying to figure out how the recipes are organized within a section. While the recipes are broken down into logical categories, I don’t understand how they’re sorted within a category. So within the section of main courses titled Beef Main Dishes, there are 130 pages of recipes. They’re not alphabetical. They’re not by cut of beef. Essentially, all the beef recipes are simply thrown together. This means when you’re looking for a recipe you either have to use the index (which is fairly good) or you have to browse the entire 130 pages. If you’re anything like me you don’t have time to do that very often. Worse yet, I tend to get distracted and end up marking a whole bunch of recipes…forgetting I’m trying to figure out what to make for dinner tonight! While I’m sure there must’ve been some reason to sort the recipes as the author did, I simply don’t see it.
But enough of the downers…this is an awesome book and I don’t want you to come away thinking I hate it.
If you’ve read the blog for any amount of time, you know I’m a fan of slow-cookers. Sure, I’m totally in love with my Instant Pot…but we’re still in the honeymoon stage. My slow-cookers have been around since the earliest days of my cooking career. We’re in that comfortable late-stage where I know I can depend on this appliance regardless of what I need to do.
Need a warm meal for a rainy, cold day (like it is here in Kansas today)? My slow-cooker has me covered.
Need a dessert to be ready after work but doesn’t require me to rush around the house when I get home? Got it.
Need a side dish that doesn’t require me to tend to it while working on a complicated main dish? My slow-cooker has my back.
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of a slow-cooker is I tend to get in a rut with what I make. I know I can make chili easily. Stews are a cinch. Veggies take almost no effort. But the Hectic Family would revolt if I didn’t add a little bit of variety to their fare. They say they want consistency in what I make, but then gripe if I make the same thing too often. It’s a Catch-22.
That’s where the Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook saves the day!
This book is over 700 pages of recipes created by real people. They weren’t concocted in some test kitchen by the folks working for a big food conglomerate. These recipes come from the kitchens of cooks trying to get their families fed amongst all the other things going on in life. The recipes definitely reflect that.
Several of the Amazon reviews complained about the use of processed ingredients, which do crop up in many of the recipes. You know, things like Stove-Top Stuffing and canned soups. But let’s face it, those are part of real life. Sometimes you just don’t have time to make your own creamed soup (has anybody made their own creamed soup to use in another recipe?). If you’re really concerned about using processed ingredients, you can always take these recipes and combine them with recipes for the substitutes for the processed stuff. When I have tons of time, I sometimes do that. For instance, I’ve got a recipe for a lower-sodium, less-processed version of boxed stuffing. If I throw those ingredients into a recipe calling for Stove-Top Stuffing, they results turn out about the same. But I’m not completely sold on the don’t use any processed ingredients mantra. It’s like everything else in life…use some moderation and self-control and you’ll be fine. Just keep it in mind as you’re selecting recipes.
Be warned, this is not a cookbook from the age of Pinterest. There are hardly any photos. So if you usually select your recipes by what the finished product looks like (or at least the idealized version somebody was able to capture with their phone)…this may not be the cookbook for you. But if you’re into selecting recipes by names or ingredients or how short the preparation steps are (the latter is my go-to method), this book will be your jam
The focus of the Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook is on easy recipes. It’s not a cookbook that requires you to make everything from scratch. The recipes use ingredients you can buy at the store and add directly to your slow-cooker. There’s not a ton of prep for the recipes, so it fits well with my current penchant for dump meals. Best of all, there are so many recipes you’re sure to find something you’ll like…and something you can make right away without a trip to the grocery store.
To top it all off, these recipes are super-easy. So this is a great cookbook to give as a gift to a newly married couple or somebody who’s out on their own for the first time. Recipe prep is fast and easy enough so anybody who can pour things into a slow-cooker can end up with a delicious meal at the end of the day. Honestly, this is one of my top cookbooks on my gift list when I’m looking at kitchen items for the Hectic Kids as they move out on their own.
I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading my reviews where I dole out five stars and highly recommend the cookbook I’m reviewing. Sorry to disappoint you, but this one falls into the Highly Recommended category as well. Oh yeah, I also give it five stars!
So, if you’re looking to add a comprehensive slow-cooker cookbook to your own library, or want to give a gift that will be used all the time by somebody you love, you can’t go wrong with the Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook!
