On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a presentation and book-signing event for author, blogger, and self proclaimed slow-cookerer Stephanie O’Dea. In 2008 Stephanie made a new years resolution to use a slow cooker (aka Crockpot) to prepare meals for 365 days. And, believe it or not, she kept her resolution. It wasn’t using the slow cooker to prepare meals that is so shocking to me–it’s that someone actually made and kept a new years resolution! Mine are usually forgotten by about the fourth day.

So, not only did Stephanie use a slow cooker everyday for 365 days, but she also blogged about the meals that she cooked each day on her website, A Year of Slowcooking. One day Stephanie successfully made a crème Brule in the slow cooker, sent an email to the Rachel Ray show about it, and ended up on the Rachel Ray show.

Stephanie O’Dea, Author of Make it Fast, Cook it Slow

The recipes that Stephanie used were from cookbooks, recipes that her blog readers shared with her, and recipes that she created herself. Having a child with celiac disease, all of the recipes that Stephanie made were modified so they were gluten free. Eventually she compiled the recipes into a manuscript and published a cookbook entitled, Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking. Many of the recipes include “The Verdict” which is a review of the recipe. Her cookbook was a smashing success and spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. She has written another book, More Make it fast, Cook it Slow, that will be available in January 2011. Stephanie’s Blog is also a smashing success and she gets about 15,000 hits a day, which is approximately 14,970 more hits than we get on our blog every day! 

The cover of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow

At the presentation and book-signing event Stephanie told us that she prepares her Thanksgiving dinner in slow cookers–including the turkey. Once she gets the food prepared and in the slow cookers, she has the rest of the day to visit with her guests. How great is that? I don’t usually cook Thankgiving dinner, but almost always spend most of Christmas Day in the kitchen preparing dinner. I’m going to be checking out Stephanie’s cookbook and website for the perfect Christmas dinner recipes for this year’s dinner.

At the event Stephanie served samples of pumpkin pudding that she had made in a slow cooker. It was delicious and tastes just like pumpkin pie sans the crust and all of the extra fat and white flour that comes with it. You can find the recipe for it at this site on her blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/11/crockpot-pumpkin-pudding-crustless.html

~merry~

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

~Erma Bombeck