“More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: 200 Brand-New, Budget-Friendly, Slow-Cooker Recipes” by Stephanie O’Dea is the follow up to her New York Time best selling book “Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking.”
The best thing about this cookbook is that it has everything you love about the first one: easy to follow recipes, wide variety of ideas, and practical cooking. However, now you get even more ideas to try and taste!

What would make this book better?

Pictures! But if you’re looking for straight-forward recipes within a book at a value price (since printing text is more affordable than printing graphics) you’ll be perfectly happy with “More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: 200 Brand-New, Budget-Friendly, Slow-Cooker Recipes.”

My favorite part of the book?

Real ingredients. Too many cookbooks feature recipes that call for unconventional ingredients. Perhaps the chefs are so far departed from the real world of typical grocery store shopping that they don’t realize that some items they take for granted are actually exotic luxuries to the average shopper. Not that you won’t find quality ingredients listed, there are plenty of occasions within this book for fresh flavor infusing delectables. But fortunately you won’t need to change grocery stores to prepare for these recipes. In fact, you probably already have most of what you’ll need to cook.

Congratulations Pinokeeo!

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels

Ingredients:
- Baking Chocolate – I use Ghiradelli 100% Cocoa
- Almond Bark
- Peanut Butter Pretzels

I use a hammer to break up the chocolate into small chunks. Then I put the mixture of almond bark and chocolate into the microwave for about 1.5 minutes. As it starts to melt, I stir until it is mostly liquid. Then just dip and put each pretzel onto parchment paper. Let stand until chocolate is set.

Materials:
fresh pasta dough (recipe below)
plastic bag or plastic wrap
flour for dusting
rolling pin
items to cut the dough (small cookie cutters, sharp paring knife, cutting wheel… whatever you trust your children with)
water for boiling

So the basics are that you separate your dough into about 1/4c size pieces. Place whatever unused pieces you have into a plastic bag or plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out.

dust everything lightly with flour and roll out the dough so it’s nice and thin. Flip it and dust again at least once while rolling to be sure that the dough won’t stick to the surface. The Oldest was able to roll her own dough. The Boy was not.

After it’s rolled nice and thin and you are sure that it is not stuck anywhere to the cutting board, allow your kids to cut up their own shapes out of the dough. I gave each child one 1/4c ball to work with and they both made free form designs. The Boy made standard shapes and the Oldest made more advanced objects (like a dog head). Once the kids got done cutting out their shapes, I cut the remaining dough into strips that resembled fettuccini but they were much shorter.

Boil the pasta (being sure that you boil each child’s separately so they can enjoy their own creation). When it floats to the top, boil for another min and then remove from the water. Show the kids what they made and then use your favorite pasta sauce, serve and enjoy.

**these were made by rolling pieces of dough into balls and then pressing them flat with my fingers before boiling**

Eggless Pasta Dough
1c Unbleached white flour
1c Whole wheat flour
1tsp salt
2tbs butter or oil
1/2c plus 2tbs of water

Place the flours, salt and butter in a food processor and process till the butter is just blended. Alternately, to hand make this, mix the flours and salt and then add the oil in a well made in the flour and blend.

With the food processor on, drizzle the water down the shoot. If the dough does not form a ball, drizzle a little more down. Or, make a well in the flour and add the water. Then mix and fold till the dough comes together. The dough should be firm and very easy to handle but it shouldn’t be crumbly or fall apart. With both the food processed and hand processed dough, turn them onto a work surface and knead for a minute or so once the dough is formed.

And there you have it, dough ready to be molded.