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I've long noticed that Slow Cookers have throngs of admiring fans, and that's recently become even clearer. In my last Practical Whimsy monthly column for "Y'ALL:  The Magazine of Southern People," I wrote about using Crock Pots for slow cooking during the Winter. Since then, I have been (happily) mobbed by e-mails at my website by readers eager for new recipes... and of course I'm more than happy to oblige.

My affinity for the Crock-Pot definitely started with my Mom, and her fire-engine red one with jaunty, brown line drawings of dancing vegetables around its perimeter. Since she and my Dad both worked, her Slow Cooker recipes were such an easy route to make sure dinner was done by the time she got home. And they weren't all of the stew and sauce variety; she could put a pretty mean Slow Cooker spin on chicken parmesan, stuffed bell peppers, veal scallopini, and even eggplant cutlets.

My feeling about the Slow Cooker recipes is that the less advance prep, the more advantageous, and (for many) the more realistic in making it. Now, with such a plethora of unusual ingredients available year-round to put in Crock-Pot recipes, I'm convinced we can turn that appliance into your local dining hotspot. So, now, for a few projects, we're currently hard at work in the Practical Whimsy test kitchen drumming up some that imbue fresh, hip takes on old-standard dishes.

Sort of like giving "slow" a fast reputation.