I must confess that I haven't tried this recipe, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt by rating it a 4 as I'm sure its very delicious. My comment is on the name of the recipe, which I found to be quite misleading. While the prep may be easy, the recipe requires 6-8 hours of cooking time, which is by no means the definition of "quick" in my book. I have found plenty of crock pot variations for swiss steak; I was searching for a recipe that wouldn't take long to prepare, and I thought when I saw the name that this recipe would fit the bill. My suggestion would be to rename it "Easy Slow-Cooker Swiss Steak" so people can *quickly* identify this as a recipe that will take hours to cook.

My co-worker made this and I made the lemon-poppy seed version (very good) to bring to work last week. The chocolate bread was okay but very bland; not chocolately tasting at all, so I'm not sure why so many reviewers claim it's like chocolate cake or even fudge brownies! (Makes me wonder if they've ever had *real* chocolate cake before! LOL) Meanwhile, I think the recipe can be salvaged by using chocolate *fudge* pudding and/or adding cocoa to the mix. It could also really benefit from chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, Andes mint chips (loved that suggestion, folks!), and/or nuts. Or another suggestion is to make the bread as is but serve it with a spread made with peanut butter or Nutella, cream cheese and powdered sugar.

Like many others, I added the zest of a lemon, knowing from experience that lemon pudding mix alone wouldn't give it enough lemon flavor. I think the zest of 2-3 lemons would really be much better. I also made a glaze of lemon juice, powdered sugar, and a little milk (just to thin it out). I drizzled half of the glaze over the top of the loaves just after they came out of the oven and then drizzled the remaining glaze over tops after the bread had cooled for about an hour. Everyone loved it at work; they ate more of mine than they did my co-worker's chocolate version (although I think the chocolate bread would be good if you added a little cocoa and/or some choc. chips, peanut butter chips, or nuts to the batter.) Finally, my loaves took much longer than an hour to bake. I would give them at least 15 to 20 minutes extra, depending on the heat of your oven. But overall, this recipe is a keeper. Thanks so much for sharing it!

This is yummy! Okay, I confess; I went in a different direction by using Jell-O's Pumpkin Spice pudding mix, which left it with a very nice but very mild pumpkin flavor. Also, I didn't have any nutmeg so I used pumpkin pie spice (still used the cinnamon too though). Lastly, I substituted orange-pineapple juice instead of the water for flavor & to give it a little citrusy note. All in all, the flavor is very good; it's a like a lighter, less intense, less dense version of a pumpkin bread. I bet it would be really good with spice cake mix instead of yellow! Also, I think it would be great with raisins, currants, and/or nuts added to it.

I've made something similar to this before, and it's great. But I'm curious to know if part of this recipe is missing. It says to let the rice sit for 5 minutes, so I'm assuming that the recipe calls for minute rice or something of that nature. Either that, or it was supposed to be left for at least 20 minutes. Otherwise, you'll end up with crunchy, uncooked rice. Or is there something else that I'm missing here?

This is pretty much the same recipe that my mom used to make, except that she did not add salt or curry, and she used cocktail rye, which makes very nice hors d'oeuvres. You can actually spread this olive cheese spread on the bread or muffins, and then freeze on a cookie sheet. Once frozen, store in foil and a Ziploc freezer bag. All you have to do when company comes is pop them in the oven, and voila! Instant appetizers!