The Great American Slow Cooker Book

A review by Abi

          What's a girl to do when everyone groans each time she pulls out the trusty slow cooker? Find a cook book with 500 new recipes! 

           I love using a slow cooker, and I'll be the first to admit, I make the same few things all the time. They're yummy, but I am looking for something new to eat. And whoa, this book is chock-full of new stuff. I'm sure, after trying a few; my go-to recipe list will grow with this great cook book. Thus, nixing the groans emitting from the people I feed.

Here are a few things I like about The Great American Slow Cooker Book:

           I like the easy-to-follow recipes, and everyday ingredients. It’s annoying when I look up recipes, only to find they include a zillion off-the-wall ingredients or spices only professional chefs have on hand.

           The cook book is well organized. This makes finding the type of recipe I’m looking for easy to find. That is important to me when I'm in a hurry to throw something together before I head off to work.

            Slow cookers come in different sizes, and so do the recipes in this book! That scored big points with me.

            Talking about recipes…I thought Goldilocks and the three bears were the only ones who ate porridge, but the variations of porridge recipes in this book make me want to try them all! There are some other breakfast choices in this cook book too. I never cooked a morning meal in a crock pot before, but I will now! Any hot breakfast that doesn't include instant crud makes me happy.

            Though I like this book, my review wouldn't be complete without stating what I think could be improved.

            Some of the recipes, namely, Biscuits and Gravy, would just as easily be made without using the slow cooker. Preparing it in a frying pan, browning the liquid with the flour, and pouring it into the cooker doesn’t make this recipe appealing. It makes more pans dirty, more prep time, and more time consuming than it’s worth. Plus, why the heck would I wait even longer when I've already prepared the gravy? I'm frickin' starving after frying up sausage and making gravy from scratch, so why pour them in the slow cooker? Biscuits are simple in the oven, and to tell the truth, I don't think I'll ever cook them in a slow cooker.

            Why are all the photos in the center of the book? (And even then, there's only a few.) I don’t want to flip back and forth through the cookbook to find what a particular recipe will look like. And why aren’t there photos for each (or even most) recipes? I like to see what the end product looks like. Call me crazy.

            Despite the things I just mentioned, this is a good cook book. The Great American Slow Cooker Book could easily become my favorite slow cooker recipe book. It's a keeper.

Publisher: Clarkson Potter (sold by Random House LLC)

Page Count: 512

Purchase Link: Amazon

Book Rating:

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Disclosure of Material Connection in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: BloggingForBooks has provided me a copy of this book in exchange for a review.