The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes [Paperback]

If you aren't interested in a mixture of English/North American standards along with a number of spicy recipes (Korean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Hungarian, etc.), or if you will have a difficult time finding the ingredients because your supermarkets has a limited selection, this book may not be for you.

But if you love a variety of national cuisines and can get the ingredients, you'll love this book. The Easy Chicken Paprikash (using canned soups and sweet paprika, easy to find anywhere) was amazing. The New Potato Curry (using curry powder available in any supermarket, although I made up my own mixture) was wonderful, even though I left out the fresh cilantro as I didn't have any on hand. Time required to clean the cast iron skillet for each recipe: 30 seconds.

There are a lot of slow cooker recipe books out there with great recipes for beans, stews, and soups. Get one of those if all you want to make are those great standards. Keep in mind, though, that you will find similar recipes in this book, such as Bakers' Potatoes with Onions, Creamed Onions, Shredded Chicken for tacos and sandwiches (no pre-browning!), Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole, Homestyle Chicken with Gingersnap Gravy, Pork Ribs and Beans, Pork Chops with Onions in Mustard Sauce, Pot Roast with Tomato or Gingersnap Gravy, Beef Noodle Casserole with Cheddar-Crumb Topping, Meat Loaf, Southwestern Brisket, Shepherd's Pie, Swiss Steak, Smothered Steak, Chicken Fried Steak, Mushroom Barley Soup, Black Bean Soup, and Seafood Gumbo.

But you'll also get Indonesian and Spicy Chinese Chicken, Chicken and turkey curries (spicy and mellow), Caribbean Pork Roast with Rum, Portuguese Pork with Clams, Pork Vindaloo, Morroccan Lamb, Lamb Keema and Korma, Greek Beef Stew with Onions and Feta Cheese, Korean Style Short Ribs, Osso Bucco, Potato and Cauliflower Dahl, and Caribbean Pepper Pot Soup.

If you're counting, that's nowhere near 150 recipes yet. And did I mention the desserts? Flans, crips, cobblers, custards, pudding, cake and, yes, cheesecake.

This is a great book. If you want to move beyond the standards, here's your chance!

If you don't want to dine nightly on exotic fare, however, there are good versions of old standbys like Shepherd's Pie with Corn (ground beef, corn and mashed potato topping.) This is certainly one recipe that we love to come home to find steaming away in the slow cooker. There are also desserts, soups, appetizers and casseroles and roasts, even a vegetarian chili. The desserts are puddings or fruit based cakes and cobblers.

Some of the recipes are designed for certain types of slow cookers; small size crock pots are specified for the appetizers, oval shaped for roasts. So if you only have one type of cooker, you may not be able to make some recipes come out without figuring out how to adjust them. On the other hand, a small crock pot is a handy item for entertaining and you might find one at a yard sale. This book could also help you decide which pot to buy, based on the type of recipe you are likely to make the most.

The photographs are clear and colorful, the recipes are varied enough to suit most tastes. If you would like to dust off your slow cooker and take it on a world tour, this book will serve as a great travel guide, but there are plenty of home-style recipes for when you just want something familiar.