Rating: 
Summary: A great slow cooker recipe book for adventurous cooks
Review: If you're a purist about using *just* the slow cooker, even though the browning step produces more intense and balanced flavours and only one extra item to clean, this book isn't for you.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!
Rating: 
Summary: Send your slow cooker on a world tour
Review: Many slow cooker books strongly feature American dishes like chili, short ribs and stew. Nothing wrong with that, we all love those comforting favorites. However, it's easy to get bored with your slow cooker and then consign it to the back of that kitchen cupboard next to the fondue pot and the raclette set. Judith Finlayson's book could have you dragging the old Crok-King out of the cabinet again to try Pumpkin Soup with Shrimp and Lime, Bobotie (South African meat curry pie) and Thai-Style Coconut Flan. There are also recipes for seasoned mixed nuts and hot spinach cheese dip and even, dare I say it, fondue. Sounds like a party in the makings! 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.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding slow cooker guide!
Review: This is by far the best slow cooker recipe book I've tried. Many others on the market will have you toss in a hunk of meat and some creamed soup and call it dinner. This book guides you through preparation of tastier and healthier meals for the family of the go. I have yet to try one that my fussy family didn't like.
One reviewer gave this book fewer stars because of the prep work involved, namely starting your meal in a skillet rather than popping ingredients into the pot and turning on the heat. There isn't much extra work, and what additional time it takes is worth the better tasting meal at the end of the day. I am fortunatate to own (after much reserach and help from Amazon reviewers)the WestBend Versatility slow cooker which makes any browning/skillet preparation process a breeze. It is a teflon coated cooker that allows you to skillet prepare any part of your meal directly in the pot and then transfer the entire pot to the slow cooker base. It makes a world of difference in the flavor of the meat/fish/veggies and cleans up in a flash. It is well worth the investment.
Rating: 
Summary: "In a skillet..." defeats the purpose of a slow cooker
Review: This lavishly illustrated, obviously well-researched cookbook suffers from a mistake so fundamental that it veers into self-parody: at least 95% of the recipes (I'm not exaggerating - I checked) start with or contain the phrase "In a skillet..." What is the point of using a slow cooker if I have to haul out a skillet first? I mean, if I'm going to have to tangle with the skillet, I might as well skip the slow cooker and use the Le Creuset dutch oven. Since I can brown and simmer in one pot, I save on clean-up. This author clearly cares deeply about her cooking. But she's insane. The slow cooker is helpful because you can dump everything in at once, turn it on - and forget about it. Once you turn the stove on, you're not in slow-cooker country anymore. I'm sure many of her recipes produce lovely results. But that's not the point: they don't keep within the limitations of the device they're supposedly written for. That means they're useless. Even if you're e.e. cummings, you don't produce free verse when a sonnet is required.
Rating:
Summary: "In a skillet..." defeats the purpose of a slow cooker
Review: This lavishly illustrated, obviously well-researched cookbook suffers from a mistake so fundamental that it veers into self-parody: at least 95% of the recipes (I'm not exaggerating - I checked) start with or contain the phrase "In a skillet..." What is the point of using a slow cooker if I have to haul out a skillet first? I mean, if I'm going to have to tangle with the skillet, I might as well skip the slow cooker and use the Le Creuset dutch oven. Since I can brown and simmer in one pot, I save on clean-up. This author clearly cares deeply about her cooking. But she's insane. The slow cooker is helpful because you can dump everything in at once, turn it on - and forget about it. Once you turn the stove on, you're not in slow-cooker country anymore. I'm sure many of her recipes produce lovely results. But that's not the point: they don't keep within the limitations of the device they're supposedly written for. That means they're useless. Even if you're e.e. cummings, you don't produce free verse when a sonnet is required.
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