300 Slow Cooker Favorites

Donna-Marie Pye is a best-selling author, home economist, food writer and recipe developer for food publications and food marketing boards, and author of America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes and The Best Family Slow Cooker Recipes.

Introduction

My love affair with the slow cooker began many years ago when I commuted to a job that was a lengthy drive from my home. In order to have a tasty home-cooked meal on the dinner table, I would use my slow cooker at least once a week. Now, after many years of using it, I have become even more convinced of the wonderful benefits of the slow cooker.

Today, though I no longer commute, I am a freelance home economist, busy wife and mother to two children. With their array of after-school activities, I continue to use my slow cooker, looking for new and creative ways to feed my on-the-go family.

While most of us like to eat, we are all challenged by the stress of thinking about what to make for dinner every night. That's why more and more people are once again discovering the benefits of slow cookers. Introduced more than thirty years ago as a device for cooking dried beans, today's slow cooker has undergone various improvements and innovations. However, it continues to be an effective time-management tool no kitchen should be without. After all, who doesn't want to come home to a hot home-cooked meal at the end of the day?

When putting together this collection of recipes, my goal was to keep it family-friendly, to cook with ingredients and use recipes that would appeal to a busy household like mine. Some require longer slow cooking than others, but I think you will be quite surprised by how many different dishes can be prepared in the slow cooker. The recipes include traditional family favorites, as well as dishes that reflect our ever-expanding multicultural world. I still love a simple meatloaf (page 266) or macaroni and cheese (page 186). However, I can also travel to all corners of the globe - to China for saucy shredded pork flavored with hoisin and ginger (page 301), to India for a savory mulligatawny soup (page 90) or to Russia for a bowl of bubbling borscht (page 71). I have included some of my favorite desserts here too, such as an unbelievable slow cooker cheesecake (page 338) and a decadent bread pudding (page 363), along with a few appetizers, condiments and snacks that store well.

Slow cooker dishes have always been ideal for social gatherings and a great way to share food with friends. They are perfect for toting to potlucks, work functions and church events. With more than six million slow cookers being sold in North America every year, consumers are finding more ways to use this handy household appliance. For this reason, I have included a section called Entertaining with Your Slow Cooker (page 19), designed especially for those occasions when you are faced with the question, "What should I take to...?"

I hope you enjoy this collection of slow cooker recipes and will come to rely on your slow cooker to help you create stress-free home-cooked meals.

- Donna-Marie Pye

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Using Your Slow Cooker
Entertaining with Your Slow Cooker

Breakfasts, Breads and Beverages

• 15 recipes

Appetizers, Dips and Snacks

• 20 recipes

Soups

• 34 recipes

Stews

• 25 recipes

Chilies and Beans

• 21 recipes

Seafood and Vegetarian Main Courses

• 21 recipes

Poultry

• 29 recipes

Beef and Veal

• 33 recipes

Pork and Lamb

• 23 recipes

Side Dishes

• 22 recipes

Sweet Endings

• 24 recipes

Index