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Taste of Home Slow Cooker - 403 Recipes for Today's One-Pot Meals
Taste of Home
ISBN 978-0-89821-802-2
Published November 2011 - Softcover - 256 pages - $15.95

One-pot meals are king in my life, whether or not they're cooked in slow cookers.  I always wonder, however, how you can "save money" by leaving an appliance on for 6-8 hours at a time versus stove-top (not oven) cooking which takes about half the time.  So, what's to be cooked in a slow cooker?  Lots of things.  The thought of pull-apart tender pork is very tempting, but there are also delicious soups to try.  One most often thinks of a pot roast when thinking "slow cooker", but this book offers so much more, and has these categories to choose from: Beef; Pork; Poultry; Pasta & More; Soup & Chili; Sides, and Snacks and Beverages.  The recipes are credited to readers from across the country, so hopefully they're old favorites which we can now try.  Some of the recipes that appealed to me include: Flavorful Beef Stew; Loaded Vegetable Beef Stew; Creole Black Beans 'n' Sausage; Creamy Cabbage-Pork Stew; Asian Pork Roast; Italian Chicken; Herbed Chicken with Wild Rice; Lime Chicken Tacos; Greek Chicken Dinner; Rosemary Chicken with White Beans; Mushroom (Turkey) Meat Loaf (sounds yummy); Burgundy Lamb Shanks; Spicy Seafood Stew (mmmmm); White Bean Chicken Chili (sounds great); Slow-cooked Bean Medley; Caramel Pear Pudding, and Chipotle Ham 'n' Cheese Dip.
Question: For Creamy Ham and Potatoes (and Easy & Elegant Ham, or Non-Fuss Potato Soup), why does this cook for 8 hours if you're using fully cooked ham (or potatoes)?
There is no way I'd use canned carrots or potatoes (sad to see in a recipe book), and no way I'm cooking meat for sandwiches for 7-9 hours!  I liked the Indexes at the back of the book—easy to find foods and to get meal ideas.
Illustrated.  No nutritional guides.
Conclusion - Lots of interesting ideas but some take too long.