A good basic slow cook book with lots of ideas, sadly not enough photos but my go to section was the Freezer meal section which I have not seen in a cook book of this type.
Easy to use and for all level of cooks

Just the book for the autumn book shelf get cooking cheap and tasty meals

I’m sorry…..I could not review this book because I could not find it on my Kindle or NetGalley shelf.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Books of Slow Cooker Dinners is filled with an abundance of delicious slow cooker meals. It's nice to be able to toss everything into the crock pot and let it work its magic.

I absolutely love this cookbook. Not only are the recipes delicious, but they are easy to follow are have ingredients that are easy to find.

A great resource for nights when dinners have to be quick, when you want to set it and forget it and when you just want something delicious.

This ticks a lot of boxes in what to look for in a cookbook: clean format, photos of the final dishes, a large variety of recipes (from expected to unexpected), complete directions with nutritional/serving/notes and other info, and all nicely indexed. Also included is a well written and fairly thorough introduction to crock pock cooking, including choosing the tools, cleaning, ensuring proper food cooking, etc. This feels like a lot of effort went into making this cookbook effective and efficient.

The book breaks down as follows: opening section: preface (author introductions), slow cooker tips and tricks. Then the recipes, broken down by type or main ingredient (appetizers, dips, soups, broths, chilis, stews, grain, pasta dishes, casseroles, chicken, turkey, game birds, beef, bison, venison, pork, lamb, vegetable main courses, vegetable sides, deserts, sweet treats, and then staples (stocks, sauces, seasoning mixes). As you can see, there is a lot here to explore!

The recipes are cleanly presented, each one with their own section and never breaking in the middle to go on another page. Most are full page or two to a page. Each recipe has a bold title, serving size, cooking time, slow cooker size, a paragraph introduction, separate list of ingredients in bold, and then steps clearly numbered in small chunks (perfect!). Also included throughout are allergy considerations, tips, notes, and occasionally (every 10 recipes or so) there is an image of the completed dish. The recipes are in black type, with a blue and red 'decorative' line separating items such as notes.

The recipes are diverse and all look excellent. The steps are VERY easy to follow since they are cleanly numbered and only a sentence per number. Not a jumble of several steps listed as just one step like so many other frustrating cookbooks. Since a lot of the 'cooking' in a slow cooker recipe is throwing in the right ingredients at the right time, there typically aren't a lot of steps anyway.

Since this is cleanly set up and there are so many great recipes (so many!) this makes a great book to have ready to set something up to cook while at work or sleeping. Leftovers tips are also give to help with storage of extra servings.

In all, very pleased with this book and greatly enjoying the recipes. My current favorite is the orange sesame chicken. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

A great book if you’re looking for more recipes to add to your collection. I can’t wait to try something new in my slow cooker as the only things I currently make are stews, casseroles and fudges.

Dinner is a meal whole family will be gathered together. I always want to cook a elaborate dinner for my family.... This book has lot of our family's favourite recipes.......

It was okay. Nothing really new or exciting. Maybe a few recipes, but not a book I would keep or give as a gift.

Great book with lots of ideas for saving time using your slow cooker. I enjoyed the book alot and will purchase a copy for my sister who has only recently discovered the ease of slow cooking.

The book is very well organised and the recipes are easy to prepare and tasty. I tried the Lush Pina Colada Dump Cake which in my opinion is worth the price of the book on it's own, it is truly amazing.

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book had a lot of recipes but not enough pictures. I was interested in it because I love crock pot/slow cooker types of meals, especially on Sundays. However, the food represented in this book wasn't really my style.

I would like to thank Quarto Publishing Group – Harvard Common Press for providing me with a free – temporary – electronic ARC of this book, via Netgalley. Although I’m auto-approved with this publisher, the decision to read this book is entirely my choice and any reviews given are obligation free.

Regular readers of my reviews will know I am a sucker for a cook book, especially one that uses a slow-cooker or multi-cooker. As mentioned in ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ having the ability to plan and put on dinner first thing in the morning, or around lunch time – to free up your afternoons for the bedlam that is after school activities – is an amazing time saver. It allows you the opportunity to have a warm, tasty, wholesome meal awaiting the family every night. With this shared ethos, I really thought I was going to enjoy ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’… Sadly, I did not. :-(

Warning – I will be providing a LOT of (hopefully) constructive criticism shortly. But I like to seek the positive and so will start with some nice things to say first.

‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ is well set-out, easy to follow and has a thorough index at the back of the book. The recipes are aimed for larger families – serving 6 to 8 portions per recipe – which is how I feel true family cook books should be. I hate the ones who serve two to four and call themselves “family” cookbooks. Uh, no you’re not. So portion sizes and easy to read and follow recipes are positives.

I also like how the recipes aren’t that “spoon feed” sort where half the book is made up of photos of the end products as if you need to check and see if your end result looks as good. ;-) Yes, I know the pictures are meant to entice a person into following the recipe, but I like a cook book that is more recipes and less glamour shots. So - another positive.

Sadly, that is where they end for me. Please let me emphasise the following isn’t me saying ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ is a horrible book. It isn’t! The following is merely explaining why it isn’t a cook book for me. My tastes, dietary restrictions, and whole food preferences mean I am the wrong person for the book… not that the book is bad.

Okay, here we go… Please forgive me Ms Kennedy, Ms Handing, and Ms Ince. Remember the mantra: “Pffffft, what would SHE know anyhow?!”

Besides the basic layout and portion sizes, ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ really wasn’t for me. The tips at the beginning started out being overly generic, and better suited for a seasoned crock-pot/ slow-cooker user than any newbie user trying to use the book to learn how to get started… then the information became very basic and “spoon feed” in style, almost spelling out every nuance for the reader. I am wondering if there was more than one author for this part? A copy editor should have done a better continuity check for “user level”.

Then… Cleaning with ammonia gave me chills… as did cooking with plastic. Really? Don’t have enough toxins in your life? Cook your meals with plastic bags or plastic liners just to add that little extra evil into your bodies. :-/

And, BOY was there a lot of dairy fat in the recipes! Okay, so I am dairy free due to health issues… I am also unable to eat allium, wheat, barley, rye, seafood and so on…. If you’re like me and have a restricted diet, don’t want high fat meals, or are diabetic… this book is not for you. I like a cook book of recipes I can cook daily, or weekly. Most of the recipes in ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ were so rich and so high in unnecessary calories that I can’t see them as a daily family meal. Occasional meals maybe, with changes to meet our allergies and intolerances… but not an everyday cook book.

I won’t even touch on the major use of pre-made foods as ingredients. No, I don’t mean things like frozen vegetables or pasta. I mean like cans of pre-made this sauce and bottles of pre-made that sauce. Maybe because I have to be careful of what ingredients my family eats I am less drawn to the pre-made… but I have always felt a decent slow-cooker meal is made with wholefood ingredients as the time it takes to slowly cook provides you with the flavours, rather than additive rich pre-mades doing it for you. Oh, and yeah, go the high fats and pre-mades but pretend it’s healthy as you’re using low-sodium soy sauce. Uh, okay?

So, yes… ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ is not a cook book I would use, but that is because I follow a different way of cooking and eating. The book’s way of cooking just doesn’t match this reader.

A final book nerd note on the formatting is that this book is obviously made for a North American audience (the publisher is North American so this was not a surprise) and although some measurements within ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ are in both metric and imperial, the majority of the measurements are imperial alone. In this day and age of online conversion tables and apps, it’s not a BIG issue, but one I always mention all the same.

Would I recommend this book to others?

I want to be polite and say yes, but I honestly don’t know anyone who would cook in this style either. My social circles are made up of people with similar food intolerances and allergies, as well as similar whole food, plastic free principles and so this is not a book they would like either. But I guess there are readers in North America who might find the very American (to me) style cooking to their tastes?

Personally though, as much as I love the thought, time and obvious passion put into ‘The Crock-Pot Ladies Big Book of Slow Cooker Dinners’ by Ms Kennedy, Ms Handing, and Ms Ince, this isn’t a cook book I would recommend.

Would I buy this book for myself?

I am pretty sure we all know the answer to this one, right? Sadly this isn’t my type of cook book. Again I want to emphasise that I am NOT saying it is a terrible book… I am merely saying I am not the right audience for it. For me, there are other crock-pot/ slow-cooker cook books better suited to my food choices and principles.

In summary: A well laid-out, true family sized portions cook book, it just wasn’t my style of food.

I use my crock pot just about every day so I'm always looking for something new and nutritious and maybe a little fun to amp up my family's meals. I found several great recipes along with a few chuckles in this book. These ladies know how to take their cooking serious and their lives easy. More of us could use that lesson. A sure fire winner for any one who loves their crock pot meals!

When you have a large family like i do you use appliances like the crock pot not only for parties and get togethers but as a time saver during the week. This book is chock full of great recipes soon to be family favorites.

I’m a sucker for crock pot recipes. Being on the go often it’s nice to come home to a delicious meal waiting for you and this cookbook has all the recipes for you to do just that. So many delicious recipes for your crock pot, I love my crock pot and I love this cookbook. It’s easy to follow recipes for amazing meals with little effort.

Many of the chicken, pork, and beef recipes sound tasty and I plan on making some. I’m glad to see, and impressed with, the bison and venison recipes. There is an excellent sounding Cheesecake recipe I can’t wait to make. I love slow cooking using “from scratch” ingredients. There are quite a few recipes that use ‘canned cream of’ soups and condensed soups. This book is wonderful for newbie and veteran crock pot cooks. It has a varied and excellent selection of recipes that are well written and easy to understand. I wish there were more pictures.

Easy to follow recipes that actually turn out as good as they look. I found myself utilizing this book more than once when planning menus for the week.

This book is packed full of useful recipes and tips. The two recipes I have tried so far were delicious.
There is a wide variety of recipes, some meat, veg and sweet. Basically an ideal book for a beginner crock-pot user like me. I can see myself returning to this book over and over.
Excellent

If you love your crockpot, this is the cookbook for you! Easy, fun recipes that the whole family will enjoy!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I really needed this book to have more pictures. There should be one picture for every recipe in a cookbook. We eat with our eyes as well as our tastebuds. I did try a few of the meals and they were good. Overall a 3 star book.

I absolutely loved the variety in this cookbook. I love cooking in my slow cooker and am always looking for new recipes. I highly recommend this cookbook. So many delicious choices to pick from. The recipes are easy to understand and read.