101 Things® to Do with a Slow Cooker
101 Things® to Do with a Slow Cooker book cover

101 Things® to Do with a Slow Cooker

Spiral-bound – August 8, 2003

Price
$9.99
Publisher
Gibbs Smith
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1586853174
Dimensions
5.25 x 0.38 x 7.25 inches
Weight
7.2 ounces

Description

From the Inside Flap Contents Helpful Hints 09 Beverages Party Hot Chocolate 13 Mallow-Mint Hot Chocolate 14 Almond Hot Chocolate 15 Hot Cranberry Punch 16 Holiday Wassail 17 Hot Spiced Cherry Cider 18 Dips and Fondues Mild Chili-Cheese Dip 20 Bodacious Bean Dip 21 Pizza Fondue 22 Cheese Fondue 23 Chocolate Fondue 24 Caramel Fondue 25 Peanut Butter Fondue 26 Soups and Stews Hearty Vegetable Soup 28 Quick Stew 29 Zesty Minestrone 30 Burton's Minestone 31 Cowboy Soup 32 Alphabet Soup 33 Spicy Tomato Beef Soup 34 Santa Fe Cheese Soup 35 Salsa Fever Soup 36 Simple Chili 37 Chicken Noodle Soup 38 Tortilla Soup 39 Turkey and Rice Soup 40 Broccoli-Cheese Soup 41 Four-Hour Stew 42 Easy Taco Soup 43 Vegetable Cheese Soup 44 Chicken and Wild Rice Soup 45 Beef Sunday Roast 49 Cola Roast 50 South-of-the-Border Pot Roast 51 Easy Swiss Steak 52 Beef and Mushrooms 53 Simple Beef Stroganoff 54 French Dip Sandwiches 55 Lasagna 56 Burritos 57 Easy Flank Steak 58 Sweet-and-Sour Beef 59 Unbelievably Simple Brisket 60 Family Favorite Brisket 61 Tri-Tip Roast 62 Shepherd's Pie 63 Aunt Patty's Italian Barbecue 64 Onion Meatballs 65 Barbecued Meatballs 66 Chicken Chicken and Potatoes 68 Chicken and Rice Casserole 69 Scalloped Chicken 70 Whole Cranberry Chicken 71 Mama's Italian Chicken 72 Favorite Barbecue Chicken 73 Cheesy Chicken Noodles 74 Tater-Tot Casserole 75 Hawaiian Chicken 76 Easy Chicken Bake 77 Sunday Chicken 78 Pineapple Chicken 79 Lemonade Chicken 80 Sweet-and-Sour Chicken 81 Hawaiian Haystacks 82 Creamy Italian Chicken 83 Italian Chicken with Mushrooms 84 Creamy Chicken Soft Tacos 85 Orange Chicken 86 Chicken Teriyaki 87 Chicken Cacciatore 88 Chicken in a Bag 89 Chicken Fajitas 90 Chicken Parmesan 91 Almond Chicken 92 Chicken Enchiladas 93 Cooked Chicken for Entrees, Soups, and Stews 94 Pork Savory Pork Roast 97 Cranberry Pork Roast 98 Barbecued Pork Chops 99 Italian Pork Chops 100 Sweet-and-Sour Pork 101 Polynesian Pork Chops 102 Pork Chops and Mushrooms 103 Pork Chop Casserole 104 Ehler's Pork Ribs 105 Barbecue Pork Sandwiches 106 Shredded Pork Burritos 107 Pork Sausage Casserole 108 Ham and Potatoes 109 Red Potatoes with Ham 110 Holiday Ham 111 Shredded Ham Sandwiches 112 Desserts Carrot Cake 115 Caramel Rolls 116 Triple Rich Chocolate Cake 117 Sugar and Spice Cake 118 Cherry Biscuit Cobbler 119 Easy Granola Apple Crisp 120 Cherry Jubilee 121 Lemon Custard Cake 122 Pineapple-Upside-Down Cake 123 Chocolate Custard Cake 124 A collection of "throw-and-go" favorites from the author of the New York Times Best-Seller 101 Things To Do With A Cake Mix! Peanut Butter Fondue Spicy Tomato Beef Stew Lemonade Chicken Lasagna Cherry Biscuit Cobbler And more! Stephanie Ashcraft, author of the original 101 Things To Do With A Cake Mix, has taught cooking classes based on the tips and meals in her cookbooks for almost twenty years. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. Janet Eyring's interest in learning how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals without living in the kitchen inspired her to write a cookbook that relied on the ease of the slow cooker. She also teaches cooking classes at Macey's Little Cooking Theatre. She lives in Highland, UT Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Creamy Italian Chicken 4 frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts 1 envelope dry Italian salad dressing mix 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) cream of chicken soup, condensed Combine all ingredients in greased 3 1/2 to 4 1/2-quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on high heat 6-8 hours or on low heat 10-12 hours. Makes 4 servings. Serve with a salad stack of sliced tomatoes, mozarella cheese, and basil, topped with a favorite dressing. Carrot Cake 1 1/2 cups flour 3/4 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1/4 cup water 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1 cup grated carrots Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart mixing bowl by hand. Spread batter in greased 2 to 3 1/2-quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat for 2 hours, or until firm in the center. (You can lightly jiggle the covered slow cooker to check firmness.) Makes 4-6 servings. Top with whipped topping or your favorite cream-cheese frosting. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • From the New York Times best-selling author of
  • 101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix!
  • comes
  • 101 Things to Do with a Slow Cooker.
  • Call it a slow cooker, a crockery cooker, or your best friend, the popularity of these handy machines has exploded recently, and "Mrs. 101" Stephanie Ashcraft has stepped up to the plate (and bowl, and serving tray) with an amazing collection of timesaving recipes.
  • From South of the Border Pot Roast to Hearty Vegetable Soup to Cherries Jubilee, now anyone can make hearty, healthy dishes for the whole family the "throw-n-go" way. Simply throw several ingredients into the slow cooker, get on with life, and come home to a kitchen filled with the aroma of real home cooking. 101 recipes for main courses, side dishes, desserts, and more are included, along with suggestions for how and what to serve with each dish, time-saving meal preparation tips, and easy modifications to fit your families tastes.
  • Stephanie Ashcraft, New York Times best selling author of
  • 101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix,
  • is a full-time mom who has created and collected recipes for years. She also teaches a monthly cooking class for Macey's Little Cooking Theater.
  • Janet Eyring's interest in learning how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals without living in the kitchen inspired her to write a cookbook that relied on the ease of the slow cooker. She also teaches cooking classes at Macey's Little Cooking Theater.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(148)
★★★★
25%
(62)
★★★
15%
(37)
★★
7%
(17)
-7%
(-17)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Not very creative.

First the positive: This Cookbook has some very simple, easy recipes. The majority of recipes are dump and go. The majority of recipes require ingredients that most people have on hand- cream of mushroom soup, chicken, etc.
If you have never really used your slow cooker, this is a great beginner book that will help you explore the wide range of meals you can make in a slow cooker.
Now the Negative: I bought this cookbook expecting some different types of recipes-However, most of the recipes in this cookbook are unimaginative and easy to think of without a cookbook. In fact, I would say that there are a majority of them that I have already made without picking up a cookbook.
If you have already used your slow cooker quite a bit and if you are looking for something a little bit different, this is probably not the cookbook for you. There are a few recipes I had never tried and a few combinations I hadn't thought of in this book. However, I don't think I would suggest you buy this cookbook for only one or two recipes.
I think this is a fine cookbook and if you decide to buy it, just be forwarned, the recipes are very simple and very easy and if you have used your slow cooker very much, very unimaginative.
74 people found this helpful
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Great for a first-timer

I love this cookbook! After owning a crock pot for 6 years and using it only once, I alsmost sold it in a garage sale. Thank goodness I found this cookbook. I used to be so overwhelmed at dinnertime when I was so worn out from all the kids at home and the housework that I never could get a good dinner made. Now I wake up in the morning and throw my dinner in the slow cooker. When dinnertime rolls around, I just have to make sure we have a side dish (easy enough) we can sit down to a good meal.
Some reviews pointed out that many of these recipes are obvious and unimaginative. Well, for someone like me, who has no imagination left at the end of the day, these recipes are perfect. Good, nourishing meals for my family who may have otherwise ended up with Pizza Hut AGAIN.
58 people found this helpful
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Easy - but unimpressive

The beauty of a slow cooker is that you can dump things in it, go out, and come home to dinner! Further simplifying things by using "ingredients" like condensed soup, pie filling, and cake mix is not only insulting, but unhealthy. Unfortunately, most of the recipes in this book rely heavily on prepared foods (Scalloped Chicken calls for 1 box of scalloped potatoes, 1 can of chicken, and water). The recipes that shine are the ones (such as Cranberry Pork Roast and Almond Chicken) that use basic ingredients instead of prepackaged foods.
40 people found this helpful
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Lazy Recipes with Prepared Food

The point of a slow cooker is to prepare something in one dish from wholesome ingredients and be done with it. Instead, the author has taken this to an extreme new low. There is no excuse to suggest recipes that combine canned chili and Velvetta cheese and actually consider that a slow-cooker recipe... not to mention even to consider that food!

If like me, you like to cook using top grade ingredients from scratch (mostly) then this is NOT the book for you. Processed ingredients like Chedder Cheese Soup, Chili, Spaghetti Sauce, Minestrone soup, Velveeta cheese, taco seasoning mix, bouillon cubes, jarred salsa, onion soup mix, canned chicken, cranberry sauce, scallopped potatoes from a box, salad dressing and even cake mixes are considered as proper ingredients for recipes in this book.

Personally, I have no problem when a recipe might include ingredients like Chicken broth, barbecue sauce or even onion soup mix, but this book really exaggerates. This is hardly "from scratch". Unless you really need a recipe to tell you to put pork chops and a jar of barbecue sauce together... skip this book.
28 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Entertaining Recipes But Not for Everyday Use

The design of "101 Things to Do with a Slow Cooker" grabbed my attention right away. It's small in size, only 5"x7", with a coil binding that makes it easy to fold back or lay flat. One of the best physical features is the plastic front and back cover protectors. I was very excited by this and thought "This is going to be a great cookbook."

Flipping through the pages I came to a different conclusion: that I wasn't going to like anything. This was due to the first three recipes being virtually the same other than one ingredient. I felt cheated by the title.
These could have fallen under one recipe with a note for variations. Continuing on it amazed me how little text was in this book for ingredients and for directions. I put the book aside for a week due to lack of
interest.

A couple weeks ago, I decided the least I could do was give some of the recipes a try before I wrote a review. After reading thus far I think you will be surprised with the results, I know I was.

Out of the 18 recipes I tried, only one received a rating below 6. I rated each recipe according to my standards. The highest rating was 7. Each recipe was rated for the following: availability of ingredients, clarity of instructions, ease of prep, husband factor, taste, reheatabity, and freezability. One point is awarded for each area. Any area that didn't pass is in brackets. Anything with an extra number was doubly good in the taste category.

Quick Stew-6 (doesn't reheat well from freezer)
Tortilla Soup-8
Broccoli Cheese Soup-8
Beef & Mushrooms-7
Lasagne-8
Sweet and Sour Beef-6 (bland)
Shepherd's Pie-7
Chicken & Rice Casserole-7
Scalloped Chicken-8 (used with Cajun chicken)
Whole Cranberry Chicken-8 (better with dark meat)
Tater-tot casserole-8
Lemonade chicken-5 (husband factor, taste)
Orange chicken-6
Polynesian pork chops-7
Ham & potatoes-7
Triple rich chocolate cake-9 (gave an extra point for taste. Mmmm)
Pineapple upside-down cake-7

A lot of the recipes involved a lot of pre-packaged items but I'd expect the cook would have the common sense not to live off the recipes in this cookbook. They are not for everyday use but for the busy homemaker on a tight schedule. Some of the recipes are high in fat content but substitutions could be easily made. If you are rushed for time or just feeling lazy this little book is a time saver. The greatest surprise was being able to put a cake mix in the slowcooker. Who knew? The intro has two pages of helpful hints if you haven't used a slowcooker before. The book is sectioned into: Beverages (which I think is a worthless section), Dips & Fondues, Soups & Stews, Beef, Chicken, Pork and Desserts.

You'll notice I didn't try anything from the beverage, and dips and fondues section. My living arrangements don't warrant making a crock pot full of hot chocolate or dip. With any cookbook people generally don't use over half of the recipes. I tried 1/3 of the recipes and would use all but one of them again

Review Originally Posted at [...]
27 people found this helpful
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I use my Slow Cooker more than ever,now

This is a great book! I use it at least once a week. The chicken dishes are very simple & taste great. I really like the fact that many of the dishes call for frozen,boneless skinless chicken breasts(like you buy in the bags at the warehouse clubs).That's right,use them with out thawing!
Mama's Italian Chicken & Creamy Italian Chicken are family favorites. The pork chop dishes come out fall apart tender. The only dish I won't recomend is Cowboy Soup. It was awful!No flavor.However,one bad dish out of 101 isn't bad odds.By the way I have taken many of the dishes to potlucks & people go & buy the book because they love the food so much. I should ask for a comission! LOL
18 people found this helpful
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emptynester's delight

I first started to use my crockpot as a newlywed more than three decade ago. Now as as emptynester I use it just as much. My adult kids are always hungry when they come to visit and I'm always prepared! Our favorites are cranberry pork roast, holiday ham, and hot spiced cherry cider. I also use by slow cooker a lot on Sundays and it's great to come home from church to great smells from the kitchen. It makes Sunday so much more relaxed for me. The directions on this book are clear and the results are great. The fact that the authors suggest side dishes takes all the guesswork out of what's for dinner. My college freshman daughter took her own copy of the book to college with her! I recommend this book to busy mothers, emptynesters or anyone else who values their time and appreciates a delicious home cooked meal with a minimum of time spent. Buy it and enjoy!
10 people found this helpful
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101 THings to Do With a Slow Cooker

This is the perfect cookbook for the busy, on the go, working man/woman. The recipies are so easy to understand, require little or no preparation, and cook all day while you work. The best thing is to come home to a hot, ready to eat meal. My personal favorite recipies are the Triple Chocolate Cake, and the Chicken Tortilla Soup. Both of these are a real hit at my house! What a great book, and I have met both of the authors, and they are such neat, down to earth people who have the working man/woman in mind!
9 people found this helpful
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Simplicity At Its Best

I have prepared six of the receipes and they all turned out very tasty. I was impressed with the simplicity of the receipes and how quick and easy it is to prepare them. Of all the crockpot books I have this is the best.
8 people found this helpful
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Creative Recipes

The Chicken and Rice Casserole recipe in this book is one of my favorite ways to cook chicken in a hurry in the oven. You can also put the ingredients in casserole dish in a 350 degree oven. Now you can also cook this in a slow cooker.

There are many recipes using soups and boneless skinless chicken breasts. While most of the recipes do seem to be for beef, chicken or pork - there are also recipes for desserts and for vegetable cheese soup, Broccoli-Cheese Soup and Salsa Fever Soup. Vegetarians can use a meat substitute in many recipes. The second book has a special vegetarian section. Look for the 101 More Things to Do with a Slow Cooker.

While I'm still trying more recipes, the following may be of interest for holiday entertaining:

Holiday Wassail
Hot Spiced Cherry Cider
Cheese Fondue
Caramel Fondue
Chocolate Fondue

Other recipes we enjoyed: Sunday Roast. You might like the barbecued meatballs for a party. You can even make carrot cake or a triple rich chocolate cake in a slow cooker. A few of the recipes use cake mixes or brownie mixes.

~The Rebecca Review
8 people found this helpful