Creating healthy, wholesome meals for your family is important, but it can be time-consuming. Even if you have a menu planned and all the ingredients for your recipes, life happens. You get sidetracked helping kids with homework, watching your little ones play outside, or finishing up a project you were working on.
And before you know it, it’s dinnertime. Scrap the beautiful recipe that is going to take you at least an hour to make. Your family is hungry right now. So, what do you do? Crockpot Girls offers a solution. Prep your food in the morning and let it simmer and stew in the crockpot all day. The Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection includes 500 recipes designed for busy families. Is this cookbook the answer for home cooked family meals? Let’s find out…. here’s our Crockpot Girls Cookbook review.
Benefits of a Slow Cooker
Before we delve deep into how well this digital cookbook measures up, let’s discuss why you might want 500 recipes that you can make in a crockpot.
First and foremost, and the point that the author makes, is that you can do all the prep work in the morning and throw everything in the crockpot (or slow cooker). Then, at the end of the day enjoy a warm, delicious, home-cooked meal. This, alone, is a great reason to use your crockpot. But this is just one of the many reasons.
The flavor of foods made in the crockpot is fantastic (if you are using a good recipe). Seasonings and spices blend beautifully with extended cooking times, and even the toughest cuts of meat are tenderized. Slow cookers are also convenient, not only do they deliver a great meal at the end of the day, but you will not have nearly as many dishes to contend with that evening.
And for practical purposes, your crockpot uses less energy and doesn’t heat up the house (which is a good thing during the heat of the summer).
The Crockpot Girls Story
The idea for the Crockpot Girls cookbook came from Christine, a blogger and mom. Feeling guilty about her household management skills and frequent runs to Taco Bell for dinner, she decided to find a better solution. First, she tried freezer meals but found that she was spending too much time on the weekends doing the prep work. So, even though it helped her have meals ready to go, it took way too much time away from her family and other responsibilities.
So, at the suggestion of a friend, she tried using the crockpot for meals. She loved it and it saved valuable time each day. But after a while, she grew tired of making the same old recipes and decided to begin experimenting with her own. This cookbook is a collaboration between Christine, her daughter, and her daughter’s best friend to come up with some good, healthy and homestyle meals for busy families.
A Glance at the Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection
The Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection is available as an instant download. In this format, you can access the recipes directly from your phone, tablet, or computer. Easily print out the recipe your interested in or just refer directly to the directions on your phone or tablet while your cooking.
The recipe collection is chocked full of 500 different recipes. Inside, you will get 325 main dish recipes, 82 side dishes, 4 different beverage recipes, and a whopping 65 dessert recipes. Plus, there is a bonus section with 33 more variations of some of the recipes.
Each recipe is easy to follow and includes a photo. There is also a 60-day money back guarantee, so there is no risk to give it a try!
==> Click here for more about the Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection!
Main Dishes
After a short introduction, this cookbook gets right down to business with 365 main dish recipes. The main dish recipes include:
- Hearty beef dishes like Barbecue Beef Stew (page 12) and Beef Burger Stroganoff (page 68)
- Creative chicken meals such as Country Captain Chicken Breasts (page 51) and Bourbon Breast of Chicken (page 79).
- Scrumptious Seafood recipes including Citrus Fish (page 47) and Shrimp Creole (page 221).
The main dishes section also includes:
- Deliciously comforting soups like Clam Chowder (page 129) and Bean, Barley, and Sausage Soup (page 286)
- Creamy warm casseroles such as Brunch Casserole (page 84) and Chicken/Sausage Cassoulet (page 118)
- Tasty Vegetable recipes including Cheesy Broccoli and Cauliflower (page 36) and Eggplant Parmigiana (page 165).
Side Dishes
The side dishes featured in this slow cooker cookbook could also be categorized as appetizers by some. The recipes include:
- Warm and appetizing dips like Chili Cheese Taco Dip (page 353) and Hot Spinach Dip (page 389).
- Fun party snacks such as Grape Jelly Meatballs (page 383) and Hot n’ Spicy Pecans (page 388)
- Decadent bread recipes including Pumpkin Bread (page 403) and Zucchini Bread (page 414)
Beverages
While this section is small (with only four recipes) it is noteworthy, especially around holiday time. These recipes are great for parties, watching movies with the kids on a cold winter night, or just because. The beverage recipes included are:
- Apple Cider (page 420)
- Hot Orange Cider (page 421)
- Crockpot Pumpkin Latte (page 422)
- Holiday Punch (page 423)
Desserts
Who knew dessert you could make dessert in the crockpot? This is a great way to finish off a good meal without a whole lot of work (or mess) in the kitchen. The Crockpot Girl’s dessert recipes include:
- Rich and creamy pudding recipes like Apple Date Pudding (page 429) and Carrot Pudding (page 439).
- Crunchy, fruity cobblers including Cherry Cobbler (page 440) and Crock Pot Peaches Cobbler (page 489).
- Melt-in-your-mouth delicious cakes such as Chocolate Brownie Cake (page 443) and Lemon Poppy Seed Upside Down Cake (page 472).
- Delicious cheesecake recipes like Luscious Lemon Cheesecake (page 473) and Ricotta Amaretto Cheesecake (page 480).
Inside this cookbook, you’ll find many more great ideas for slow cooker desserts and other recipes.
==> Click here for more about the Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection!
Recipe Variations
The last section of the Crockpot Girls Cookbook includes adaptations of some of its favorite recipes. This section includes 27 different variations of its main dishes, four side dish variations, and two dessert variations. Some of the different take on the recipes include:
- Four different variations of Beef Stroganoff.
- Three varieties of Chili.
- Two additional takes on Chicken Cacciatore.
- Four more versions of Apple Butter.
- One additional Apple Dessert variation.
The whole recipe book includes 500 relatively easy to make crockpot recipes. Some are healthy, some or comfort food, and all of them are designed for busy families.
What We Think of the Crockpot Girls Cookbook
After reading through the recipes in this cookbook and trying some out, there are many great options. Most are easy to put together and many of them use items you probably have on hand anyway. With 500 different options, overall it is a good value and could easily become your go-to resource for slow cooker ideas. However, there are some areas where this cookbook could be better…
We’re Not Fond Of:
- The way the recipes are organized: All beef, poultry, pork, and vegetable recipes are “lumped” together as main dishes and the organization of them is a bit confusing. They aren’t in order by meat, vegetable, or even alphabetical order.
- The food photos: While it is great that this cookbook has a photo for every recipe, some pictures do not match or are obviously not actual pictures of the recipe. For example, the Pumpkin Bread recipe (page 403) has a picture of a delicious-looking pumpkin bread with several layers of cream filling. Yet, the actual recipe has no cream filling.
- Processed and packaged ingredients: This cookbook touts itself as “healthy”, yet recipes include ingredients like cream of (chicken, mushroom, celery, etc.) soup, Velveeta cheese, vegetable oil, and Bisquick. While there are some recipes with fresh, healthier ingredients, a more accurate description of this cookbook is “homestyle” recipes. However its very easy to substitute ingredients with healthier options.
We Love:
- Extensive list of recipes: There are literally 500 recipes in this book! If you love to use your slow cooker, this is the cookbook you need. It has all sorts of delicious and different recipes to try – and they are all ones that families could enjoy.
- Easy to follow instructions: Each recipe is very easy to put together and uses common ingredients, many of them are probably in your pantry already.
- Recipes are easy to get to: A great feature of this book is how easy it is to get to each recipe. Simply go to the table of contents list and click on the recipe you are interested in making to go to that page. You can also search by word for what you are looking for.
Conclusion
Bottom line, it is all about the recipes – and Crockpot Girls Cookbook delivers – with 500 different recipes! These recipes are ones you can make with your kids, or whip up quickly before they wake up. The intent of this book was to create delicious, home-cooked meals that don’t take up too much of your time to prepare, and it gets an A+ for doing so. So, although there are a few areas where it could improve, overall it is a great value and great addition to anyone’s cookbook library.
Final Verdict: 4 Stars
==> Click here for more about the Crockpot Girls Recipe Collection!
