A winning combination of best-selling recipes in a new concealed wiro-binding. The success of Judith Finlayson's slow cooker cookbooks is spectacular. Since publication, sales have exceeded 400,000 copies. Thousands of home cooks now prepare these delicious and convenient recipes. 175 Essential Slow Cooker Classics includes 60 brand new recipes plus the best recipes from 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes, Delicious & Dependable Slow Cooker Recipes and 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes. The new wiro format with full-color photographs will make this book the ultimate slow cooker cookbook. A sampling of recipes: Enticing soups like classic French onion soup, and minestrone with garlic-flavored crostini - Hearty main dishes like beef noodle casserole with cheddar-crumb topping, and pork chops with onions in creamy mustard sauce - Vegetarian delights like sweet potato barley risotto, and three-bean chili with bulgur - Delightful desserts like maple orange pudding with coconut, and just peachy gingerbread upside-down cake. These and other mouthwatering recipes ensure outstanding meals that can be prepared in advance with a minimum of effort. The wide range of recipes will satisfy anyone in the family for weekday meals and provide sensational ideas for entertaining guests. Many recipes that can be substantially prepared ahead and refrigerated... Cooks will appreciate the spiral-bound format. (Carol Anderson Escondido North County Times 2006-12-14) A perfect blend of tantalizing creations -- from every-day comfort foods to dishes that fit the bill for elegant entertaining... extensive tips and techniques to ensure perfect results. (Larry Cox Tuscon Citizen 2006-12-27) Judith Finlayson is a food journalist and author with a lifelong love of cooking. The author of The Convenience Cook and 125 Best Rotisserie Oven Recipes , she lives in Toronto. Introduction Since writing my first slow cooker book more than five years ago, I've become more and more convinced that this simple and easy-to-use appliance can play a significant role in helping families enjoy delicious and nutritious home-cooked food on even the busiest days. Quite simply, the slow cooker is one of the most effective time-management tools any cook can have. It allows you to be in the kitchen when it is most convenient and cooks your meals untended, freeing you up to do all the other things you need to get done in a day. One great benefit to using a slow cooker is that most dishes can be substantially prepared ahead of time and refrigerated (the Make ahead component of my recipes contains detailed recipe-specific instructions that explain how to do this). When you're ready to cook, you combine the ingredients, drop the stoneware into the casing and turn the appliance on. Then, if other commitments call, you can safely leave the house and, depending how long you are away, arrive home to be greeted by the appetizing aroma of a home -- cooked meal. The list of things you can make in your slow cooker is almost infinite. Mouth-watering soups, chilies, stews, pot roasts -- even desserts -- cook almost magically on their own. Most savory dishes are cooked with aromatics such as onions and garlic, which bring out their natural flavor and enhance the rich, complex sauces the slow cooker excels at producing. I find that spices, judiciously added, work well in the slow cooker, helping to develop the taste of the final result. Using these recipes, you'll be able to create meals that will soon become family favorites. Better still, producing such outstanding results requires a minimal amount of your attention. While my slow cooker dishes certainly qualify as nutritious, they are also good for us in other respects. Social scientists tell us that getting families together around the table has benefits that extend beyond nutrition. Among other advantages, when families eat together on a regular basis, children are more likely to do better in school and less likely to become involved in negative behaviors such as smoking or alcohol abuse. At the very least, the kind of dishes the slow cooker excels at producing -- hearty soups and stews and comforting old-fashioned desserts -- offer a reassuring antidote to the stresses of our fast-paced age. This book includes many of my favorite recipes from my first two books, as well as more than sixty new ones that have been developed especially for this volume. I hope you will enjoy them and, if you haven't already, will make the slow cooker a regular part of your life. Judith Finlayson