Paleo Slow Cooker: 75 Easy, Healthy, and Delicious Gluten-Free Paleo Slow Cooker Recipes for a Paleo Diet Paperback – March 7, 2013

John Chatham, Paleo Slow Cooker: 75 Easy, Healthy, and Delicious Gluten-Free Paleo Slow-Cooker Recipes for a Paleo Diet (Rockridge University Press, 2013)I've seen a huge number of criticisms of this little tome in reviews, mostly from people who can only imagine a slow cooker a receptacle for raw, unprepared ingredients that get cooked while you are at work (none of whom, also, seem to have a “keep warm” setting on their slow cookers if they get caught in a traffic jam on the way home). If you start reading reviews of this book at random, you will quickly enough discern them. The best thing you can do once you have is ignore them; these are the kind of people, I think, who would complain if you decided to use your grill for something other than burgers and dogs. (Or if you put them on something other than white buns.) This is not to say there are not valid criticisms of the book, but “because it posits the ability to cook differently with a slow cooker” is a strength, not a weakness. You have a problem with the author recommending serving “paleo-friendly” breads or crackers with things? Don't do it. They're not part of the recipe, they're serving suggestions.First, the good stuff: Chatham goes soup to nuts here. The expected entrees are backed up with a hefty dose of soups, dips, and sides, even a handful of desserts. (I understand this triple-mini-slow-cooker thing is becoming A Thing, and I saw a bunch of recipes in here that would work perfectly for that sort of entertaining/potluck offering.) There are very few recipes in here I am not salivating to try; I've already done a few of the soups and been quite happy with them.The not-so-good: things tend to get a touch repetitive. Which I might not have even noticed were it not for the wide variety of applications on display here. But then, on the up side, when you do major grocery shopping, you actually don't have all that much to buy. (You just have to buy a whole helluva lot of it.) And if you are one of the unfortunate souls who don't have a keep warm setting on your slow cooker, a number of these recipes run less than eight hours in duration, so to use them you'll have to go lay out the twenty bucks for a newer model. Considering the time savings and utility, I think it's a pretty good investment.This is especially good for those who are generally cooking-phobic; since there is some prep work to be done on the stove with a lot of these recipes but the slow cooker handles the heavy lifting, it will give the novice a small introduction to the stove, while stopping short of getting into the complex stuff. For the cream of mushroom soup, for example, you saute the onions and mushrooms before dumping them into the slow cooker, which puts the cook at the stove for 5-10 minutes tops and only requires the absolute basics, so a fine way to introduce, say, teenagers who've never cooked before to the art—especially if they're fond of cream soups that are instead made with lowfat coconut milk instead of actual cream.I'd have liked to see a little more thinking outside the box (or, as it were, inside the produce box—Chatham sticks to the usual vegetable suspects rather than embracing the wider world of “stuff American don't generally eat”), but as a basic starting point, I found it worthwhile. ***

First off, I am not a strict adherent to the paleo diet, so this review won't touch on the accuracy of any of the ingredients. I like paleo recipes because I have lots of food sensitivities and find that I can eat most paleo foods without trouble!So, as a "slow cooker" cook book, it definitely has areas where it falls short, notably that many of the recipes call for pre cooking many of the ingredients, which is not necessary for a good slow cooker meal, and in my opinion just adds extra steps. I just skip these steps for most of the recipes, especially the stew and soup recipes which instruct the cook to sautee and brown the meats before putting them in the crock pot. Again, totally not necessary.I gave the book four stars, because I really like the book as a framework for creative slow cooker recipes. I don't always follow the instructions, but definitely use the combinations of ingredients to create some good meals! I love the soup and stew section because there are unique recipes that go beyond the traditional "beef and potato" or "chicken and mushroom" (although those are there as well!). There are fun recipes like coconut chicken curry, Mediterranean beef, and pork and sweet potato that I wouldn't think of on my own!

This cookbook is a wonderful explanation of the paleo diet ,(which also means gluten-free). This book explains the benefits of eating this way which are: weight loss, a positive impact on type 2 diabetes, which is a huge health problem today. Eating this diet also helps with lupus, fibromyalgia, and multiple sclerosis patients. There's been studies that have shown improvements in these disorders just from adapting to the paleo lifestyle. This is why so many people have switched their eating lifestyle to the paleo way of eating. The paleo diet has also been known as the "stone-age diet" because of its deviation from processed foods and focus on whole foods as a way to live and treat modern diseases that have derived from processed foods. For instance, instead of regular flour, you could use nut meals such as, coconut flour or almond flour. Instead of yeast, arrowroot powder, baking soda and baking powder. On this diet you can still have those pancakes and reap health benefits too! The recipes found in this book are truly delicious and simple. This is a book you will use daily; from the" slow cooker beef stew", to the" slow cooker chocolate cake", and everything in-between. This book will be one to pass on for generations to come.

To start with, there are some words there that I would have never expected to find in use together. After all Paleo is early community existence and slow cooking was something that I thought came much later than that. Slow Cooking is much older than I thought it was. The recipes are quite nice and well worth the effort to give a try. Even if you are not worried about Gluten or planning on making the Paleo Diet your mainstay of living it is well worth the look at some of the recipes. Especially if you have a liking for Sweet Potatoes. An amazing number of the recipes here have Sweet Potatoes in them. A number of the recipes also take the place of time honored favorites at the table. Stews without Potatoes, or at least without the standards ones that your would normally expect, Bread without using Wheat and Chowder with no Milk. These are just a few of the samples that are available. Having tried a few of them I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in having a wide range of foods available for meals. I would especially recommend this book to anyone that has issues with Gluten. It is also a fine addition to any kitchen.

Not what I expected.1st, the book is a slim paperback, printed on rather cheapish paper, without any pictures inside. This explains the low price. It's not the type of cookery book that you proudly display in your kitchen, but never use! I don't mind at all as I am tired of all those 'glossy' cumbersome cookery books with 50-odd recipes for 100-odd pages. Some of my most precious books (classics, such as The Great Gatsby, Proust's 'A la recherche du temps perdu', etc.) and my main cookery book, which I've been using for over 12 years, are similary 'cheap'. However some people might be disappointed.The book is split between 6 chapters devoted to recipes, and 3 very short chapters (more like appendices) about the paleo diet and slow cooking. The 6 chapters are: breakfasts; snacks and appetizers; soups, stews and stocks; meat entrees; vegetarian entrees; breads and desserts. Now one of the things which drew me to paleo is the possibility of doing away with all things related to bread, cakes, biscuits, and snacks during the day. I think the emphasis of finding substitutes for beans in chillis, paleo friendly cookies etc. makes it sound like people on paleo diets are recovering junkies, and I'm afraid a lot of them might 'relapse', if they keep eating bread and cake and breakfast cereals like products, which you absolutely don't need except as a really exceptional treat once a month or so. So 3 of the chapters are absolutely not relevant to me.Unless you have a large family, I question how economical it is to cook 'breakfast' in the slow cooker over 8 hours overnight! When you have 10 minutes to eat it before rushing out of the door, it is simply not worth it. The use of the word 'entree' to mean 'main meal' puzzles me, and as to ratatouille, I have never ever seen it served with parmesan, either at my various relatives' and school friends' homes, or at any of the canteens I've used, at school, uni or work, or when buying it ready made.Some of the recipes using meat are quite interesting, but they rather repeat themselves and I don't think there would be much difference between some of them, except in the title. There are also way too many meat recipes, not enough vegetarian recipes, and not a single fish or seafood recipe in the book!I was also puzzled that the appendix about the origin of the paleo diet didn't mention Loren Cordain, Mark Sisson or Rob Wolf. The books listed in the bibliography sound interesting, but anything published in 1975 is going to be quite dated, given the speed at which new knowledge is being gathered in medicine/biology/science.So to sum up, I am rather disappointed.

It's a great cookbook... however does not meet my needs in terms of the diet I am trying to follow. I need Paleo for autoimmune diseases and I find that this cookbook recommends the use of a lot of ingredients I can not use.

I found I needed to do a lot of guess work, but the one recipe I tried turned out okay. And had to cook it a lot longer in the slow cooker than the recipe called for.

Great ideas

Very good .Thank you very much.