Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes (Better Homes & Gardens)

This cookbook will likely become one that I use over and over again. Not because it is a low-carb cookbook, but because it has great, quickly assembled slow cooker recipes.

The introduction and Low-Carb Basics chapters review all sorts of information about using slow cookers and nutritional information. The usual information about fats, carbs and proteins is included but additional useful information that other books normally don't cover is included such as a discussion on the glycemic index versus glycemic load.

Each chapter begins with an alphabetical list of the recipes along with their page number. Since the recipes aren't printed in alphabetical order in the chapter, this is a useful feature.

Each recipe is printed on one page. Each recipe has the prep time, times to cook on low or on high, how many servings it makes and what size cooker to use. The instructions are well written, complete and easy to follow.

The top outside corner of each recipe page shows the carb count per serving for the recipe. These have a broad range throughout the cookbook starting in the single digits for the vegetable recipes and going as high as the 40's for a few entrees.

As is usual with many slow cooker dishes, a common serving suggestion is to serve with whole wheat pasta or brown rice. These are almost always listed as optional ingredients. So, even though I didn't see this mentioned, I assume that their carb amounts are not included in the per serving analysis. Seems a bit disingenuous to not include those ingredients in the nutritional analysis. I mean, who eats Beef Stroganoff without noodles or Chicken Curry without rice? Anyway, for me, this lowers this book's usefulness as strictly a low-carb cookbook, but I'll still be using it for the tasty recipes.

Very few of the recipes call for Splenda, which I do not use, so unlike many other low-carb cookbooks, I don't have to skip a lot of recipes or substitute something. Many recipes have an ethnic origin so the variety is quite large. I think just about anyone would find lots of recipes to try in this book. The recipe titles sound interesting but always include the main ingredients or flavors so you aren't left wondering just what a whacky named recipe makes.

I don't eat beef, pork or lamb and there are lots of recipes for those, but many look adaptable to having turkey or chicken fill in. There aren't any fish or shellfish recipes except for a clam chowder recipe that uses tomatoes!