Keep Crockin’ Review and Giveaway
This week I have the fantastic opportunity of reviewing, “Keep Crockin’: A Poorganic Slow Cooker Cookbook,” (Click here to view more details) written by Stacy Myers at Stacymakescents.com. Stacy is also a fellow contributor at HipHomeschoolMoms.com and I feel super blessed to take a peak at her new book!
This cookbook sparked some interest in me because I always ruin food in the kitchen…seriously…my husband makes better dinners than me most of the time. I get all mentally prepared to make something and either forget and the food rots in the fridge, run out of time and the food rots in the fridge, or have a major disaster in the kitchen – we’re talking exploded carrot soup on the ceiling kind of disasters. Of course, I do have some nicer moments but, more times than not, those incidents seem to consist of times when I’ve used my slow cooker.
When I started checking out Stacy’s new cookbook I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought, isn’t this the coupon, frugal guru? Frugalness hasn’t normally equaled healthful living in my book. However – that’s a BIG HOWEVER – I learned that Stacy and her family have moved to a healthier life style and she has made it her goal to help others still live frugally while making healthful food choices for the family without squashing the budget.
The foreword in Keep Crockin’ was written by Katie at Kitchenstewardship.com! This is very encouraging since I had a concern about the health of this cookbook. Katie is well-known for writing about holistic, organic, and natural living. She is actually the one that made the biggest impact on my own path towards more healthful living.
Once digging into Keep Crockin’, I quickly learned that Stacy is HILARIOUS! What a cool person! She definitely keeps my ADD mind interested while looking at all the recipes. I am hoping she can teach me a thing or two about the crock pot. I’ve been known to ruin even the most fool-proof slow cooker recipes out there….sigh…
Stacy states,
“This cookbook is for:
- The person who is super busy and needs something for dinner, but can’t find the time at 5pm to cook.
- The person who likes to eat, but burns stuff on the stove and in the oven. *Cough*
- The person who wants to eat crock pot meals, but doesn’t want all the cream-of-junk soups.
- The person who likes to read cookbooks for fun because of the pretty pictures.
- You. You. You.”
I say, this cookbook is for those who really do want to provide healthful meals for their family but do not have tons of time to get it all done day in and day out – this is me in a nutshell!
There are many different recipes ranging from mouth watering breakfast delights, savory main dishes, creative sides, hearty soups, and awe-inspiring deserts…umm…we’re talking the ewwy-gooey chocolate kind of deserts! I seriously have been thinking about some of her deserts all day!
One concern I had was if there were gluten free and/or Paleo options in this cookbook. I didn’t want to waste time looking through it if I wasn’t going to be able to eat any of it. With crockpot recipes there seems to be a ton of stuff inundated with gluten laden products….it’s soooo annoying.
But, Stacy’s Keep Crockin’ cookbook isn’t full of gluten.
There are a few recipes with flour but most are naturally gluten free and actually fit the paleo lifestyle….and you can substitute different ingredients in the minimal amount of recipes that do have flour if you wanted. Stacy uses a lot of coconut and almond flours which were a big plus for me!
Another thing I liked about Keep Crockin’ is that Stacy doesn’t guilt trip you into purchasing highly expensive organic ingredients. It really irks me when a cookbook hounds you over and over about buying organic. Although I am a huge supporter of organic and non-GMO products, I don’t always buy it because it’s expensive. Have you seen the price of organic bacon?! Of course I want to buy organic and I usually do…but I don’t want the extra little voice in my head that says, “You suck” because I went to the dark side.
I also appreciate the fact that Stacy does provide many substitute options if you have special needs or preferences. I usually mess up recipes experimenting with substitute ingredients and she’s already done the experimenting for me. Isn’t that awesome?!
As I read through Stacy’s recipe I see a trend from her. She is not only giving well thought out recipes but is also teaching a long the way. She talks about crock pots in the beginning of the book and mentions technique in other parts of the book. For instance, I never knew that people actually choose to own different sizes of a crock pot and use them all. I only have one big one. Also, did you know you can put a smaller glass container into your larger crock pot and cook something? Who would-a-thunk!
Okay, so lets talk about a couple of these recipes, shall we…
Broccoli Cheese Soup
This soup is made with simple ingredients and it took me less than 10 minutes to prep, even with my little monsters distracting me. I like broccoli soups because you can throw in all the ends of the broccoli that no one ever wants to put on their plate – I have very picky eaters.
I over-cooked my soup a tad because we had to go to karate but it still tasted great. No one knew that mommy made an oops! My Little Bug is a broccoli eating machine and loved this soup! The kids were requesting it the rest of the week. FYI – my soup isn’t so green because my broccoli didn’t have much color for some reason.
To streamline this recipe, I highly recommend only using an Immersion Hand Blender
Yummy Dill Beef Roast
Oh. My. Goodness! I loved this recipe! My picture wasn’t very pretty so it’s not here. My roasts are always so bland no matter what I put into it. I expected the same with this but I was thoroughly surprised by savory goodness! My husband even offered a compliment for this one! Thank you Stacy for giving the hubs a nice dinner!
I used this recipe on our Classical Conversations Community Day. These days are always SOOO crazy and I always run out of time or motivation. I prepped the roast the night before…it was a little frozen so I let it sit on the counter all ready to be turned on in the am. I cooked it on low for 10 hours because I didn’t know when I’d actually get around to eating it. It turned out perfect!
We also made some Basmati rice in my stainless steel rice cooker
Head on over to Stacymakescents.com to check out her new cookbook, “Keep Crockin’: A Poorganic Slow Cooker Cookbook.”
To celebrate the release of the book, Stacy is giving me one copy of the eBook to give to one of you lucky readers! Yay!
If you are more interested in getting the book in your hands now, you can buy the eBook copy for $8 and be able to download it right away. Click on the image below for more info!
Happy cooking! 
Heather
*I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own or of my family’s. I am also an affiliate member of Keep Crockin’. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC regulations.
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