The most beautiful slow cooker book ever--and it's Paleo-friendly!
You definitely don't have to eat a Paleo diet to enjoy the delish recipes, gorgeous photos, and whole ingredients featured in this book. Anyone who wants to eat nutrient-dense, quality nourishment without irritants and inflammatory foods (so, most of us in theory, right?) will appreciate these!
So here's my review of The Paleo Slow Cooker: Healthy, Gluten-Free Meals the Easy Way!
The book has several different chapters and features, including a nice intro to what the Paleo diet is and how we aspire to eat the most nutrient-dense, high quality, nourishing foods.
Arsy dramatically improved her health through her Paleo diet and through care from a favorite alternative health practitioner, Chris Kresser. (So jealous. My husband and I are such fans of this guy, always blown away by his podcast and presentations.) Chris Kresser also wrote the intro to the book, and Amy Kubal, a registered dietitian, wrote some of the summaries about glucose metabolism, insulin, carbohydrates, all that stuff I find fascinating... (another thing I've loved about our new diet is learning more about how the body works. Can't believe I didn't know this stuff before but am always learning more and feel so enlightened and empowered when I do!) So I love the brief facts and intro pieces Arsy included.
After the appetizers/finger food chapter is the beef chapter. Pretty much my fave right now. After 13+ years of vegetarian and vegan eating, I know nothing about cooking meat, so have been learning a ton the past few months. We've bought shares of grassfed cows from a local farm (my husband's done a post about that), and grassfed beef is our most common protein source since I know a lot about it, I like it, and it's the best source of a lot of essential fats and vitamins we know we need. So I liked the beef chapter a lot!
Ropa Vieja...
Thai Red Beef Curry...
Bulgogi! Korean Beef...
Then the lamb chapter. Pretty amazing when you find a cookbook and there's an entire lamb chapter. Grassfed lamb is the other common source of super high quality ruminant meat, and I really want to try lamb but haven't found a great local source yet.
Arsy is Armenian, and grew up in California around a lot of different food cultures. I love how many international cuisine recipes there are. I never would have imagined so many combinations you can make in a slow cooker. ;)
Armenian lamb and apricot stew...
Onto the poultry chapter (an area I know even less about... no idea how to cook a chicken and don't like it much, usually...). Got me excited to try duck sometime!
Duck legs with yams (perfect Paleo meal for after a workout! Great carb source...)
There's even a seafood chapter! Who knew you could make fish in a crock pot?
Slow-Cooked Salmon and Seafood Bouillabaisse...
There's a veggie dish chapter, too. Slow cookers are great for side dishes and soups that are heavy on the veggies.
More good stuff mixed through the back--a piece about making your own bone broth in the crock pot (we've never tried that, but have been experimenting! Another of my husband's posts, on bone broth, here), and some more pearls of wisdom from the resident dietician...
Those are some of my fave pages of The Paleo Slow Cooker!
As you can see, gorgeous book, TONS of delicious recipes that are almost all as easy as, "Sear meat. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook 6-8 hours." That, I can do. Pretty photography, varied cuisines, yum yum! And I didn't even show the finger food and dessert recipes!
So I tried the Thai Red Beef Curry--beef and eggplant and delish Thai spices. I actually cut up everything the night before and put it in the fridge. Before I left for work, I put it in the cooker appliance and set the timer.
I came home to a delicious smell and this! Kept warm for me and all ready to eat. Oh, so wonderful to get home from work and have dinner all ready. Whew. Seriously, wish I could do this for us every day so I don't have to cook when I'm tired and hungry. ;)
It was delicious. Had two helpings, then brought another big serving for my lunch the next day. Husband had some too, and he [says he] doesn't like eggplant. (But he totally eats it when I put it in something yummy.) Mmmm!
Can't wait to try more recipes from the book! With the ease and foolproof-ness of a slow cooker, maybe I could even tackle a poultry recipe. (Terrified.) I'll definitely be trying some of the Paleo, slow cooker-friendly versions of beef classics with our next beef share!!
Check out the book on Amazon and check out Arsy's blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest!
(If you're curious, you can read my transition-to-Paleo story here, some fave Paleo recipes and food posts here, and my husband's blog, Grassfed Geek, about our adventures with quality local beef, fueling with grassfed butter, optimum fitness and mental performance, and lots of other good stuff. Also, I'm super duper proud of him for blogging. ;) )
Looks like a great cookbook! I have a slow cooker that is way underused AND I love Paleo's focus on whole foods and lots of vegetables.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great post! I'm on link overload.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, my husband and I are extremely happy with the paleo diet. Lately I've been cheating too much to notice the difference it makes, but overall we are huge fans. I find your switch fascinating and I think it's great that you are ok with re-evaluating and trying something new. It took me a while to find the right diet, too. I've always felt slightly guilty as a meat eater, but I make the best choices that I can - grassfed, free-range, organic, local farms.
I'm buying this book and your husband's blog is awesome.
I totally love the idea of this book! I'm going to wishlist it and mention it to my gym staff. They're HUGE Paleo-heads. :)
ReplyDeleteLooks fantastic! I had been debating on buying this book, only seeing it online though I was a little hestitant. I'm totally going to buy it now. Yum!
ReplyDeleteThe book looks so well designed with the different colors for difference recipe chapters it seems, and laid out in such an organized, easy to scan way. Also love how you have little flag bookmarks, that looks so much nicer than the random scraps of paper I mark my books with, doh!
ReplyDeleteThat is SO awesome that you're getting into Paleo, and glad you like the review and my husband's blog!! I feel so grateful for cows and ruminants and animals that can turn the most basic grass and plant foods into excellent nutrition sources for us--it just makes so much sense now that I feel like I'm part of a great ecosystem rather than feel bad about eating animals. =(
ReplyDeleteI get so into ideas and benefits of Paleo when I listen to favorite podcasts, I recommend checking those out if you're "cheating" more than you want to!
Awesome, yeah, it's great! Is your gym a CrossFit gym?? CrossFit + Paleo go together like... [non-Paleo analogy] peanut butter and jelly?? ;) so just wondering. I'd love to try CrossFit sometime.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!! Yeah, sometimes it helps to see more pages! We should compare recipes once you've tried some!!
ReplyDeleteI loooove the little sticky flags. I use them in everything now (non-fiction, anyway!)!
ReplyDeleteHa! It's not CrossFit, but I daresay it's a bit harder at times... We have people bring in their CrossFit friends and the workouts totally kick their butts! I work out with some TOUGH people. There's a 50 year old lady who does core rows with 50 pound weights like it's nothing and 115 pound girls who deadlift with about 100 pounds. Anyways, it's pretty similar without all the moves that are high-risk for injuries and with more cardio!
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm guessing that the paleo version of PBJ is almond butter & avocado? Just kidding, it just seems like avocado subs in for everything!