Are you a crockpot/slow cooker user? Whether you are or not, you probably will want to be by the end of this post! Grab a drink or snack and settle in because this post is a long one and you do not want to miss out!
Like most people, my slow cooker sits packed up in it box during warm months. Come September, I get it out and dust it off with every intention of getting frequent use out of it…and then I forget (as you’ve probably noticed from the lack of slow cooker recipes on my blog). I’d love to change that though.
Who wouldn’t love to come home to a house that smells like your mom’s place and a hot meal waiting after a long day at work? A slow cooker is like your own personal kitchen assistant.
Where Slow Food and Whole Food Meet
I was pretty excited when Christine (Cook the Story) and Jennifer (Mother Thyme) invited me to contribute to a slow cooker cookbook called Where Slow Food and Whole Food Meet: Healthy Slow Cooker Dinners from our Kitchens to Yours. It features healthy, affordable slow cooker dinner recipes from over 30 talented bloggers. Recipes fall under the categories Chicken Dinners, Viva Italia!, Comfort in a Bowl, Food for a Fiesta, and Take Out Night. My recipe for Pumpkin, Chicken, and Spinach Tortellini Soup falls under Comfort in a Bowl. ;)
I’m honored to have my recipe for Pumpkin, Chicken and Spinach Tortellini Soup included in the cookbook. With pumpkin, sage, a hint of nutmeg, and a trace of brown sugar, this recipe is perfect for welcoming fall.
What makes the book even more meaningful is that it was made to help alleviate hunger.
Did you know that September is Hunger Action Month? As per the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a household is food insecure if, in the previous year, they experienced limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Meaning, they sometimes don’t know where their next healthy meal is coming from.
89% of households with children in the U.S. are food insecure, and 69% of households had to choose between food and utilities. (Please note that all statistics quoted here are from Feeding America’s Hunger in America 2014 Executive Summary.) I find these statistics staggering. Shocking. Heart-breaking. You probably do too.
Here’s the back cover of the beautiful book.
So, what can we do to help?
ALL of the proceeds from the print copy of this book are going to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida (buy it on Amazon here). Also, Feeding America food banks from across the country are giving the e-book version as a free gift to their donors (donate right now and get your free e-book here).
To help get the word out about hunger and how our book is helping, we’re having a bunch of Twitter parties. Print copies of the cookbook will be given away at all of them, and some will have extra prizes as well. A slow cooker might even appear! Our main twitter party is September 18, 2014 at 9 PM EST. Follow #slowNwholeCookbook
We heart our sponsors.
Big thank-yous are owed to our cookbook launch sponsors. Together, San Miguel Produce, Grimmway Farms, and Old Oak Farms by RPE Produce are making some big contributions to help end hunger. They are each contributing food to their local food banks, and they are giving $5 to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida for every print copy of the book sold (up to a maximum of $600). Hamilton Beach is helping get people excited about our launch by sponsoring slow cooker giveaways…but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Here is the talented bunch of bloggers who contributed to this project.
I want to mention the other incredibly talented food bloggers who contributed so generously to the cause by participating in this cookbook. (Many of them are also hosting giveaways, so be sure to head over to their blogs and enter!) Here they are along with the recipes they contributed:
Broccoli and Cheese Potato Soup from Big Bear’s Wife
Chicken, Potato and Barley Stew from Magnolia Days
Autumn Apple Chicken Sandwiches from Chocolate & Carrots
Thai Coconut Curry Beef and Broccoli from Food Faith Fitness
Chicken Burrito Bowls from Two Healthy Kitchens
Barbacoa Tacos from My Baking Heart
Balsamic Orange Roast Beef from a farmgirl’s dabbles
Cuban Seafood Stew from The Kitchen Prep
Chinese Beef and Broccoli from Very Culinary
Pork Meatballs in Marinara Sauce from Savvy Eats
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic from Around My Family Table
Tex-Mex Scalloped Potato and Carrot Dinner from Cook the Story
Cuban Black Bean Soup from Food n’ Focus
Macaroni and Cheese With Sugar Snap Peas from Brooklyn Farm Girl
Sweet and Spicy Carnitas from Cravings of a Lunatic
Pork Tenderloin Florentine from All Day I Dream About Food
Thai Pork with Vermicelli Salad from Jane’s Adventures in Dinner
Mango Chicken from Stetted
Creamy Buffalo Chicken from Mother Thyme
Spiced Lentil Stew from Je suis alimentageuse
Harvest Chili from WonkyWonderful
Whole Tuscan Chicken from The Little Kitchen
Vegetarian Pumpkin White Chili from Kitchen Treaty
Sweet Italian Sausage and Peppers from Sweet Remedy
Chicken Cacciatore from Poet in the Pantry
Lentil, Sausage and Kale Stew from Jeanette’s Healthy Living
Italian Beef Sandwiches from Yummy Healthy Easy
Butternut Squash Vegetarian Chili from Nutmeg Nanny
Very special thanks to Jennifer and Christine, the ladies who put their heart and soul into this project and organized and co-edited the whole thing. If you’re interested, they are also giving away 1 prize of free carrots for a year from Grimmway Farms, 1 prize of free greens for a year from San Miguel, and a potato prize pack from Old Oak Farms by RPE Produce including 40 pounds of potatoes and 1 Bamboo Bowl, 1 cutting board, 1 pepper mill, 1 measuring spoon set, 1 recipe booklet, 1 about potatoes booklet. Head over to their blogs to enter!
And now for the giveaway!
Thanks to our generous sponsors, I’m giving away 2 print copies of Where Slow Food and Whole Food Meet and 1 Hamilton Beach Set & Forget® Programmable 6 Quart Slow Cooker (model 33464)! (Note that there will be 3 different winners for this giveaway.)
To participate in this giveaway, just leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite slow cooker meal or your favorite comfort food.
For extra entries, you can do any of the following (please leave a separate comment for each so I can count them as separate entries and more chances to win!):
Tweet the following message: Get a #SlowCooker #cookbook as a free gift when you donate to help end hunger! @FeedingAmerica @AnEdibleMosaic http://www.anediblemosaic.com/?p=18273
Like An Edible Mosaic on Facebook.
Follow An Edible Mosaic on Twitter.
Like Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida on Facebook.
Like Feeding America on Facebook.
Like Hamilton Beach on Facebook.
Like Old Oak Farms by RPE Produce on Facebook.
Like Grimmway Farms on Facebook.
Like San Miguel Produce on Facebook.
Like Mother Thyme on Facebook.
Like Cook the Story on Facebook.
Head over to any of the participating bloggers posts (listed above) and leave a comment on their post, and then leave a comment here letting me know whose blog you stopped by.
You do not need to have a blog to enter this giveaway. For shipping purposes, this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents. This giveaway ends on September 11, 2014 at 11:59 PM EST. Once the giveaway ends, the winners will be randomly chosen and notified via email. The winners will have three days to respond with their mailing information, otherwise new winners will be randomly chosen. Good luck to all!
Disclosure: This giveaway is sponsored by San Miguel Produce, Grimmway Farms, Old Oak Farms by RPE Produce, and Hamilton Beach. I received a Hamilton Beach Set & Forget® Programmable 6 Quart Slow Cooker (model 33464) for free, but was not compensated for this post and will not be compensated for my contribution to the cookbook. ALL of the proceeds from the print copy of this book are going to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.