The kids are fussing, the phone is ringing, the checking account is overdrawn, the dog is sick, and your school day is about to start. Inevitably, everyone is still going to be hungry for dinner tonight regardless of the hard day you have stretched out before you. Ah . . . Molly Green to the rescue with her new Molly Makes $7 Slow Cooker Suppers Quick and Easy! This fabulous e-book is your solution to dinnertime dilemmas!

Molly's e-book is just a quick download away at www.econobusters.com, and for only $7.95 you have over 140 recipes at your fingertips! The recipes are nicely formatted so that you can simply search the e-book on your computer and print out just the page with the item you want to prepare. If the recipe page gets messy with sticky fingerprints or crayons during dinner prep, simply throw it out when you're done and print a new one next time you make that particular meal!

The table of contents is well laid out, with sections for soups and stews, beef dishes, poultry and fish, pork, meatless dishes, sandwiches, side dishes, breakfast, and desserts. The introduction is quite helpful for novice crock potters, with valuable information about how to convert your traditional recipes into slow cooker recipes. Simply adjust the cooking time and liquids according to the easy-to-follow chart included in the cookbook!

The recipe pages themselves are attractive, and most include a full-color photo of the finished dish along with comments and suggestions from the test kitchen. The cost of the dish is broken out in the sidebar to show that most dishes are around $7 to prepare. Some dishes cost even less! Of course, your actual cost will be largely determined by where you reside and whether you choose to shop at more expensive stores. Some people may be able to make the dishes even less expensively than Molly documented, particularly if you have a home garden and shop at discount warehouses.

Regardless of the exact cost per recipe, I can certainly attest to the delicious meals you'll enjoy. Following these simple recipes, most with few ingredients required, will provide your family with some delicious, tasty meals they'll be asking for again! If you have two crock pots, you can start your main dish in the morning and cook a dessert in your second crock pot in the afternoon. If you don't have the luxury of already owning a second crock pot, not to worry, Molly has included instructions on how to cook many of the desserts as casseroles in your oven instead! There are a lot of suggestions regarding double batches and freezing leftovers as well as ideas on how flexible the recipes are to accommodate whatever you happen to have on hand without extra trips to the store. Also, the breakfast recipes can be prepared the night before. That way everyone enjoys a hot meal with getting up any earlier than usual! The more you use these recipes, the more you'll start to become creative with the ingredients and begin developing unique "family favorites."

One of the best things about this e-book is that most recipes are easy enough for young children to help prepare. Crock pot cooking is wonderful for preschoolers because most things go into a cold crook pot and don't have to be precooked, thus reducing the chance of burns. But at dinnertime, the young child can proudly serve a meal they "cooked" all by themselves! You can also use this cookbook as a wonderful springboard for a unit study on nutrition, home economics, kitchen prep and safety, health, math practice for measuring ingredients, etc.

Of the many recipes our family has prepared so far from this excellent e-book, we haven't had any we didn't like. We also now have several meals in the freezer that we will soon be enjoying thanks to double batches we made previously. At such a low price, this e-book is a great value. You owe it to yourself and your family to give this cookbook a try and start enjoying tasty, healthy, stress-free meals!

Product review by Karen Yuen, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November 2010