The Menopause High-Protein Slow Cooker Cookbook
High-protein slow cooker dinners that are ready when you get home
125 dump-and-go recipes for perimenopause and beyond. Every recipe has its own photo and full nutrition, and there’s a 6-week meal plan with shopping lists in UK and US measures. You fill the pot in the morning, and dinner is done by evening.
Kindle now on Amazon UK and US, full-colour paperback coming soon. Use Look Inside to see the pages first.
Six o’clock, and dinner hasn’t happened yet
You get in from work hungry, and the fridge is full of good intentions. You know you want more protein. You also know you won’t stand at the hob for forty minutes tonight.
So it’s toast again, or whatever is in the cupboard. Most of us know roughly what we should eat. The trouble is the time of day: by six, the sensible plan loses to whatever is quickest.
A slow cooker moves that decision to eight in the morning, when you still have the energy to make it.
Why most slow cooker cookbooks end up in the cupboard
Readers of other slow cooker books tend to complain about the same things:
- There are no pictures, so you can’t tell what a dish should look like.
- Everything comes out soft, beige and bland.
- The “dump-and-go” recipe wants you to brown the meat in a frying pan first.
- Half the ingredients are tins of condensed soup and packet mixes.
- The food is heavy, and protein is an afterthought.
In this book every recipe is photographed and every one lists its protein. The salt is measured in teaspoons instead of coming from a stock cube, and no dish goes over 600 mg of sodium a serving.
How the recipes work
The Morning Drop: dump-and-go slow cooker recipes in four steps
Every recipe follows the same routine. After a week you’ll do it without reading the page.
125 slow cooker recipes, with a photo of every one
Ten chapters run from overnight breakfasts and soups to batch-cook bases, fish, beans and lentils, with a last chapter of sides and puddings. These are real pages from the book.
A 6-week slow cooker meal plan, with the shopping lists done
The plan is written for two people, Monday to Saturday. Each week uses six recipes of six servings, which covers three meals a day for two over six days. One shopping list covers the whole week.
If you’d rather not follow a plan, start with the batch-cook chapter. Its twelve bases turn one Saturday pot into three different meals during the week.
- Grams of protein on every recipe, so you can see your total without an app.
- Full nutrition per serving: calories, protein, fat, carbs, fibre, calcium, iron and sodium. The figures include the oil and the spices.
- UK and US measures side by side, with fill levels for a 3.5-litre (3.7-quart) slow cooker.
- Ordinary family food that everyone eats from the same pot.
Why protein matters in perimenopause and menopause
When Australia’s CSIRO surveyed women aged 40 to 55, only about one in three reported eating as much protein as suggested (source). That is one survey in one country. Still, at the end of a long day, protein is an easy thing to skip.
Every recipe in this book is built around a protein, and the number is printed on the page. How much you need is a question for you and your doctor. The book makes the number easy to see.
If you have kidney disease, ask your doctor or dietitian how much protein suits you before you eat more of it. They will usually check your kidney blood tests (eGFR and creatinine).
The Menopause High-Protein Slow Cooker Cookbook
- 125 dump-and-go recipes, each with its own photo
- Protein and full nutrition per serving
- A 6-week meal plan with weekly shopping lists
- UK and US measures
- Kindle now, full-colour paperback coming soon
On Amazon, use Look Inside to read a few recipes, then get the Kindle edition (the full-colour paperback is coming soon). Pick one recipe tonight and fill the pot tomorrow morning.
Kindle edition $5.24 on Amazon US · Buy on Amazon UK
Free
Not ready to buy? Try a free 7-day high-protein meal plan
The Four-Hormone Menopause Meal Plan gives you seven days of high-protein meals, 21 recipes in all, with a swap guide. It’s a quick way to find out whether our cooking suits you, and we’ll send it by email.
Slow cooker cookbook questions
Do I need to brown the meat first?
No. Nothing in the book is browned before it goes in the pot. A handful of recipes finish by boiling the sauce down in a pan for five to ten minutes, and a few suggest a few minutes under the grill (US: broiler) if you want a crisp top.
What size slow cooker do I need?
The recipes give fill levels for a 3.5-litre (3.7-quart) slow cooker. In a 5.5 to 6-litre (6-quart) cooker, increase everything by half rather than doubling, and check your manufacturer’s guidance on how full to fill it.
How many servings does each recipe make?
Six. The meal plan is built for two people, so you eat some that evening and the rest becomes lunches later in the week. Cooked dishes keep three to four days in the fridge and three months in the freezer, so freeze what you won’t eat in that time on the day you cook it. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat on the hob or in the microwave until steaming, never in the slow cooker.
Is this a menopause diet book?
No. There is no calorie target and no list of forbidden foods, and nothing in it claims to treat menopause symptoms. It’s a cookbook that puts protein and clear numbers into everyday meals.
How much salt is in the recipes?
Each recipe gives its salt in teaspoons, and that salt is counted in the sodium figure. No dish goes over 600 mg of sodium a serving.
Are the measurements in UK or US units?
Both. Every ingredient is in metric and in US cups or ounces, with the UK and US names where they differ, such as pinhead oats and steel-cut oats.
Will my family eat it?
These are ordinary family dinners built around a protein. Everyone eats from the same pot.
Do the photos show on Kindle?
Yes, in colour on the Kindle app and on colour tablets. Black-and-white Kindle readers show them in greyscale.
I take medication or have a health condition. Is this book for me?
It’s a cookbook, not medical advice, so talk to your doctor or pharmacist first about the parts that touch your situation. With kidney disease, ask about the amount of protein. With high blood pressure or heart failure, ask about the salt figures. If you take insulin or another glucose-lowering medicine, ask before changing your carbohydrates. If you take warfarin, keep leafy greens such as spinach and kale steady from week to week.
About Life Cookery
Life Cookery publishes practical cookbooks for women in perimenopause and beyond, written by Anna Collins. The books say plainly what the evidence does and doesn’t support, and the recipes are meant for an ordinary weeknight.
Also in the series
P.S. If you skipped to the bottom: this is 125 high-protein slow cooker recipes, each with a photo, plus a 6-week meal plan so dinner is decided long before six o’clock. You can get the cookbook on Amazon or start with the free 7-day plan.
If you’d rather wait, that’s fine. The slow cooker will probably still be in the cupboard in six weeks, though, and filling it once tomorrow morning is enough to start.