Slow cooking is on the rise. And many families are turning to this method of meal preparation as one way to help beat the recession’s effect on the family grocery bill. Crock-pot cooking just may be the answer.

So we turned to “Joe Simmer’s Slow Cookin’” cookbooks, which reinvent some of America’s classic recipes for slow cooking. With his Louisiana roots, the fictional Joe Simmer has recipes full of flavor, using whole fresh foods, not condensed soups and packaged seasonings. Crock-pot cooking is the key to turning less expensive cuts of meat into tender, succulent dishes and perfect also for cooking beans and the like.

Most crock-pot recipes require only a few minutes of prep time and emit less heat than an electric oven.

Richard Stewart, Joe Simmer’s co-creator, says that slow cooking is on the rise because people are looking for ways to cut both grocery and electric bills and to prepare healthy and delicious home-cooked meals with little fuss.

The other co-creator, Michael Ledet, adds that the Joe Simmer series of cookbooks includes recipes for use by the professional tailgater to the couch potato fanatic: Creole, Healthy and All American. Each book contains 144 pages with 50-plus recipes and  cartoon illustrations that complement the recipes or stories about Joe Simmer, who offers his lively and entertaining quips on American history, politics and more.

Joe Simmer cookbooks may be purchased for $15.95 at select bookstores, www.amazon.com, or www.joesimmer.com. For additional information, call 504-866-5535 or e-mail richard@2martinipress.com.