Slow Cooker Central Website User Guide

Welcome to the new and improved Slow Cooker Central!
Come on in, look around, and let us give you the grand tour so you feel right at home 🙂

If you are a regular visitor to our site and have noticed the recent changes, or if you are a first time visitor to Slow Cooker Central and just not sure how to navigate around our website, than keep reading!
We will look at all the features our new website has to offer and how to find them, use them, and make the most of them.
Let’s get started 🙂

Home Page
When you are exploring the website you can click on the green Slow Cooker Central logo on the top left of your page to navigate back to our home page.

Menu Tabs
Along the top of our website in the green line you will find our menu tabs. If you are on a mobile the tabs along the menu will appear under the 3 stacked lines.  Click those to view these tabs.  We will look at what each one contains as we go along:
~Recipes – This is the direct link to our recipes archives.  From here you can explore recipes by categories or by search.  This page and it’s many features will be covered in more detail below.  Don’t forget – when on individual recipe pages you can now use the check boxes in the ingredients lists and method steps to ‘check’ them off as you go and you’ll always know where you are up to 🙂
~Blog – This is the direct link to our full list of blogs.  Blogs can be all nature of topics!  From how to clean your slow cookers, to how to cook a popular type of recipe, from educational how to blogs, to special occasions blogs for the holidays, competitions currently being run, even one just for slow cooker jokes.  You’ll find lots to learn and enjoy in our blogs so be sure to check back regularly for new blog content being added.
~Submit a Recipe – This page is where you can submit your recipe to feature on the Slow Cooker Central website.  It’s as easy as typing in your original recipe, including all the relevant info like cooking time and temp, slow cooker size and any tips or notes on how best to cook your recipe.  We need an original photo for each recipe we upload so be sure to take one of your finished dish to share with your recipe.  Every recipe uploaded to our website needs to have the ‘Submitted by…’ line completed with your name.  Because here at Slow Cooker Central you get full credit for your recipe and you can always see at a glance who’s recipe you are looking at or cooking.  (see technical advice further below for all you need to know re recipe submissions and help with any issues you may have submitting a recipe)
~Store – The Slow Cooker Central store has items for purchase.  It currently has the best seller Slow Cooker Central book that you can purchase signed copies of, posted direct to you, to anywhere in the world.  And if you are buying one for someone else you can choose to have a special message included with the signing.  Payments are securely managed via the PayPal system.  In coming weeks we will be adding more great Slow Cooker Central products to our store!
~S.C Reviews – This page reviews various models of slow cookers.  We are adding to them all the time as we trial and review more.  It’s a great way to compare features of various models and hopefully help you in your next slow cooker purchase.
~FAQ~Tips~Tricks – New to slow cooking?  Already slow cooking and looking to learn more tips and tricks to use?  This page is a great one stop spot for a wealth of knowledge on tips, tricks and frequently asked questions all about slow cooking.  New tips and tricks being added along the way.  And if you have a tip that works great for you, why not leave it in the comments section of this page and we’ll add it to our reader tips and tricks section!
~Conversions – At Slow Cooker Central we know our members come from all over the world!  So our conversions page is a handy reference for converting between eg metric and imperial measurements for your recipes.  Or if you’d rather someone else do it for you … we’ve also got links to online converters where you can type in what you want converted and get your answer at the click of a button.
~Contacts – If you need to contact us stop by our contacts page for a direct line to Slow Cooker Central.  We are ready to listen to you 🙂

Login and Saving Favourite Recipes
An exciting new feature of our new site is the option to login.  Create your own user profile and use it to login when you visit Slow Cooker Central.  Not only will it remember you for when you make comments but it will also enable you to save your favourite recipes!  A feature many of you asked for and it’s here!
Just click on the little red love heart above a recipe to add it to your favourites.
You can also add extra details to your login like a photo of yourself to appear beside your comments 🙂  Go through and ‘favourite’ your recipes today and you’ll have an easy to find list of one’s you love and cook often, or new one’s you plan to try in future.  All available for easy reference at your profile page.  You can find your profile page via the red box at the top right of our website when you are logged in.
(See below for further technical advice for any login issues)

Searching For Recipes
There are several ways you can find your next slow cooker recipe to try…
~ You can BROWSE direct from our recipe page.  Scroll until you find something you want.  Something is sure to catch your eye.
~ Browse via CATEGORY:  Simply click on the drop down menu in the search area titled ‘All Recipe Categories’.  This will give you a list of all our category options and help to narrow down an area you are looking for, or one you are curious to explore.  From beef, chicken or seafood… to cakes, pasta or rice… from breakfast to dessert and everything in between we’ve got a category that’s sure to capture your interest.  Once you’ve chosen a category click on the green ‘Search for Recipes’ box for your results.
~ SEARCH Box:  If you know a recipe by title you can put it directly into the search box.  It can be the exact recipe title, something close to the full title, what the recipe you are looking for is commonly called, or even just a few words that you think sums up what you are looking for … you can type it directly into the big blank box then click on the green ‘Search for Recipes’ box for your results.
~Search by INGREDIENT: Have a few basic ingredients you have on hand or want to use and not sure what to cook with them?  Type in a few ingredients, separate each word with a comma,  then click on the green ‘Search for Recipes’ box for your results.  You will be given recipes that feature those ingredients you want to use.  Make your ingredient search as broad or as narrow as you want and your recipe result numbers will reflect this.  This is also a feature that many members asked for and we are happy to deliver.
~ SORT Recipes by: Whatever method of the above search options you choose, don’t forget the ‘Sort Recipes By’ option also.  Order your results by date eg newest or oldest first, by alphabetical order of title or even by star ratings.  Choose how your want your results ordered and then click on the green ‘Search for Recipes’ box for your results.  Lots of options to narrow down exactly what you are looking for.

Comments and Ratings
As you move around the Slow Cooker Central website you’ll find recipes and blogs have a section for comments and ratings below them.  Reading a recipe and not sure on something – just post a comment to ask 🙂  Cooked a recipe and tried a slight variation to it that you loved, comment under the recipe to share the option with others too.  Chose a recipe from the website, cooked it and want to rate it?  Just click on the 5 star rating system under each recipe to give your rating.
Note:  In the move from our old site to new we lost our prior ratings and many of our prior comments.  So why not go rate your favourites again so the member who shared the recipe gets your feedback and knows how others found their dish 🙂
All comments are approved via admin prior to posting so if you don’t see your comment right away it doesn’t mean it didn’t post.
Sign in with your Slow Cooker Central login to comment and rate.

Social Sharing Links
At the far right end of the green menu bar that runs across the top of our site you’ll notice the links to visit our Facebook Group, Our Pinterest Page and our YouTube Channel.
You’ll also find quick link buttons below our individual recipes and blogs to easily share the page you are on across your various social media platforms.  Share us, pin us, or tweet us to share us with your friends, feeds or boards and help even more people find and enjoy Slow Cooker Central.

We hope you enjoy the exciting changes this new site design have brought you 🙂
Here at Slow Cooker Central we are always working on ways to deliver more of what you want, in ways you say you want it!

Slow Cooker Central … always evolving – always growing!
Thank you for being a part of the journey x

Paulene
Slow Cooker Central

**TECHNICAL ADVICE FOR ANY LOGIN ISSUES**

Registering an Account

• Please use both Username and Password exactly as they appear in the email. You must use the username displayed here or you will be unable to login. Any additional spaces or characters will cause your login attempt to error.
• If you are still receiving an error when logging in, please make sure you are not copying any additional characters in your password when pasting it in. You might want to paste your password somewhere else to check first.

Trouble Logging In After Registration

• If you are having trouble logging in to your account after you have done so at least once already, please try clearing out your browser cache, closing your browser, and trying again.
  • For Google Chrome:
    • Go to History
    • Click Clear Browsing Data
    • Check the Cached Images and Files Option, then Clear
  • For Firefox:
    • Go to History -> Clear Recent History
    • Check the Cache and Cookies Options, then Clear
  • For Safari:
    • Go to Preferences
    • Click Remove All Website Data, then Remove Now
  • For Google Chrome on Mobile:
    • Go to History
    • Select Clear Browsing Data
    • Check the Cache and Cookies and Site Data options, then Clear
  • For Safari on Mobile:
    • Go to Advanced
    • Click Website Data
    • Click Remove All Website Data, then Remove Now
• Alternatively, you may also wish to try the following:
  • Logging in from another machine, such as your phone or your PC
  • Logging in using a different browser
  • Trying again in a few minutes if the site seems to be running slowly
• Still having login issues?
  – Make sure that you have entered your signup password correctly. Copying and pasting is the best way to be sure.
  – If you are logging in with your username, remember there should be no space between your first name and last name. In general it might be easier to login with your email address
  – Remember that you can always either reset your password or change your password once your account has been created by clicking the ‘Forgot your Password?’ tab, which will send you an email with a reset link
  – If you did not get the email with the reset link, check your spam folders to be sure
  – If you have tried to login several times and have received a message that you have been locked out, don’t panic as the lock will be removed in 5 minutes. Please go through the above in this instance to ensure that your Username or Email address is correct and also that you are using the correct password.
• If you are still having persistent issues, please send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll try to help you recover your account

***MORE INFO ON SUBMITTING A RECIPE***

• Filling out the Form
  • Note that there are 3 required fields when entering a recipe: Title, Ingredients, and Directions
• Images
  • When uploading images, please ensure they are of the correct filetype. WordPress accepts the following filetypes for images:
    • .jpg
    • .jpeg
    • .png
    • .gif
  • If you need to convert your image to one of the filetypes above, you can do so on most PCs with tools such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager. There are also a number of online tools to help such as this one: http://www.convertmyimage.com/
  • Please do not upload images above the recommended size (above 900x600px). Uploading very large images may take a long time and can cause your connection to timeout or an error.
• Instructions
  • When filling out ingredients, arrange each ingredient on one line to make sure the system reads them properly. Keep an eye on the ‘Sections/Ingredients’ tab as you go – the number of ingredients you have should match the number displayed for Ingredients.
  • Sections can be created using ‘–‘ before typing the section name. Sections are useful if you want to break up different elements of a dish, such as separating the ingredients for a sauce and the ingredients for the rest of the dish.
• Directions
• • • Directions follow the same concept as Ingredients, with ‘–‘ able to be used to creation sections for steps in the same way. Please make sure the number of Directions you have matched the ‘Steps’ counter. Directions will appear in the order you enter them.
    • Also please make sure you include the settings you are cooking on, i.e. HIGH/LOW and the Size of your slowcooker at some point in this section.
  • Recipe Category
    • You may select a category for your recipe here if you want to. Note that you can select more than one by holding down CTRL when clicking on PC or by checking additional boxes on mobile.
  • Prep Time and Cook Time
    • Simply slide these sliders to the right time in both cases. Since we use quite a long scale (up to 12 hrs cook time), these can be a little fiddly to use, particularly on mobile. If you are having trouble getting them to the right spot, try rotating your phone horizontally, which will expand each one out to the full width of your phone.
  • Additional Notes
    • Feel free to include any additional notes or comments about your recipe here.
    • Also, don’t forget to include a ‘Submitted by’ line, otherwise the recipe won’t be properly attributed to you if it gets published.
  • Yields
    • Enter whatever quantities seem appropriate here, e.g. serves 4.