Fix, Freeze, Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving - More than 125 Recipes Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I just got this book a few weeks ago, and I LOVE it! I live in a household of two, and am not a Costco-type shopper when it comes to meats, so everything I have made from this book, I have just halved the recipes to fit my smaller-packages-of-meat shopping patterns. No biggie. I still have three plus meals out of each type of meat I buy for the two of us.
My husband absolutely raved about the Sticky Ribs recipe...and being a die-hard foodie, he is VERY difficult to impress. He has insisted I make them again for a potluck this weekend. I won't give the recipe away, but trust me, for just four ingredients, this one can't be beat. It was worth the price of the book for this one recipe alone.
Overall, this book was a great intro for me on the pleasures of make-ahead cooking. I think I am addicted now! And the fact the recipes in this book do not contain any horrible ingredients like Velveeta cheese, canned "cream of" soups, or refrigerated biscuit dough is great, too! You can feed your family easily, healthfully, and with fewer preservatives and if you purchase this book and make some of the recipes as they are written. I highly recommend it!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Fix, Freeze, Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving - More than 125 Recipes

Millions of shoppers save money buying groceries in bulk — trays of boneless chicken breasts, pairs of flank steaks, and flats of ripe tomatoes. But savings can quickly become losses if those bulk quantities spoil in the refrigerator or lie forgotten — unlabeled and unrecognizable under layers of ice crystals — in the back of the freezer.Kati Neville and Lindsay Tkacsik have built businesses teaching home cooks how to take advantage of bulk savings by shopping wisely; converting food purchases into delicious, healthful family dinners; and labeling and storing the meals for easy access on busy days. They share all their best recipes and organizational wisdom in Fix, Freeze, Feast, a cookbook every price-conscious shopper will love, and warehouse club members shouldn't be without. With their help, home cooks will have freezers stocked with easy-to-prepare entrées, ready to be defrosted and cooked for weeknight family dinners. Imagine the comfort of knowing a homecooked meal is always available. Each recipe includes instructions for dividing, preparing, and storing the raw ingredients, and a second set of simple directions for thawing, cooking, and enjoying the food. Designed for the way people cook today, Fix, Freeze, Feast meals are lighter and fresher than traditional bulk-cooking recipes, with a focus on simple stews and stir-fries, quick grilled or broiled main courses, and popular ethnic meals such as Beef Fajitas and Cashew Chicken Stir-fry.Add to the entrées ready-to-bake cookie doughs, warming soups and side dishes, fruit smoothies, and portable kids' snacks, and those warehouse club shopping trips begin to look more valuable than ever. This is a system that saves time, saves money, and saves families from the empty calories of takeout food. Make room in the freezer for next week's dinner!Praise for Fix, Freeze, Feast —
"[Fix Freeze, Feast] delivers some yummy new recipes that are easily stored and don\'t look or taste like frozen meals when they\'re served days later . . . Fix Freeze, Feast promises to ease the stress of cooking and ensure that you\'re well fed, with hearty meals, throughout the week or month." — lhj.com (Ladies Home Journal)

"Fix Freeze, Feast is a smart book to keep on the shelf . . . There\'s nothing like a hot meal after a long, hard day at work, especially if all the work was done weeks ago!" — Scripps News Service

"If you resolved to cook more at home in 2008, Fix, Freeze and Feast can help . . . In addition to recipes they also have tips for organizing your shopping list, packaging meals and preventing freezer burn." — Spokane Spokesman-Review

"If one of your New Year\'s resolutions is to eat home-cooked meals as a family more often, Fix Freeze, Feast could be just the help you need to accomplish that . . . Fix Freeze, Feast won\'t guarantee getting a scattered family home for dinner more often, but it will definitely make it much easier to get the meal on the table." — The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

"Not so much a cookbook as a bulk-saving survival guide for harried cooks everywhere." — Northern Virginia Magazine

"The authors do a great job offering clear instructions for the cooking, an important final step that is too often left to guesswork." — (Memphis) Commercial Appeal

Get 32% OFF

Click here for more information about Fix, Freeze, Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving - More than 125 Recipes

Read More...

Frozen Assets, 2E: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I just wanted to say that this is a great book! I have read a couple other "once-a-month" cookbooks, and have found them to be too complex for the stage of life I am in. This book was simple to understand and the ideas were easy to do! The recipes are very family-friendly. They were very easy for me to adjust for my youngest son's food allergies, and both of my children love the food I've made from this book. So far it has been cost-effective, and doing one big shopping trip this month has allowed me to keep my kids out of the grocery store during flu season, which I'm very thankful for. I worked very hard the first two days of cooking, and spent a large portion of my "grocery money" in one shopping trip, but it has been so worth it. No more running to the store every few days (and tracking all those receipts!), no more spending a couple hours each day on top of my other work preparing dinner and cleaning up, no more wondering what to make for dinner tonight...that time is now being spent on more important things. Having enough food in the house and meals prepared in my freezer for a whole month has taken a huge amount of stress off my shoulders. Thanks Deborah!!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Frozen Assets, 2E: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month


The best-selling freezer-based cookbook, with more than 22,000 copies sold.

This breakthrough cookbook delivers a program for readers to cook a week or month's worth of meals in just one day by using easy and affordable recipes to create a customized meal plan. Deborah Taylor-Hough, who saved $24,000 on her family's total grocery bill during a five-year period, offers up kid-tested and family-approved recipes in Frozen Assets, plus bulk-cooking tips for singles, shopping lists, recipes for two-week and 30-day meal plans, and a ten-day plan to eliminate cooking over the holidays.

Cooking for the freezer allows you to plan ahead, purchase items in bulk, cut down on waste, and stop those all-too-frequent trips to the drive-thru. The hands-down authority on once-a-month cooking, Frozen Assets gives you a step-by-step plan to simplify and revolutionize the way you cook.

"Finally, a realistic way to combine the cost-effectiveness of cooking from scratch with the convenience of quick and easy meals!" -Mary Hunt, author of The Financially Confident Woman

"Belongs in every family's kitchen! One of the best time - and money - savers a busy family can have." -The Dollar Stretcher

"Offers relief to those tired of eating restaurant fare or expensive, over-packaged convenience foods at the end of a hard day." -Library Journal
(20090909)

Get 41% OFF

Click here for more information about Frozen Assets, 2E: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month

Read More...

Fix, Freeze, Take & Bake Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I ordered this hoping it would have some good recipes that I could prepare and freeze ahead of time. It is exactly what I wanted. This book has easy, practical recipes for freezing, with a simple format and easy to find directions for preparing to serve after freezing. I have several freezer cooking or OAMC cookbooks and was looking for some more practical recipes, especially casseroles, that I could get ready and into my freezer for my upcoming surgery. I do this a lot for friends when they have surgeries or babies and need a break from standing in the kitchen! So many other cookbooks try to get fancy with new and different recipes, and this one gave me just some yummy recipes that I can easily prepare for the freezer. So refreshing and unique. Thank you!!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Fix, Freeze, Take & Bake

In a life filled with families, activities, careers and friends, who has time to make a wholesome, healthy dinner? This book is filled with 117 delicious recipes for people on the go. Once prepared, each recipe can be frozen and then thawed or baked just in time to get a hot meal on the table before that next meeting or soccer practice. The Fix, Freeze, Take & Bake cookbook includes recipes for casseroles, main dishes, soups, vegetables and sides and even desserts—all that can be frozen ahead of time making it an easy fix in any time crunch! Each recipe includes detailed freezing, thawing and preparing instructions.

Get 20% OFF

Click here for more information about Fix, Freeze, Take & Bake

Read More...

Taste of Home: Freezer Pleasers Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I was looking for some make-ahead meal ideas so I can stock my freezer, but I don't usually have time to do a full-day cooking session like "Once a Month Cooking" calls for. That is why this book appealed to me. I liked the idea of the "Now and Later" section, where you make two batches of something at a time-- one to eat now, and one to freeze for later. I love Taste of Home magazine, and have always been pleased with the TOH cookbooks. I eagerly tore into the package when this one arrived, hoping to start making a list of recipes to try. I was surprised to actually be disappointed with a TOH cookbook. :( Here's my list of gripes:
1. Almost everything is very heavy-- high fat, heavy on the meat (lots of sausage, ground beef, ground pork, etc). I'm not a health-food freak by any means, but I don't cook with heavy cream, half and half, or Velveeta cheese, and I found those ingredients in many of the recipes that caught my attention. I guess fatty foods freeze better. Bummer.
2. Too many very specific pre-packaged convenience foods in the recipes. Besides the aforementioned Velveeta, there were also rather odd-ball ingredients that I don't keep around. Here are a couple of specific items called for in various recipes: 1 package (6.4 oz) lasagna dinner mix (what is that? like Hamburger Helper?? Or is it a frozen thing?); 2 packages (8.8 oz each) ready-to-serve long grain and wild rice (I've never seen this-- is it in the frozen food section? Or is it like those tuna pouches in the regular isle?); 2 packages (7.2 oz each) rice pilaf (is this a mix? is it seasoned? not seasoned? is it dry? is it already cooked?); and then every condensed soup known to man. Condensed tomato bisque, beef consomme, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, cheddar cheese, cream of onion, and cream of potato, to name a few. I have NOTHING against cream-of-whatever soup. I actually cook with it semi-regularly, but I was hoping for more pantry staples instead of prepackaged stuff in everything.
3. Many of the desserts are ice cream, which makes sense for a freezer cookbook, but some of us don't own an ice cream maker, so it's kind of a bummer when you're excited to make a recipe, only to find out you can't because you don't have an ice cream maker.
4. Many of the "sweets" that aren't ice cream were jams, spreads, and butters, which really aren't anything I can't get off of the box when I buy the pectin that is called for in the recipes.
Those are the gripes. On the positive side, it was inspiring to look through and think "Hey, if that works in the freezer, then my recipe that's almost like it will probably work too!". So pretty much what I ended up with was a list of my own recipes that I already have that I'm going to try freezing and see how it goes. And yes, I did find a handful in the book that don't require funky ingredients and look good that I'll probably try out. The Breakfast Burritos sound interesting. I've tried freezing those before with poor results, but their instructions were different and I'm looking forward to trying this one. Also a muffin mix that you store in the freezer and pull out as needed for quick muffins, and a couple of cookie doughs that you can freeze in rolls, Pillsbury style. And the Creative Leftovers section has some good ideas for preparing one mix of ingredients and using it for various things. I'll try some of those.
Anyway, it's inspiring, and has some good ideas, but not anything too exciting. I was hoping I could recommend this to my busy working mom friends, but I'll keep looking for a better one.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Taste of Home: Freezer Pleasers

The 325 dishes in Freezer Pleasers help today's family cooks spend less time in the kitchen, save money, and still serve homemade foods. From entrees and sides to snacks and desserts, you'll learn how to stock up the freezer so that something delicious is always on hand. This handy cookbook is divided into four easy sections: *"Now-and-Later" recipes explain how to make a double batch. Serve a casserole tonight and freeze one for later. *"Made-for-Later" dishes are those that come together easily and can be stored in the freezer for future needs. What a great way to take advantage of sales at the grocery store! *"Single Servings" are dinners and treats that are stored in single-serving portions. They're perfect for after-school snacking, late-night meals, and more. *"Creative Leftovers" help cut back on grocery bills. Store last night's extra food in the freezer, and then turn it into a fantastic new dish with the addition of a few kitchen staples. In addition, it provides: *Dozens of tips to help readers freeze foods and understand safe freezer storage practices. *Hundreds of full-color photos. *Great recipes, nearly all of which are submitted by home cooks. *The guarantee that every recipe was tested in the kitchens ofTaste of Home, the world's #1 cooking magazine REVIEW

Get 35% OFF

Click here for more information about Taste of Home: Freezer Pleasers

Read More...

Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It does contain many very healthy recipes (which, I know some others do not, so this may be just what you're looking for), however, they're simply NOT things I could get my family to eat.
Spaghetti sauce with mashed winter squash and flaxseed? Besides, I already know how to freeze spaghetti sauce. Then nachos and burritos made from the same spaghetti sauce? Mexican and Italian foods have *very* different flavors in this household, there's no sneaking that past my pre-schooler.
A recipe for a veggie platter "to munch on all week?" I already know how to cut up veggies and offer them as snacks. And, how this is *so* different from the crudites 'recipe' elsewhere as to justify it's own 'recipe' I don't know.
Quinoa and Carrots? Sesame Fish Cakes with Baby Bok Choy? Lentil Quesadillas with Smoked Almond Apple Salad? They don't save me any time if my family has no interest in eating them.
Lots of menu charts and a good work schedule, as well as shopping lists - IF all the recipes pre-choosen for that week work for you. I suppose if you're *really* time crunched (and eat *very* healthfully!) this could be helpful. Since there are few recipes I can pick and choose from in this one, they really don't help me out at all.
It was the Lemony Baked Shrimp recipe that 'lured' me in, and while I still think it sounds great, I wouldn't have bought the book just for that.
I have found Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer to be FAR more family (read: child!) friendly, with MANY more options that appeal to all of us.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time

Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day is the ultimate cookbook for today's busy parents. Instead of facing a suppertime circus, it allows moms and dads to prepare meals in advance so they can hurry home to more important things. Author Theresa Albert is a home-cooking efficiency expert who shares her culinary knowledge and organizational expertise—she offers more than three months worth of delicious, nutritious, family-friendly dinners, with plans on how to shop for, prepare, and cook each meal. Since the planning and preparation of each weeknight meal is done in three hours or less on a weekend afternoon, all parents need to do each weeknight is heat things up and get everyone to the table.The thirteen weekly plans feature delicious and affordable recipes for a variety of tastes, such as Chicken Cacciatore, Meatloaf Florentine, Lemony Baked Shrimp, Baked Mashed Potatoes and Potato Skins, Sesame Broccoli Salad, Easy Minestrone, Oatmeal Cookies, and more. With nutritional analyses, itemized shopping lists, great leftover ideas, countless kitchen tips, and "quickie meals from what you've got," Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day offers less stress Monday through Friday, which makes spending time together as a family possible once again.

Click here for more information about Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time

Read More...

Girlfriends on the Go - A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I recently got a big freezer and am anxious to put it to good use with this cookbook. There are several things about this recipe book that makes it great.
1. Organization--well organized to include chapters on tips, soup recipes(7), beef recipes(20), chicken recipes(32), pork recipes(13), and pizza and pasta recipes(13).
2. Ingredients--all are readily available. Not calling for tons of exotic ingredients/flavors that you never use. A majority do call for things like "cream of chicken soup" and the likes--so if you don't like cooking with these, you might not like the recipes.
3. Cooking Instruction--Directions are plain and easy to follow. It gives you the options of what to do if you are cooking for that night or freezing. It tells you how to freeze and what to do when you take it out of the freezer.
4. Tips--This has been the MOST helpful for me, allowing me to understand how I can use this same method with other meals that I make on a regular basis. Tips include different freezer methods, different ways to cook meats in bulk, and different foods that do not freeze well.
5. Spiral Bound--Book lies flat when opened. Sooooooo nice.
6. Recipes--who isn't looking for new meal ideas? I've tried several recipes in this book to great success. Some I've liked better than others, but none that I've down right hated. They are all easy, some more complex than others, but all REAL meals that REAL people eat.
Why only 4 stars? I've come across 2 small problems with this book
1. The author wants you to put EVERYTHING in disposable aluminum containers or freezer bags. I'm okay with the freezer bags, but she doesn't seem to have any imagination on how else to freeze products. For this reason, I do prefer another freezer book.
2. Ingredients. I know, I know, I put this on my list of what I liked, but it's also here because a LOT of recipes use Cream of Chicken soup, Cream of Mushroom soup, etc.
This book is tailored towards a "Make Ahead Meal Group" and how to organize your own group, but you don't have to have a group to enjoy this book and tips inside. I also recommend "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead" which is a bit more extensive in tips and recipes (more tips on different freezer methods and lots of recipes that don't call for cans of soup.) Both have been my text books for this home course of freezer cooking.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Girlfriends on the Go - A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals

Busy moms know that time is a precious commodity. Are you always looking for ways to increase the amount of time in a day? Is getting dinner on the table a nightly battle? Plenty of cookbooks claim to have recipes that take half the time that traditional dinners take to make. But author Suzie Roberts goes one step further: inexpensive, homemade meals in minutes that you don't have to make!Girlfriends on the Go: A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals shows you how to round up other busy moms and organize your own Make-Ahead Meal Group. You each spend one night cooking a large batch of your favorite recipe, and then you get together and swap! Or, you can take advantage of the recipes and shopping lists and make and freeze your own Make-Ahead Meals.Having those pre-made ready-to-cook-and-serve meals in your freezer will save you from those panic trips to the nearest fast food restaurant. Cooking one large meal only once or twice a month also means that you don't have those hurried trips to the grocery store every other day. No more weekly menu planning, because a variety of home-cooked meals are already in your freezer. Let the simplicity and ease of Make-Ahead Meals untangle your life by allowing Girlfriends on the Go: a Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals show you how it's done.How to get started, frequently asked questions, and forms to start your own group are included, along with testimonials from those who love their Make-Ahead Meals Groups!

Get 25% OFF

Click here for more information about Girlfriends on the Go - A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals

Read More...