Cooking for the Week : Leisurely Weekend Cooking for Easy WeekDAY Meals Review

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(More customer reviews)Cooking for the Week : Leisurely Weekend Cooking for Easy WeekDAY Meals by Diane Morgan, et al
This is one of the better cookbooks I have seen. The book is well written, the recipes are clear and easy to follow, not to mention delicious.
I recommend this book to anyone who has asked themselves what to do with leftovers or said that there is nothing in the house to eat.
This book will get you thinking in a new, better, way about menu planning.

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Smart cooks know that leftovers are a good thing. Anempty refrigerator dooms the cook to a tiresome trip to the store, theagony of starting from scratch for each meal, or worse: night afternight of soulless, expensive take-out. But with a little planningahead, a hearty weekend meal can provide several delicious mealsthroughout the week. In Cooking for the Week, weekend dinners aredesigned to provide plenty of leftovers, which are then used in cleverweekday recipes. And these weekday meals are no dried-out rehash:leftovers are creatively transformed into stir-fries, salads, soups,pastas, fajitas, sandwiches, and other delectable reincarnations. Eachweekend menu is tied to three or four weekday dishes, so planning aweek's worth of family meals is easier than anyone everimagined. Cooking for the Week gives you a plan that makes it possibleto eat well, feed the family, and spend weekday evenings relaxinginstead of running around. Now that's a great idea!

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Dinner Tonight: Deliciously Simple Weekday Meals You Can Get to the Table in No Time Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally, a practical cookbook for putting together tasty, wholesome dinners when you are nearly out of energy. Bye-bye carry-out.
Marge Perry was featured in a recent Home Magazine article. I tried a couple of her recipes and ordered the book. I was not disappointed. The dinners are easy to make but don't taste like the "quick & easy" recipes they are. I've made several recipes from the book and my favorite (so far) is chicken with oranges and feta cheese. My husband is wild for the macaroni and cheese (made with a lot of tomatoes.)
I particularly like the way Ms. Perry keeps the number of pots & pans to a minimum. I've cooked my spinach in the pasta water for years but Ms. Perry has even more suggestions for quickly cooking the veggies along with another part of the dinner.
Novice and experienced cooks will appreciate the clear, simple instructions. This is obviously a home cook's book, not a book written by a professional chef with a professional support staff. As much as I enjoy the books written by the celebrity chefs, this is a book I can really use, night after night.

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

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(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!

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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

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Dinner is Ready - 30 Meals in One Day Review

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(More customer reviews)The book is titled 30 meals in one day but it's really not 30 different meals, her suggestion is to cook 2 sets of 15 meals. There are hundreds of recipes in this cookbook broken down by the way they're prepared, stove-top, oven, assemble, or slow-cooker. Her suggestion is to make 2 stove-top, 2 oven and 2 crock-pot meals and then 9 counter top assembled meals. That's 15 meals but you would double prepare them so it comes out to 30. And it really doesn't take much more effort to make 2 of something than one so a very good concept.
The down side is picking which of the 15 meals you want to prepare. This book uses software (purchased separately) to take full advantage of its potential. You'd really need the software to type in the 15 meals you want so it will print you a complete grocery list. Otherwise you'd have to take some time figuring out how many carrots you need or how much many green peppers, or how many eggs, etc and you'd have to do that with every ingredient and every single recipe and then double them. It would be very time consuming and if you miscalculated or missed an ingredient your cooking could come to an abrupt halt.
The book does not lay flat so her suggestion is to hand-write all the recipes and then lay them out so you can follow each recipe in sequence and not have to flip back and forth between 234 pages. That is also where the software would come in handy, just print the recipes you want to make.
After you've hand written out all your recipes the author suggests starting the first slow-cooker recipe. She says to start the hardest, longest recipes first but you have no way of really knowing which ones fall in that category because there are no prep or cook times listed up front. You'd have to read each and every recipe to get to the instructions that tell you if it's cooked for an hour, cooked for 15 minutes or not cooked at all and just assembled. You would think that would have been a very easy thing to add at the beginning of all the recipes since she probably has done it a hundred times. Many cookbooks list 15 minutes prep, 1 hr cook, etc so at a glance you know the timetable you're talking about. But anyway you start the slow-cooker recipe first then move on to filling the oven. Then you start your stove-top recipe. While all that is cooking you then move on to assembling recipes at the counter.
***
Amazon is having trouble getting reviews to appear on line in a timely manner so after writing a huge in-depth review it has never appeared. So I will wait until this is viewable by the public and then reiterate the review I did from before. I will add to this review, this is the 5th time I've tried to leave a review for this book and it never appear. Very strange.

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Includes more than 150 recipes for meals you can make ahead of time and freeze.

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

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(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!!

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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)

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Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms Review

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(More customer reviews)Perhaps "Don't Panic, dinners in the freezer" would be a better selection. This book is a misnomer- it doesn't help you plan ahead for more than 24 hours. Anyone can figure out to do their prep work in advance then store the food in the fridge. Other negative aspects
1. no photos
2. recipes include things like "Cheese Whiz"
3. directions are for one meal at a time, (to save time- I like to make more than one meal)
4. very large type (could be a plus for some people- it make me dizzy)
5. baking instructions are for odd sized pans
I will donate this book to the library- not worth the shelf space.

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Make Ahead meals are not just for Moms who work outside of the home.It's a way of cooking that helps all families, big and small.It all comes down to a little planning.Make a meal or two in advance when you have some extra time.Then you'll be rewarded with quick, delicious home-cooked meals when you really need them!

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Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead Review

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(More customer reviews)What I like about this cookbook is the recipes have you freeze the dish before cooking it. For me, what I don't like about some of the other OAMC (once a month cooking) cookbooks is they have you cook it first, then freeze and when you unthaw it it's mush. This cookbook has you assemble all the ingredients first, freeze it and then day of serving you thaw and cook. Very much the same as dream dinners.com. (without the hefty price tag). Have loved the cranberry chicken, chicken cacciatore and the buttermilk herb chicken breasts. We eat mostly chicken but there are beef, pork and even desserts recipes. Serving suggestions are offered though not as many as I'd like. Very good cookbook, worthy investment and I don't give my praise lightly.

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Hectic lifestyles and over-full schedules make traditional cooking methods nearly obsolete in many families. The results are poor nutrition and budgets strained by the high cost of fast food or commercially prepared meals. Don't Panic-Dinner's in the Freezer offers a simple and economical alternative, featuring dozens of recipes designed to be prepared and frozen for future use.With over 23,000 copies sold in its original self-published edition, this book gives practical tips for planning, organizing, and shopping for meals, as well as unique ways to freeze and reheat prepared foods. Every recipe includes measurements for cooking alone or as a joint venture with one or two friends. Families, singles, retirees-everyone who needs to eat-will find fast and easy answers to the question, "What's for dinner?"

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The $7 a Meal Slow Cooker Cookbook: 301 Delicious, Nutritious Recipes the Whole Family Will Love Review

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(More customer reviews)This cookbook comes at the nick of time. With the current state of the economy, saving money on food is more important than ever. Is anyone else out there shocked every time they go to the grocery store?? Some of my family's favorites:
- Spicy Peanut Chicken (you can omit the jalapenos for the kiddies)
- Chicken Marsala -- yum!
- Fork Tender Pot Roast
- Texas BBQ Beef Sandwiches
- Broccoli Cheese Soup
Those of you who use slow cookers know how wonderful it feels to get dinner prepared in the morning, go about your day, and come home to that heavenly smell knowing that your work is 99% done! I highly, highly recommend this cookbook for anyone who wants to get organized, save money and eat well!


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Gone are the days of TV trays and microwaveable meals as more and more families choose to return to the dinner table. Yet as food costs continue to rise, and parents are always strapped for time, they need new ways to cook easy and affordable meals for their kids - and fast.With this cookbook, families will find 301 great recipes that almost cook themselves, including: Spicy Turkey Meatballs; Hearty Root Vegetable Soup; Pizza Fondue; Crock-Pot Fajitas; Black Bean Lasagna; and more. This comprehensive, all-purpose cookbook is packed with simple instructions, nutritional information, and the amount of money needed for each recipe and makes preparing delicious, healthy, and cheap meals easier than ever before.

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The Family Dinner Fix: Cooking for the Rushed Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the fourth book in the "Cooking for the Rushed" series by Sandi Richard and I think the best. She is the expert on meal planning. She mentions that the most stressful part of the day is dinner, and I can believe that because so many of us don't start thinking about what's for dinner until 5 minutes till six. But she has developed a system to change that.
The book has 10 weeks of meal plans, each divided into colors. The red and yellow meals are dinners that can be prepared in under 30 minutes. The green and blue meals are dinners that can be prepared in under 60 minutes. The average family spends 38 minutes preparing dinner each night. But at a glance you could easily see which meals you could have enough time to prepare and get out of the house in time.
This cookbook has some very nice pictures (all recipes had a full color picture, what a treat!). There are vegetarian substitution suggestions. The pages are glossy so splatters would clean up somewhat easily. She also gives suggestions on which meals are "having company" type meals, crockpot meals, there are calorie and nutritional information provided, there's an equipment list so you'll know all the pots and pans you need, and there are also food exchanges. All is great information that many many cookbooks don't provide.
Her recipe for Mexican Hamburgers calls for 90% lean ground beef but you could easily substitute turkey or tofu. It was delish; I loved the avocado salsa. There are also make ahead (freezer) suggestions for this recipe for those who like to do weekend cooking.
Most of the recipes call for a full meal suggestion. The red snapper with pineapple salsa, pecan wild rice and asparagus is a complete meal. And it's all ready in under 30 minutes.
All of the recipes use fresh ingredients. I didn't see any packaged foods (bottled BBQ sauce maybe) so her recipes by naturally being healthier and less fat will most certainly cause weight loss. They are not specifically low-fat but that is the usual outcome when you stop eating fast-food and start cooking with fresh, natural ingredients.
There were no unusual combinations, I think most people would have kids who'd very easily try these meals. We had the crispy chicken and the kids just raved. The secret ingredient was crushed crispy rice cereal. The serving suggestions were baby potatoes seasoned with garlic herb seasoning and a side salad. All very doable in the evening. It cooked in the oven so we could do homework in the meantime.
Her main suggestion is to get all your equipment out as soon as you get home, start the water boiling, etc before changing clothes. I hadn't thought of this but I can see where this would be a big motivator to continue cooking once you changed. I've found myself returning from the bedroom and just sighing because I now had to drag out pots and pans and start cooking. While not a big deal in itself, it's easier to jump in the car and go to a restaurant especially when the kids are begging. But after a few of these meals the kids will be begging for more home cooking!
There are grocery lists provided broken down by category. Each week has 5 recipes for the week not 7, I saw in another review that bothered someone. I find it doable because at least one night you want to have pizza and another you're out and about anyway.
She also has spice combinations for those spices you don't want to pay extra for (i.e. pumpkin pie spice). She has all kinds of suggestions and cooking terms that would make this book excellent for a young family getting started.
Check out www.cookingfortherushed.com to find more information.
Well worth the investment.


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Fix, Freeze, Take & Bake Review

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(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!!

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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.

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

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(More customer reviews)I have been "budget-cooking" for a while now and have found there is not one "do-it-all" book for saving money, freezer cooking or simple recipes. I use a variety of cookbooks and pick and choose the recipes we enjoy as a family. Everyone's tastes are different, so the bad reviews I have read here about this book surprised me. Yes, there are a couple of recipes here I probably won't try, but as an experienced frugal cook I found many great hints that saved me time and money, enough so the book went from my library list to one I purchased last month. We enjoy many of the recipes, they are simple to make(I even prepared two weeks worth of meals with my two children underfoot in the kitchen). If you are looking for french cuisine or five star restaurant entrees you won't find them here, but if you need some simple dishes to prepare ahead to save time and money (especially on those hectic soccer game or scout meeting days) this book is a very helpful tool.

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Taste of Home: Freezer Pleasers Review

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(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.


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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

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Holly Clegg's Trim & Terrific Freezer Friendly Meals Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently purchased Holly Clegg's New Trim and Terrific Cookbook. After trying a few of the recipes my husband told me I could throw all my other cookbooks away! So, I purchased her new Freezer Friendly Meals! Oh my goodness! The recipes are good tasting, easy to prepare, use everyday ingredients and are economical! I made the Chicken Lentil Chili the other night, and it was killer good! Don't hesitate to try this book. You won't be disappointed!

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Planning delicious, healthy meals for every day of the week can be time-consuming and frustrating. But with Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific Freezer Friendly Meals, the next installment in the tremendously successful Trim & Terrific series, busy cooks can tackle weekly menus in a day or two, and spend the rest of the week enjoying the tasty rewards of their labor! In this handy cookbook, home chefs will find more than 200 of Holly’s favorite freezable recipes, all of which are designed for real-life cooks who want to prepare healthy and appetizing meals in advance without spending hours in the kitchen. This great resource includes menus for the week and special occasions, pantry stocking tips, advice on cooking light, suggestions for substitutions, and useful kitchen shortcuts. With Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific Freezer Friendly Meals, busy home chefs have a valuable tool to help them cut out time spent in the kitchen-make-ahead meals!

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

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(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.

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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.

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Dinner Is In The Jar: Quick and Easy Dinner Mixes in Mason Jars or Mylar Bags (bw) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have eaten more than half of these meals prepared from the recipes listed in this book, and must say they sure make eating food storage much better than you might expect. The meals really are good when you consider it is mostly reconstituted food. In fact, I live on a sail boat and utilize the ingredients and recipes in this book quite often as we journey from across seas. We eat well and appreciate the cooking education we received from this book. Quick, easy, and good tasting from food storage products is very important for us. Hope you get a chance to read & utilize this book for yourself.

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Create a 90 day supply of easily prepared dinner mixes your family will love using food storage ingredients in mason jars or mylar bags for emergencies and convenience on busy days. Wouldn't it be nice if your pantry was filled with premixed dinners that you could put together with little effort and have healthy homemade meals that your family would love?Not only would you have a supply of easy dinners, but you could also give them away as gifts that anybody would absolutely love to receive.Dinner Is In The Jar is filled with meal mix recipes that can be easily stored in mason jars or mylar bags. Dinner Is In The Jar has a dinner mix jar recipe for every day of the month, including comfort meals such as Chicken Pot Pie, Biscuits and Gravy, Enchiladas, Pizza, Spaghetti and Meatballs in Mushroom Parmesan Tomato Sauce, Italian Cheese & Sausage Calzone and many more.Dinner Is In The Jar also features planning charts making it easy to prepare a 90 day supply of dinner mix jar recipes, step by step photographs of how to create mylar bags for the mixes and where to easily get the ingredients.These are recipes your family will be begging you to make again and again, and with how quick and easy they are to make, you will gladly make them a regular feature on your dinner table.Create a 90 day supply of easily prepared dinners your family will love using food storage ingredients in mason jars or mylar bags for emergencies & convenience on busy days with Dinner Is In The Jar.

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

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(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.


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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!

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The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book a few months ago after a friend recommended it. My friend has a cooking partner and they've been cooking this way for well over a year now. My circumstances do not allow me to spend a whole day cooking meals, but I have used the ideas and recipes in the book to fit our family. Instead of spending a whole day cooking enough dinners for a month, I will make 2 or 3 meals' worth of a recipe when I do cook. I freeze what we don't eat and I've accumulated quite a good supply of meals that are in the freezer.
Tara and Nanci have developed quite a system. There are charts and worksheets that are extremely helpful. This book is not just a book of recipes that freeze well. It's chock-full of information and techniques. Also, 30daygourmet.com is their website and they have message boards (with the authors participating!) and if you own the book, you can see and print out an additional 50 recipes, set up just like the ones in the cookbook!
The ingredients are listed in quantities for one meal, then they do all the math and multiply out what you need for however many meals you want to make.
The recipes are very family-friendly and delicious. No strange ingredients that you would have trouble finding. Everything I've made from the cookbook has been WONDERFUL. I've made the Taco Rice (serve it with cornbread - yummy!), Crispy Baked Chicken, Saucy Oven Pork Chops (recipe from website), Cheeseburger Quiche (also from website), and Cheese-Stuffed Shells. I made 80 shells last time I made them and you freeze them in rigid containers and they don't stick together and to cook them, you just take out however many you need in the morning and put them in the fridge and at dinnertime, put them in a cooking dish with spaghetti sauce on the bottom (I use Ragu!) and cover with more sauce and bake. Absolutely delicious!
This is a great way to have homecooked meals without having to cook every night. I really enjoy doing it! God bless you, Nanci and Tara!
PS Nanci and Tara also do conferences where they give a demonstration of their cooking methods. I'd love to see one of those - they also have a great sense of humor! With 7 kids between them, they really know what it's like to have a chaotic dinner hour!
Cooking this way saves you time and money and gives your family great meals. I can see that this would be useful for anyone - from young singles or newly-married to families with children at home to empty nesters! You won't be disappointed with this book!

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The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet is a comprehensive cooking system that teaches busy cooks the art of spending one day assembling and freezing a month's worth of delicious and nutritious entrees, side dishes and desserts.This "hands-on" manual includes time-saving worksheets, step-by-step instructions, healthy tips, money-saving ideas and practical advice.The manual also features: - 23 black and white demonstration photos - 7 easy-to-follow steps- fold-out tally sheet- benefits of cooking with a friend- choosing recipes for freezer cooking- shopping smart- assembling in quantity- freezing for great results- thorough appendix with: - equivalency charts - metric conversion charts- freezing time chart- blanching chart- list of basic cooking terms- freezer selection and maintenance- power failure proceduresThe Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet differs from other quantity cookbooks seen on the market. - Our system allows for choosing a different combination of recipes each cooking day.- Our system allows for incorporating personal recipe favorites. - Our recipes are multiplied out for time-saving multiple entre cooking.- Our recipes are "kid-friendly" and family approved.- Our recipes are not repeated elsewhere in the manual.Thousands of 30 Day Gourmets LOVE this manual and attest to its sanity saving value.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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