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Summary: The Best once a month cookbook
Review: This book is far and above the other once a month freezer cookbooks. The best thing is that the recipes are scaled in 5 or 6 sizes so you can choose to make the amount you need instead of trying to calculate them yourself. For example, we are retired, and I make the 6 serving size recipes and make 3 meals from them. The recipes are practical, economical and delicious. I have used my own similar recipes as well and followed the clear methods described in the book. The forms you can copy and the charts for equivalents, etc. are great. This book encourages you to choose what items you want to freeze, not some prescribed format where you may not like all of the choices. I resold all my other freezer cookbooks and have only kept this one - it is the best.
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Summary: Excellent recipes and clear instructions
Review: I was so impressed with this book and the neat layout of the forms that are included. This book was SO easy to understand and follow and the most impressive thing was the focus on healthy ingredients and alternatives to high-fat ingredients -- something normally not found in "freezer cooking" cookbooks, which are typically a lot of casserole recipes with liberal use of cream of mushroom soup. I was just so delighted to see that this cookbook was different! Their companion web site adds value to this book and the humorous conversational style of the text makes it an enjoyable cookbook to own and use.
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Summary: Great idea, very organized
Review: I have cooked like this for 9 years and always like new ideas for variety. Marybeth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilsons book got me started so I am used to their system, which is great. Perhaps thats why I found this one a little harder to follow, its not quite as step-by-step. However, I am a seasoned make ahead cook, so I can use the book just fine. Most of the recipes are similar to the Lagerborg/Wilson book, but have the nice added advantage of the larger portion calculations done for you. I don't like the fact that you have to calculate your own shopping list, but I understand why they do it: so you can customize your cooking day recipes yourself. I really like the forms and the website access, which helps keep new ideas coming. I would buy this again, and I think if I met these two gals, I would really like them!
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Summary: Renea Walker White City, Oregon
Review: I'm a busy full time mom of 3 with a full time job. I bought this freezer cooking manual in hopes of some new ideas to speed along the cooking process, so I can get on to more important things. But I must say, that I'am very disappointed! I have found these recipes to be very plain, simple and flavorless. This is what I would call KID FOOD! If that's what your looking for , that's fine. I like saving money, but I also believe in feeding my family well. All the recipes in this cook book are quick and easy to make, but I feel that I could whip up something just as quickly with out all the prep work on a daily basis. And it wouldn't be frozen either! I must say that I do find the worksheets to be helpful in all your meal preperations.
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Summary: My #1 Freezer Cooking Pick!
Review: I love this cookbook! I've used it over the past year so many times that the cover is warped and the pages are splattered!I especially like all of the reproducible worksheets that this cookbook offers -- one for every step of meal planning. And having each recipe divided into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals is a huge help. The recipes vary from basic meat marinades to full-blown casseroles, along with some side-dishes and desserts. This is definitely my #1 freezer cooking cookbook.
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Summary: The most used cookbook I've ever bought
Review: In my opinion this is the best freezer cooking book I've seen (though I haven't seen Jill Bond's mega-cooking.) I bought this manual about 4 years ago. Back then I paid (dollar amount), and it was worth every penny. Use it once and you will save that much money. The worksheets and their wisdom on organizing the cooking day alone were worth the price. The best way to use this book is to cut it all apart, slip it in page protectors and put it in a three ring binder. Then when you have a cooking day, you can pull out only the recipes you are using, and you and your partner can divvy them up without worrying about slopping up the pages. As others have pointed out, the website is great and you get a lot more recipes there. The jerk porkchop recipe is fabulous, and the parsley parmesan chicken is really good. That said, a few of the recipes in the manual are misses. The chicken enchiladas are really bland, and we are not fond of the taco rice. This is not gourmet or fancy restaurant cooking, but it is good, every day food. They are not all casseroles, and they do not rely on unusual or expensive or premade ingredients. I use many of my own recipes for family favorites as well. I think that believing you can accomplish all this in one day is a little misleading. Really you have about two days in it by the time you count time to plan, shop, and prep, but all but the cooking day is done in smaller amounts of time. Save your tally worksheets. A year later you can make the same group of recipes again, and it will save you a lot of planning time. We generally planned one day early in the week. We just picked out the recipes, and went over what we had on hand. One of us would do all the tallying and make out the shopping list. The other would shop on Thursday. We would prep (chopping veggies, stewing chickens, etc.) separately on Friday, then put it all together on Saturday. My cooking partner and I regularly cooked 24-26 meals for each of our families (4 kids and 2 hubbies) for $200 or less. That's only $100 each and less than $5 per entree. If you can pull that money out of your budget all at once, you will really save in two ways: 1)You will eat out much less, and 2) you will become much more aware of bargains. Believe me, when you go buy 20 pounds of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, you start watching for those $1.49 sales rather than spending the $3.89 you might otherwise when you go to buy one package at a time. If you have your meals paid for and in the freezer, you have the money to go out and buy all the chicken you need for next time when it's on sale, but you don't have to eat chicken all week because it's on sale. And you will have a much better idea of the quantity to buy so that none of it gets lost to freezer burn, yet you have what you need. The entrees themselves don't take much room at all if you put them in ziplock bags and freeze them flat. Don't whine about the cost of the bags! You will save it in other places and you can buy those on sale, too. This method saves so many dishes each night, and you can pick out exactly what you want to eat. It is absolutely invaluable if you are about to have a baby or are planning a move (as long as it's not too long a distance to get your food there safely.) We otherwise would have eaten out nearly every meal for a while.
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Summary: A Month of Meals Made Easy
Review: This book is great! Everything is so easily written out, you don't have to be an expert to cook this way. You can chose which meals you want to make, and those you don't. Plus it tells you how to incorporate your own meals in to freezer meals. They will tell you what has frozen really well for them and what has turned in to mush. They have main courses, deserts and snacks. It's all in here! The book even comes with worksheets that you can fill out for your own use SO YOU CAN STAY ORGANIZED! It really is a great book and I can't tell you how nice it is to just go to the freezer and pull something out for dinner. Our favorite meal is the cheese filled shells; we can't get enough of them. Tired of Hot dogs & Mac-n-cheese every other night? This may be a solution!
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Summary: One of the best make-ahead books I've found
Review: The meatleaf is delicious---try it with turkey! I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to cook ahead.
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Summary: LIFESAVER!
Review: Anyone who has a family and wants them to eat well needs this book! I have been doing "30 Day Gourmet" for almost two years. It literally changed "dinner time" at our house. No longer do my husband and I look at eachother at 5:00 and say, "What's for dinner, who's gonna cook it, and is there enough money in the budget to eat out...??" We literally went from eating out an average of 4-5 times each week to having one night each week we chose to eat out (NOT out of necessity)! The website available to those who buy the book is a SUPER help to all questions, recipes, etc. BUY THIS BOOK AND YOUR FAMILY WILL LOVE YOU FOR IT!!!
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Summary: Great plan & recipes for cooking once a month.
Review: I have several books in this genre and this one is the best. Their plan is great and very workable. They are honest , thorough, and realistic about how to plan, how to do it and what the process will be like. Their recipes are great, too! The marinade is the best that I've ever used!! This one's definitely a keeper!!
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