A Dinner a Day: Complete Meal in Minutes for Every Weeknigh T of the Year

Rating:
Summary: "Close but no cigar"
Review: A Good Idea but its lacking: ADAD was on the right track BUT I had 6 problems with it. 1) Too much food at every meal! Like alot of the meals have double side dishes fish with peas and potatoes is fine, but you dont need the cole slaw. 2) Too much fruit in the entrees, They must love apples and oranges! One or two recipes, fine but not 7 outta 10! 3) Desserts, Im fine with maybe a muffin or yogurt. Not food colored, artificially flavoured coolwhip for dessert! Not wholesome at all! 4) Weird recipes like "Pistachio Parfait" that has NO Pistachioes! 5) Their Nifty Weekly shopping lists! Fine, but Im not gonna buy 10 sizes of apples or onions or why couldnt it have just said a quart of milk instead of 2 cups and 1/4 cup whole milk? 6) Extra unnecessary work Why Re-Refried beans or Fiesta fruit salad? It would have been heathier easier and cheaper to purchase premade fruit salad and warm the can of beans?

Rating:
Summary: this book is fabulous
Review: I am a single man living in the city. When I was given this book I did not know how to cook very well at all. This book has helped me cook delicious meals every night. And the instructions are easily understood and followed. I did not need to go out and buy a lot of fancy kitchen utensils, just the basics. I loaned the book to a friend, while I was out of town. My friend is a very good cook. He said that he found it very helpful in planning meals. He says the shopping list was very complete and easy to follow and the instructions were precise and fool proof. Well, no wonder I can do it so well - it's fool proof. The book actually leads you through meal planning, shopping, and preparation. I am having so much fun with this book I would recommend it to anyone. roger

Rating:
Summary: Its not perfect, but for what it claims, it delivers
Review: I bought this book, hoping it would help me with dinner planning. I have 3 children under 8 years old, and my mother lives with us. I was having a heck-of-a-time figuring out what to cook to make everybody happy, what to buy at the grocery store, ending up eating out way too much. Now I shop on Sunday afternoons, with the handy-dandy shopping list. Each day I look at the day's menu, seeing what I might have to prepare beforehand. Sometimes, you may have a crockpot meal so you need to start that in the morning. Otherwise, around 4 or 5, I start preparing the meal. The recipes are all on two facing pages, the order in which to prepare the recipes is also included, which really helps me with timing. We are eating such a variety of foods now, and a lot more veggies and fruits, which everybody needs! Not everybody in my family likes everything, but I figure as the kids get older, they will start trying more stuff. I didn't like to use any convenience foods before, but I trade off the cost/health factor because we aren't eating out as much. There is sometimes quite a bit of chopping. The whole meal is supposed to take under an hour to prepare, but I think if you have a lot of chopping, it might take longer. That is my only criticism of this otherwise wonderful cookbook. We have used it for 3 months now. We cook our old standby's on the weekend and eat out once a week now. I have served several meals to company and have gotten rave reviews! I should also mention I tried once-a-month cooking in several forms and that did not work at all. We needed more variety, more fresh things, better-rounded meals. This book solved all of my dinner problems! Now if it could just do laundry, my life would be perfect!

Rating:
Summary: Organized Dinners for Family of 6
Review: I bought this book, hoping it would help me with dinner planning. I have 3 children under 8 years old, and my mother lives with us. I was having a heck-of-a-time figuring out what to cook to make everybody happy, what to buy at the grocery store, ending up eating out way too much. Now I shop on Sunday afternoons, with the handy-dandy shopping list. Each day I look at the day's menu, seeing what I might have to prepare beforehand. Sometimes, you may have a crockpot meal so you need to start that in the morning. Otherwise, around 4 or 5, I start preparing the meal. The recipes are all on two facing pages, the order in which to prepare the recipes is also included, which really helps me with timing. We are eating such a variety of foods now, and a lot more veggies and fruits, which everybody needs! Not everybody in my family likes everything, but I figure as the kids get older, they will start trying more stuff. I didn't like to use any convenience foods before, but I trade off the cost/health factor because we aren't eating out as much. There is sometimes quite a bit of chopping. The whole meal is supposed to take under an hour to prepare, but I think if you have a lot of chopping, it might take longer. That is my only criticism of this otherwise wonderful cookbook. We have used it for 3 months now. We cook our old standby's on the weekend and eat out once a week now. I have served several meals to company and have gotten rave reviews! I should also mention I tried once-a-month cooking in several forms and that did not work at all. We needed more variety, more fresh things, better-rounded meals. This book solved all of my dinner problems! Now if it could just do laundry, my life would be perfect!

Rating:
Summary: This is not a good cookbook for the typical American family.
Review: I found the meals too gourmet for our taste. I also found the ingredients used in the recipes to be expensive. For example, a recipe might call for an exotic spice that you will never use again. Therefore, not only was the ingredient expensive in the intial investment, but the remainder went to waste. I tried to use the book for one week. By the time we got to Wednesday, my husband, who is not a picky eater, was looking at that cookbook on our kitchen counter with absolute disgust. So now, I am left with a cookbook I can't use and a bunch of spices that I probably will never use.

Rating:
Summary: Worth it!
Review: I have always had a tough time deciding what to include in the meals for my family. I could always come up with a main dish but blanked out on what to serve with it. This book has been such a huge help! I am no longer stressed about cooking. I wish the book had meals for every day, not just five. One gripe though -- it is a bit pricey. I have a family of six and it can get expensive to cook the meals in the book. But for me it's still worth it

Rating:
Summary: Best cookbook I ever purchased!!
Review: I love that I can come home everyday and not have to worry about what I have to find for dinner. I use the grocery list and do all my shopping on Sunday and I'm ready to go on Monday. By using this book my husband can even come home early and start dinner since the book is right there for us.

Rating:
Summary: Out of my old rut, and eating healthier too.
Review: I love this book for four reasons: 1) You don't have to plan meals, since the book does it for you; 2) I was in a bit of a cooking rut and this book has solved that problem; 3) The meals are healthy and feature a wider variety of foods than I'd ever managed before, and 4) We're definitely saving money, since we buy precisely what we need. Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Love the concept, not the recipes
Review: I pined over this cookbook for months before I finally got it, I loved the idea of having everything planned for me, including the shopping lists. The book is laid out great and the recipes have fun and interesting titles, and are not the 'same old thing' I had been cooking before.

BUT - I found that many of the recipes took too long to make and were too complicated for me, even though the steps are all arranged. Yes, it did take less than an hour as the authors suggest, but only barely. I don't have an hour to spend in the kitchen every night. Every week at least 1-2 meals were things that just didn't sound good to me, and I'm not picky. I tried a few other recipes that did sound good, and they were OK, but not great. A lot of the side dishes are too complicated for my taste, I'd rather spend time on one main dish and just put it with a salad and pasta. I don't have the time or patience to make my own salad dressing - why bother? And each menu includes a dessert which I didn't want. And the beauty of this cookbook (the shopping lists) is also its downfall - if you make any changes or try to take out anything the shopping list is almost useless. Plus there are some nights when I have classes and such that spending more than 15 minutes in the kitchen is not happening.

I am a person who hates to cook and can't stand anything that takes over 1/2 hr to make. I'll admit my standard are very high, and this didn't live up to them. On the other hand, I gave the cookbook to my mom, and she loves it, so I guess its just a matter of lifestyle.

Rating:
Summary: Great concept, flawed execution
Review: I was delighted with the idea of having someone else plan my dinners, and the first menu I tried was nice enough. However, subsequent menus had several problems, ranging from nutritional imbalance to major and minor ingredient/instruction omissions. For example, one menu used soy sauce liberally in three of the four dishes (none in the dessert!)giving a distressing sameness of color and flavor and a high sodium count to the evening meal; another menu omitted leavening from a cake recipe, and another called for celery to be chopped, but never specified what to do with it. I gave up on this cookbook, and would have returned it if I hadn't splashed soy sauce on one of the pages.