Freezer Cookbook Review

[daisymommy]

I said I would come back and review the 3 books I bought, so here I am!

Dream Dinners
PROS:
Recipes look yummy; a nice variety of traditional family favorites and new slighter "nicer" recipes.
I like that information is given is for batches of 1 and 3 if you are doing large batch cooking.
Little cooking/reheating instruction cards in the back of the book to xerox & attach to your finished dish.
Many recipes are frozen assembled but fresh/uncooked. This is nice because the food quality is better on serving day.

CONS:
Not much. I really like this book. The only thing I might mention is there are many recipes with alot of ingredients, which I'm sure make them flavorful. But it could mean more work on prep. day.

Super Suppers
PROS:
Nice variety of good sounding recipes that would probably be great for just cooking and eating on the same day.
There are directions to make the dishes ahead of time but not freeze them. This way you can make them in the morning or day before, and pop into the oven at dinnertime, or when company comes.

CONS:
They do not include amounts for doubling and trippling recipes (so you have to do all the math yourself and write it down in the book).
Not all of the recipes include directions for freezing & reheating, making me wonder if they can even be frozen at all.

Don't Panic--Dinner's in the Freezer
PROS:
Nice variety of traditional and new recipes to try.
Math is done for you for larger batch cooking
Very good, detailed instructions for freezing and reheating.
Not too many ingredients for quicker prep. work

CONS:
Almost everything is pre-cooked and then frozen. This is pretty typical of freezer cooking, and it does save time on serving day, but there is some loss of quality doing it this way.

Over-all, I liked this book and will probably keep it.

[elephantmeg]

thanks for the review!

[missym]

Thanks! I added Dream Dinners to my Christmas list.

Missy, mom to Gwen 03/03 and Rebecca 09/05

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[daisymommy]

Okay, I had to laugh at myself. The other night I sat down and made a list of the recipes I wanted to try from each cookbook. Guess which one had the most recipes? Thats right SUPER SUPPERS! The cookbook I had planned on returning. The other books still looked great, but I guess they have more recipes that are similar to things I already make or have tried. But the SS book had more "new and interesting" recipes that could be frozen as well. So, I changed my mind, it's a keeper!

Now, to get cookin'!

[nfowife]

I got the "Don't Panic" book the other day from amazon and I think it's going to be really good. I disagree that you have to cook things beforehand- the only things that seem to need to be cooked ahead are things like browning ground beef (which is already done for you at places like super suppers). Otherwise the recipes I looked at seemed to be assembled uncooked and then cooked for the first time on serving day. Anyhow, I will be trying some of the recipes for sure in the coming weeks- DH is out of town right now and I already went to pass your plate last week so I have 6 meals already in my freezer and there's no more room right now!

[daisymommy]

Really? I'll have to look again. Maybe I got mixed up. I haven't treid any of the recipes out yet, but I plan to go shopping this Saturday and cook all next week. Sigh...I feel tired already! Please report back, maybe in a seperate post when you all try some of the food?