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Great cookbook

Customer Rating:
Of the three books I purchased this one is the one I like the best so far!!

Good taste and healthy!

Customer Rating:
I bought this book after trying the Dream Dinners and Don't Panic Dinner's in the Freezer cookbooks (which were both disappointing). This cookbook is great, and the recipes are tasty. I'm part of a meal swap club and the meals I have made from here have been big hits (Cheesy Chicken Rice, Roasted Red Pepper Shrimp, Chicken Enchiladas, and Cherry Chicken Jubilee). The meals are healthy, and flavorful. I'm not a big dessert maker so I can't vouch for the desserts, but I'm more than happy with my purchase. It doesn't use a bunch of crazy ingredients (which is my problem with Cooking Light cookbooks) and generally the list of ingredients is very manageable or you can substitute. This is a cookbook I use frequently, even for non-freezer meals (there are instructions for make it now and freeze for later).

Not what I expected

Customer Rating:
This book is not a great freezer cooking book. Recipe quantities are not standard--one recipe will make 6 cups of soup, another will make 10 cups. One recipe makes only 2 1/2 cups of soup--freezer cooking for one?

Also, many of the recipes call for "diet" ingredients such as low-fat cheese, non-dairy whipped topping, etc., where you might read the label and decide you'd rather have a smaller amount of the real thing. One recipe is for a Diet Sprite cake....

As far as being a "healthy" recipe book, it is healthy mostly due to small portions. A lot of the dessert servings are what most people would consider tiny--for example, the Italian Cream Cake is expected to serve 16-20 people with a 9" 2-layer (3 if you count the top) cake. For the cookies, there is no amount stated as to how many are a serving, and very few people generally eat just one cookie at a time, especially if they're small cookies to begin with. Many of the entrees are higher in calories than you expect to see in a diet book.



Some good recipes (that I'll still have to adjust a bit), but I'm glad I borrowed this one from the library.

Loved it!

Customer Rating:
Normally I don't buy a cookbook unless I know I'm going to actually make the recipes I find myself scribbling down while paging through it. I knew I'd get writer's cramp with this cookbook so I bought it! This is the 2nd Holly Clegg cookbook I've purchased -- I think they are that good.

Not the best 'Freezer' Cookbook

Customer Rating:
This cookbook has lots of nice recipes and I like that it has the nutritional information. But I was looking for a freeze ahead cookbook and this book is disappointing in that regard. As far as I can tell all the recipes are precooked and then "cool to room temperature" and freeze. A few say don't precook but all the ingredients are precooked before the final assembly and cooking. This does not result in a very fresh tasting dish when reheated and in some cases was quite disastrous. I tried freezing one of the soups with pasta and the pasta when defrosted made the soup that was previously delicious quite unpleasant and in my opinion inedible. This cookbook has lots of nice recipes that try to cut back on fat by using reduced fat cheeses or cream cheeses but if you are looking for a 'freezer' cookbook I would recommend the 'Don't Panic Dinner's in the Freezer' or the 'Dream Dinners' cookbooks. Those books are also better for bulk cooking. For instance you make a triple batch of your dish and eat one for dinner and freeze two. Or cooking with friends you can make 9 of a dish and you all take some home for dinner and the freezer. This book only give the proportions for a single serving. Of course it is not that hard to multiply by three and just make more but if you are planing a lot of bulk cooking it saves a lot of time to have someone do all those calculations for you (also cuts down on possible mistakes). Furthermore, in some cases certain ingredients (acids) should not be increased at the same rate as other ingredients. The other cookbooks compensate for those adjustments.

To summarize, nice recipes but disappointing as far as freezer cooking. The best freezing recipes are the ones that freeze fresh and raw foods and then cook once (when you are ready to eat it); that is NOT this cookbook.