[.ca] Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month (ISBN 1891400282)

Great recipes and ideas, but needs editing:
Like an earlier reviewer, I found that this book really suffered from being poorly edited. However, the recipes are delicious and the fat has been sensibly trimmed from most recipes. You can easily modify recipes to take out even more fat by using techniques like using cooking spray in a nonstick skillet for sauteing onions. Everything I have made from this book has been great, although I am jotting down lots of notes in my copy of the book as I have modified things a bit to suite my own style and experience. For example, her Cheddar Chicken recipe uses a very lowfat cheese sauce which is made without starting with a roux (flour browned in butter). I found it helped to use Wondra flour mixed in a jar with some of the liquid, like you would for gravy, instead of just tossing everything in the pan. This could cause clumping. She also has a crustless quiche recipe, but I plan on cooking it in a premade pie crust, with the extra fat and calories. I think my family would prefer that. I really like how she has organized her recipes into "mini-sessions" of 5 or 6 recipes grouped by protein type. So, for example, you might do a chicken (breast) session or a lean pork session in one afternoon or evening, rather than cooking for an entire month in one day. Slowly your freezer supply of delicious food will build up. I really, really do like this book, and having checked many freezer cooking books out of the library, this is the only one I bought. My chief complaint, however, is that it appears to have been rushed into print, and I lay the blame for this on the publisher, not the author. (This is just my theory, no one has confirmed it.) The author is a nice lady who deserved to have had support from her publisher. Here are the problems: First, the shopping lists for each mini-session often list the ingredients in a different unit of measurement than they are listed in the ingredient lists in the recipes. For example, with the chicken breasts they are listed alternately by weight, number of whole chicken breasts, number of chicken breast portions (not immediately clear that these are different), and by cups of cooked and cubed meat. Chicken breasts vary considerably in their size, so buying them buy weight is more useful information for recipes where they are going to be cooked and cubed. Second, in some cases, the preparation instructions seem to have been copied and pasted without editing--e.g., boil skinless, boneless chicken breasts and then remove the meat from the bone? Third, the list of ingredients in the recipes are rarely listed in the order that the ingredients are used in the recipes. This is a convention that we cooks are used to, and it is disconcerting to have them listed out of order. A cook is more likely to make an error and omit and ingredient this way. Fourth, as noted in an earlier review, there are instances where the amount of some ingredients is given incorrectly. All I can say is keep reading the reviews here, and hopefully all major blunders will eventually be listed. I keep hoping that the author will post some errata information on her web site (you can find it easily in a web search), but it has not happened yet. Debi, if you read this, pretty please give us a "known errors" page!

mush soup:
I was impressed when reading through this book, especially with the tips in the begininning. Then I picked one recipe to make for a supper swap. I was making this for 6 families! I shopped and cooked and 3 hours later all the meals were in the freezer. Then I baked one for my family for supper. The recipe (chicken broccoli noodle bake) called for way too much water, which made it soupy. Then I baked it for the recommeded time and when we were eating it we realized that the egg noodles had gotten too soft and made a mushy mess in the bottom of the baking dish. So it was now a mushy soup with chunks of chicken and broccoli. Both my husband and I felt sick after eating it. Now I have 6 meals of this in my freezer that I don't dare bring to the supper swap and I'm back at square one!!! Let's try editing before going to press next time, Deborah!

Love this cookbook!:
Love this cookbook! Everything's been great and the method is a life saver. Last night I tried the Chicken Tortellini Soup from Frozen Assets Lite and Easy. It was wonderful! I think we found a new family favorite.

Lite & Easy!:
The title says it all Lite & Easy. My two new favorite words that help cooking for my family. A great cookbook!

A very solid guide to saving both time and money:
Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: Cook For A Day, Eat For A Month by culinary expert Deborah Taylor-Hough is more than just another cookbook; it is a very solid guide to saving both time and money by creating a meal plan and then cooking once a week to create seven or more delicious meals. An eye for health and low-fat meal plans hallmarks this particular cookbook collection, as well as the spirit of blending practical need and limited resources with mouth-watering creations. From Spiced Chicken Sandwiches; Turkey Potato Pie; and Old-Fashioned Beef Stew; to Linguini with Vegetables; Enchilada Casserole; and Veggie Bean Chili, Frozen Assets Lite & Easy is a wonderful complement to any kitchen cookbook shelf.