Customer Reviews

American Heart Association One-Dish Meals: Over 200 All-New, All-in-One Recipes

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My partner and I cook real home cooked meals every night, but we don't always have tons of time to do it. Plus, since I've been working to lose weight, we've been looking for recipes with reasonable portion sizes, with more vegetables, which are lower in calories. We're only in our 30s and don't have any heart problems, but bought this cookbook for more general health-conscious reasons. We own over a hundred cookbooks, and this is our new favorite. We've had it for about four months now, and cooked a few dozen recipes from it, a number of them multiple times. Most of them have received either excellent or good reviews from both of us. Only a handful haven't worked well, and even those weren't bombs -- we think that they only needed minor tweaking to match our personal tastes better.

We're the kind of people who sit down once a week and choose recipes to cook that week before making up the grocery list. We put sticky notes on the top of the page to mark the selected recipes and then move the notes to the side to mark ones we've tried and liked well enough to note for later. Well, this book looks like a *forest* of sticky notes. Some weeks, we cook every night from this single cookbook. I love the variety of recipes, the detailed nutritional information, and the fact that most (maybe all?) of them only use one pot (a lot of other "one dish" or "one pot" cookbooks have you make pasta or rice separately). He loves the fact that he doesn't have to keep asking, "Honey, is this one on your diet?" Because everything in this book is fair game -- which is strangely not true of a lot of the other supposedly healthy cookbooks I have, once you look more closely at the recipes. We both love the results: not too fancy, just good, solid food for a weekday evening that's interesting but doesn't take too much time or effort. And the dishes never taste "diet."

This cookbook is great for people who want to make just a single dish, and maybe supplement it with a simple salad or a piece of good bread. If you (or someone in your family) won't be satisfied without separate meat, vegetable and starch courses on your plate, this isn't the cookbook for you. If you're happy with one bowl that has the vegetables, starches, beans, meat (or not), etc. all mixed together, dig in.

A fair number of the recipes use frozen vegetables and/or canned tomatoes, which is helpful for busy cooks who like to use lots of vegetables but only shop once a week and worry about the veggies going bad by the end of the week. At the same time, the recipes don't depend on using prepared foods (like mixes) as short-cuts, which is a pet peeve of mine with the fast-preparation books (the exception: an occasional can of cream of something soup). They assume you have spices in your cupboard and can get fresh herbs, but most recipes don't require hard-to-find ingredients.

The recipes do not include time estimates, which is a minus. Still, they are pretty consistent about giving good estimates for each step, so you can add up the cooking times yourself (not like a lot of books, that have steps you have to guess at, like, "simmer until just tender" and "while X is cooking, chop Y and then add it"). The recipes range widely in cooking/prep times, with some very fast (~20 minutes), many in the 30-50 minute range (including periods of simmering when you don't have to watch the pot and can be cleaning up the kitchen), and some that involve roasting for an hour or more or slow cooking for even longer.

No, there are no pictures in the book. But you get over it. The directions are clear (hooray!), and you can picture well enough what you should end up with.

Some of the dishes that we've tried so far and liked: lentils bourguignon; creamy turkey and wild rice soup; chicken ravioli Italiano; salmon and pasta with baby spinach; chicken and double mushroom stew; poblano chicken with rice; beef and barley stew; chipotle pork posole; fennel braised with red lentils; cassoulet with zesty tomato sauce... etc. If you have a hundred cookbooks, you're not going to find a lot of brand-new things that you've never seen before. However, these recipes have already been tweaked to make them healthier, so we don't have to guess about making substitutions. And they've clearly been tested more throughly than most, because they (almost always) work right the first time, which is more than I can say for most cookbooks!

All in all, this is a great find, and I highly recommend it.

This is my first review ever, but after having had the book for only three weeks and having cooked almost every weekday out of this book, I felt compelled to provide feedback - that's how much I like this book. All the recipies that we have tried thus far have been very well liked by our whole family (mum, dad and a toddler). I actually collect cookbooks as a hobby, so I've got quite a few but so far this is the only cookbook where I don't get tired of reading through it (and yes, one of my requirements for a good cookbook was great photography, but this book changed my mind). I love the fact that most of the dishes really are prepared in one pot and usually dinner is on the table within 30-40 minutes, including the prep work - however the book does fail to provide a quick overview of the estimated cooking time (my only pet peeve). And from tasting these recipes - they don't taste 'healthy' - they are just plain yummy.
There is a great overview of nutrition details per dish and while checking out recipes there are many useful cooking and shopping tips!
One last thing - these recipes are easy enough to follow for any beginning cook but also interesting enough not to bore the experienced cook....and last but not least, it feels great to know that you are cooking healthy!

Definitely a keeper!

No matter how much you love to cook, I've found that practicality consistently wins over. So, when I saw the American Heart Association's new cookbook One-Dish Meals, I had to take a closer look.

This cookbook gives some time-saving advice, with the rest of the pages dedicated to one-dish propositions, which include less mess, are fast and easy, and are healthy for you.

As a TV Consumer Wellness Expert, www.terrawellington.com, I like the Chicken Slaw with Teriyaki Plum Dressing or the Lemon-Tarragon Shrimp Vermicelli.

What is missing from the food preparation smorgasbord is a picture per recipe (my pet peeve). Other than that, it's a winner.

I have never reviewed a cookbook before. Usually I find a few recipes that the family can agree on and the book is retired to the shelf to rarely be looked at again.

That is NOT the case with this cookbook! It has been sitting on my counter and used regularly since I bought it.

Every recipe that I have prepared from this book has been a HUGE hit with the family (mom, dad, 2 daughters 8 & 5yrs). Yes, the recipes are one-dish recipes (which is a plus to me!)but the items can easily separated on the plate for the kids who don't like their food to "touch" each other LOL! The flavors are outstanding and my picky 5yr old has actually asked for seconds on several of these dishes which is a first!

Another reviewer suggested that most of the recipes were "weird" combinations and I must absolutely disagree. I am very leery of recipes that have unfamiliar ingredients or sound like they belong in some fancy french restaurant that I can't even pronounce, but that is definitely NOT the case here. Most recipe names accurately describe the main ingredients as in "biscuit-topped chicken casserole" or "horseraddish pork with blue-cheese tomatoes" (both excellent by-the-way). There has not been a recipe yet that I have read the name to my girls and had them say "ewwww!" or "what's that?"

There are no pictures in the book which is a bummer, but with over 200 main dish recipes, the book would be enormous if there were.

When I first looked at the serving sizes for these recipes, I was a little nervous that they wouldn't feed my husband since he is a really big eater. But, surprisingly enough, the healthy combinations of protein, veggie/fruit, starch and fat provide a really filling meal which is still low-calorie. As someone trying to lose weight, I am really looking forward to dinner each night knowing I will walk away satisfied and still meeting my goals.

In short, stop considering this book and BUY IT! You will not regret it!

I have searched and searched for a cookbook that meets my criteria for fast, healthy meals for the whole family. Since I have a very active toddler and another baby on the way, I really needed something that was efficient too. "One Dish" meals to fits my criteria perfectly. I love the fact that all the dishes contain all the things I wanted: veggies, protien, starches. And since this book was published by the American Heart Association, I don't have to worry about adjusting any recipe for sodium, fat and cholesterol. The instructions are simple and pretty clear. While it does appear that the recipes have been tested, a very few do need a minor adjustment here and there.

The other thing that should not be overlooked is the great amount of nutrition information the American Heart Association (AHA) added. As usual, the AHA wrote it in an easy to understand format and used layman terms and not scientific terms. I particularly liked the section on how to read and understand food labels. Something we all need to be proficient at if we're going to eat healthy.

As I have tons of cookbooks lining my shelves and because I'm on a budget, I decided to not purchase anymore cookbooks until I "tested" it first by checking it out from the library. This cookbook is one I will now purchase since I'm so pleased with it. By the way, there aren't any pictures in it, but you soon get over that. I think the quality of the recipes outshines any need for pictures. I hope you enjoy this cookbook as much as I have.

I am amazed that buying a cookbook sight unseen can be so successful. This book is wonderfully useful. One dish meals that supply lots of excellent nutrition are to be treasured. You won't go wrong on this one. I am sure you will find lots of dishes that will become your treasured favorites.

I LOVE to cook and have always done a lot of Tex-Mex, Mediterranean, Indian, Asian, etc. Thing is, now I'm caring for my elderly parents and my dad was placed on a 2g sodium diet *gah!* so I needed to make a little adjustment.

I cook from One Dish Meals almost every day and make up my weekly shopping list from it. The recipes are so fast and easy, and even though I only have 2g of sodium to play around with daily, there's nothing bland about it! My dad used to have a salt shaker practically glued to his hand so I thought the adjustment to low sodium was going to be difficult on that dementia patient. NO problem at all. The recipes include so many flavors from around the world and although there are some recipes that aren't appealing enough to me to cook (as in any cookbook) I find that there is enough variety of flavors to use the book every night of the week and have been doing so for about 6-8 months now. It usually takes me from 30 to 45 minutes from start to serving a dinner. I love it!

This book isnt too bad. I liked the "Quick and Easy Cookbook" by the American Heart Association much better. I like a cookbook that has normal foods in it. This one has a few but most are weird, out of this world type recipes. This book does have a plus though, It has a lot of information about eating right, meal planning, what foods to buy and what to look for.

While I won't pretend that every recipe in this book looks great, what I've liked what I've tried so far and my heart has approved them. I expect to purchase other books in this American Heart Association series.

The recipes in the American Heart Association One-Dish Meals may be good for your heart, but they generally are not so good to your tongue. Too many use the same root vegetables, i.e., carrots, potatoes, and onions. The result is that many of the dishes taste very similar. Another drawback is that the reason to cook one dish meals is to minimize clean up, which the directions do not lend themselves to.