Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time [Paperback]

Theresa Albert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2005

Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day is the ultimate cookbook for today's busy parents. Instead of facing a suppertime circus, it allows moms and dads to prepare meals in advance so they can hurry home to more important things. Author Theresa Albert is a home-cooking efficiency expert who shares her culinary knowledge and organizational expertise—she offers more than three months worth of delicious, nutritious, family-friendly dinners, with plans on how to shop for, prepare, and cook each meal. Since the planning and preparation of each weeknight meal is done in three hours or less on a weekend afternoon, all parents need to do each weeknight is heat things up and get everyone to the table. The thirteen weekly plans feature delicious and affordable recipes for a variety of tastes, such as Chicken Cacciatore, Meatloaf Florentine, Lemony Baked Shrimp, Baked Mashed Potatoes and Potato Skins, Sesame Broccoli Salad, Easy Minestrone, Oatmeal Cookies, and more. With nutritional analyses, itemized shopping lists, great leftover ideas, countless kitchen tips, and "quickie meals from what you've got," Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day offers less stress Monday through Friday, which makes spending time together as a family possible once again.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Theresa Albert-Ratchford, owner of Thyme for Supper (www.thymeforsupper.com), a home cooking-coaching service, has made a career as a personal chef, food coach, and cooking teacher, helping harried households prepare dinner with a minimum of hassle. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; Revised edition (October 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569243395
• ISBN-13: 978-1569243398
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 7.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Professional Cooking > Quantity

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars To its credit, it's very healthy, February 27, 2006

By 

Reviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time (Paperback)

It does contain many very healthy recipes (which, I know some others do not, so this may be just what you're looking for), however, they're simply NOT things I could get my family to eat.

Spaghetti sauce with mashed winter squash and flaxseed? Besides, I already know how to freeze spaghetti sauce. Then nachos and burritos made from the same spaghetti sauce? Mexican and Italian foods have *very* different flavors in this household, there's no sneaking that past my pre-schooler.

A recipe for a veggie platter "to munch on all week?" I already know how to cut up veggies and offer them as snacks. And, how this is *so* different from the crudites 'recipe' elsewhere as to justify it's own 'recipe' I don't know.

Quinoa and Carrots? Sesame Fish Cakes with Baby Bok Choy? Lentil Quesadillas with Smoked Almond Apple Salad? They don't save me any time if my family has no interest in eating them.

Lots of menu charts and a good work schedule, as well as shopping lists - IF all the recipes pre-choosen for that week work for you. I suppose if you're *really* time crunched (and eat *very* healthfully!) this could be helpful. Since there are few recipes I can pick and choose from in this one, they really don't help me out at all.

It was the Lemony Baked Shrimp recipe that 'lured' me in, and while I still think it sounds great, I wouldn't have bought the book just for that.

I have found Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer to be FAR more family (read: child!) friendly, with MANY more options that appeal to all of us.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars interesting food made easy, January 7, 2007

By 

cranteach (Washington state) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time (Paperback)

I am a working mom married to a man who ate too much Americana growing up. Meaning -- I don't have much time to cook, but my husband really doesn't enjoy the typical cream of mushroom soup and hamburger fare that easy cookbooks typically contain. This book saved me! I just finished the first week's cooking. I have five dinners ready for the week, and my husband begged me not to freeze all of the chili so he could eat some for lunch. (And my two year old ate it, too, and loved it. So no worries, there.) If, like me, the thing you hate about cooking dinner is trying to figure out what to shop for each week and what to make each evening, this book is lovely.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the complete package, September 24, 2006

By 

readerwriter "readerwriter" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cook Once a Week, Eat Well Every Day: Make-Ahead Meals that Transform Your Suppertime Circus into Relaxing Family Time (Paperback)

As a Dad who cooks I found variety, nutrition and speed in the plans set out in this well written excellently communicated cookbook. Concepts which before were alien to me became crystal clear and I created my own weekly meal plans to go along with the series that are outlined in the book. The kids actually joined in on the making of some of the plans and true to her word (the author) they actually relished those meals more than the others. Most meals they tried and liked, some a lot and some so so but that's kids and that was miles ahead of where I was three months ago.