Customer Reviews

The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this book a few months ago after a friend recommended it. My friend has a cooking partner and they've been cooking this way for well over a year now. My circumstances do not allow me to spend a whole day cooking meals, but I have used the ideas and recipes in the book to fit our family. Instead of spending a whole day cooking enough dinners for a month, I will make 2 or 3 meals' worth of a recipe when I do cook. I freeze what we don't eat and I've accumulated quite a good supply of meals that are in the freezer.

Tara and Nanci have developed quite a system. There are charts and worksheets that are extremely helpful. This book is not just a book of recipes that freeze well. It's chock-full of information and techniques. Also, 30daygourmet.com is their website and they have message boards (with the authors participating!) and if you own the book, you can see and print out an additional 50 recipes, set up just like the ones in the cookbook!

The ingredients are listed in quantities for one meal, then they do all the math and multiply out what you need for however many meals you want to make.

The recipes are very family-friendly and delicious. No strange ingredients that you would have trouble finding. Everything I've made from the cookbook has been WONDERFUL. I've made the Taco Rice (serve it with cornbread - yummy!), Crispy Baked Chicken, Saucy Oven Pork Chops (recipe from website), Cheeseburger Quiche (also from website), and Cheese-Stuffed Shells. I made 80 shells last time I made them and you freeze them in rigid containers and they don't stick together and to cook them, you just take out however many you need in the morning and put them in the fridge and at dinnertime, put them in a cooking dish with spaghetti sauce on the bottom (I use Ragu!) and cover with more sauce and bake. Absolutely delicious!

This is a great way to have homecooked meals without having to cook every night. I really enjoy doing it! God bless you, Nanci and Tara!

PS Nanci and Tara also do conferences where they give a demonstration of their cooking methods. I'd love to see one of those - they also have a great sense of humor! With 7 kids between them, they really know what it's like to have a chaotic dinner hour!

Cooking this way saves you time and money and gives your family great meals. I can see that this would be useful for anyone - from young singles or newly-married to families with children at home to empty nesters! You won't be disappointed with this book!

I have been cooking the 30 Day Gourmet way for two years now, and I can't even begin to express the difference it has made in my life! No more stress at 5:00; no more stress when company drops in at the last minute; no more racing around in a panic, trying to make it to the grocery store after work and then throwing something together to feed the hungry family when all I want to do is collapse in exhaustion. I now have all my dinners in the freezer, more quality time with my family in the evenings, and my dinnertime blues have disappeared! My family eats nutritious, home-cooked meals instead of fast food, and we save lots of money! My biggest problem now is deciding which of the delicious meals sitting in my freezer to make for dinner tonight.

This is truly the most organized, easy-to-follow and flexible freezer cooking system on the market. The recipes are good, home-cooking types of recipes without exotic, strange ingredients that kids won't like or that will cost you an arm and a leg to buy. I love the fact that Tara and Nanci have made it so easy for users to adapt many of their own families' favorites to the system so that those recipes can be frozen, too. You absolutely are not limited to cooking just the recipes that they provide.

One of my favorite features is the appendix in the back. There, Tara and Nanci have done an amazing job creating equivalency charts. If that graham cracker crust you're making calls for 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs and you don't know how many graham crackers it will take to make one cup of crumbs, check the equivalency charts. The answer to this and much, much more is there, taking the guesswork out of bulk cooking and eliminating the time and frustration that comes from trying to figure it out yourself.

The charts they include are glorious. They are easy to follow and easy to understand. I was amazed that something that could potentially be so complicated could be made so easy.

In addition to all of this is the wonderful support that comes from visiting their website. There is a wonderful network of other 30 Day Gourmets who consistently share recipes, cooking adventures, support, etc. It's a wonderful resource to be able to turn to the message boards and touch base with others who cook this way, ask questions, and sometimes get wonderful encouragement. Also, there is an area at this website for book owners to obtain 50 additional free recipes!

All I can say is, Thank goodness for 30 Day Gourmet! I'll never cook any other way again!!!!

What an inspiration this book is! Not only do the authors offer a step-by-step guide to bulk or freezer cooking, but they provide you with the tools to make it work effectively, and even encourage you to have fun while doing it. Written primarily for moms, The Freezer Cooking Manual takes the dreaded chore of planning, shopping, and cooking for your family and turns it into a working system. You know you're going to enjoy a book where the authors confess in the introduction that they are NOT superhuman , but are "fellow strugglers". And you thought you were all alone!

This is not another cookbook, although it does include simple to prepare foods. More importantly, it is full of checklists, food storage tips, recipe worksheets, shopping lists, meal inventory checklists, freeze time chart, and numerous other reusable forms for you to simply your life.

Well organized and streamlined, I recommend using The Freezer Cooking Manual to get and stay organized in the kitchen. I got so inspired that I'm going to try bulk cooking again, and can't wait to see how much spare time I will have in the weeks to come with my family, friends, and myself.

This book is the best I have purchased in this catagory. Though my family now consists of just myself and my husband, the recipes were easily adapted for servings for two. After a delightful weekend of cooking, my freezer is now stocked with easy to cook meals, saving me a huge amount of time and money. My husband and I own our own business and a 12 hour day is very common. The recipes are good "home cooking" with out expensive ingredients, but with a good gourmet touch, and with so much variety to choose from, you can't get bored! The hints, the shopping lists, the schedules, and suggestions are all wonderful, and were a help even to an old kitchen pro like myself. And, as if this is not enough, their web site has even more information, helps hints, and is a good, easy to navigate site!

The book was only $10 so I'll chalk it up as a learning experience, I guess. The recipes are very "1970's-Use-A-Can-of-Campbell's Mushroom Soup-in-Everything" for me. Or Velveeta. Or some other 'processed' food item. I cook fresh for the most part. There has to be a way to avoid high sodium, processed, fake food and freeze well...right?

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I have cooked this way for years and have all the "other" once a month books. This book is the best by far. The Freezer Cooking Manual has made the process so simple, I am now a "Quarterly Cook". By buying in bulk and preparing everything in advance I save SO much money. I really do feed my family of 4, breakfast, lunch and dinner, for less than $150 a month. Saving time is an added bounus. As a homeschooling mom, days can get really hectic sometimes. Knowing that I do not have to stop in the middle of whatever we are doing, to go cook, is a huge blessing. Thank you Nanci and Tara for making my life a little easier!!

I work long hours and have a long commute. I usually don't get home until 8 or 9PM, and that's just too late to go to the grocery and cook a meal from scratch! For years I've been making double recipes for weekend meals and then having the leftovers throughout the week, but in a kind of hit or miss fashion. Several nights a week, my husband and I would look at each other and say "What's for dinner?" When I discovered this book, I slapped myself on the forehead and said "Doh!"

It makes perfect sense to devote a little extra time on the weekend to building up a store of meals in the freezer. Why didn't I think of this before?

I liked the authors' approach to laying out the planning and preparation for the big cooking day. There is a lot of great information here on freezing and batch cooking. Great worksheets and checklists to help you get organized.

However, I must say that the recipes are not to my family's taste. Maybe it's a regional thing (we live in Southern California), but these recipes seem kind of 1960s and bland to us. (Cream of chicken soup is featured in several of them. Well, my Mom used that in her casseroles, but I don't!) Maybe it's because the recipes are aimed at kids. (We have none.)

We prefer recipes with more spices and variety (I cook a lot of Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese dishes). However, I do not regret buying this book. All the info other than the recipes is very helpful and make this book worthwhile. I've simply adapted my own recipes to this plan.

One last note--most people won't care about this, I know, but I've been in the documentation business for 30 years, so I do. The format of the book is slightly amateurish. Although easy to read, the charts look hand-drawn, and the fonts and page layout look like someone put it together in Microsoft Word. I would expect something a little more polished for my money.

I have been using my 30 Day Gourmet manual for 3 1/2 years now and it is by far the best of it's type!!! I started out with Once A Month Cooking, and knew there had to be a better system without all those casseroles!! A friend introduced me to 30DG and I knew from my past experience that this was THE book! And it is!

The included worksheets alone are worth more than the price of the book! The recipes are great... my family of 5 likes most everything I've tried. The recipe variety is wonderful... breakfast, sandwiches, appetizers, desserts, snacks, main dishes, salads... it's all included! When I take a 30DG recipe to a pot-luck, or serve it to company, I always get requests to share the recipe! I have been able to easily adapt my personal recipes to the 30DG system too. The website at 30daygourmet.com is great too! There are additional recipes you can get there, as well as support and info from the message boards. And more successful recipes from cooks like me who use the system.

The greatest thing about the 30DG system is the flexability! There isn't a set menu that you have to make each time you cook. You choose the recipes you want to make, based on your family's likes and dislikes. You can cook as few or as many meals as you choose. If your grocery is having a sale on chicken, stock up and have a chicken cooking day. Do the same with pork or ground beef. You can cook with a partner or by yourself. You can use the system if you only have the freezer above your fridge.

We moved 400+ miles last summer, and spent 40 days in an apartment while our house was being completed. My 30DG manual was the only 'cook book' that went in my car with me... it didn't get sent in the moving van with the rest of my kitchen! I wasn't taking a chance of something happening to it!

If you only buy 1 freezer cooking book, this is the one to spend your money on!

The Freezer Cooking Manual saved my sanity. My children had sport practice every weekday from 5:00-7:00. After the first 2 weeks, I knew things had to change. We ate more takeout and processed food than I care to mention. An online friend suggested 30 Day Gourmet and THE FREEZER COOKING MANUAL.

I had my first cooking session May, 1999 and I will never go back to the 5:00 dinner blues! Our biggest decision each day is which dish of all the possibilites that fill my freezer should we have each night. What a wonderful feeling!

The book is very logically organized. The forms that help you plan and for a freezer full of food are invaluable. Tara and Nanci, through their "tried and true" experiences, make it possible for ANYONE to have a freezer full of delicious entrees, side dishes, snacks and desserts on hand. The Appendix in the book has a ton of helpful information from choosing and maintaining a freezer, to what to do in a power failure, breakfast and lunch ideas, food cooperatives and freezer timetables, just to name a few.

The recipes are family-friendly, appealing to adults and children alike. The Freezer Cooking Manual helps you adapt your favorite recipes to "freezer friendly meals" also. Before 30DG, I was in a slump, serving the same old things that were easy to prepare and took very little thought. Everyone looks forward to dinner enthusiastically since our meals are more diversified.

A very nice bonus to the book is the 30 Day Gourmet site. With the purchase of the book, you get 50 additional free recipes, tips and recipes submitted by other 30 Day Gourmet-ers, and the support of others. You can contact Tara and Nanci with any questions about freezer cooking. They are a wealth of knowledge!

I have recently expanded my freezer cooking to include my mother and mother-in-law, who are widowed and don't see the point of cooking for one. It eases my mind to know they are eating well.

I tried many other freezer cooking plans (and have the books to prove it!) The Freezer Cooking Plan is the best by far. The savings in your pocketbook and on your sanity will more than return the reasonable investment price of this book.

Every parent has heard the question a thousand times, "What's for supper?". Those three words alone are enough to put me in a bad mood when I get home from a full day at work. Now when the kids ask, "what's for supper?", I can say one of over 30+ meals all ready and waiting for me in the freezer. I have tried other make ahead meal plans but this is by far the best I have ever used. The manual is packed with helpful information along with many wonderful recipes and worksheets. Nearly all the recipes I have tried have recieved 3 thumbs up from my family of three picky eaters. Many of the meals are pre-assembled and baked on the day that they are going to be served. This gives the food a fresh-baked taste rather than twice-baked taste.

This book isn't just a cookbook it is a "how-to" book. It explains how things are best frozen and shows you how to prepare your family favorites into frozen entrees. The book is well written with a dash of humor added through out to make it even easier to read.

Finally, 30 day gourmet has a great support network on the internet. Other 30 day gourmets connect on the website where questions are answered, recipes are shared and we encourage each other to keep up the great work. Even the authors, Nancy and Tara, stop by to give advice and encouragement.

You too can have stress free mealtimes. It will take some extra effort on your part for a day or so but then you have 30+ glorious days when you can reap the rewards of your effort!

Get the "30 Day Gourmet" you won't be disappointed!