Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook (NYM Series) [Paperback]

Jessica Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 9, 2012 | Series: NYM Series

In today's fast-paced society, TV dinners and fast food can easily take the place of good home cooking. But with the help of one of the most underused appliances in most people's kitchen -- the freezer -- anyone can make and preserve about two weeks' worth of delicious home-cooked meals in a matter of hours. Jessica Fisher' s Not Your Mother provides the key to doing so. Fisher outlines 200 recipes for delectable breakfasts, lunches, and dinners through the method of batch cooking that saves both time and money.

This cookbook puts a modern spin on the age-old idea of freezing meals for later, and appeals to today's diverse tastes, providing recipes for not only chicken, beef, and pork, but also fish, shellfish, and vegetarian main courses. Fisher also details how to go about using the freezer to its full potential, giving information on the best freezer bags and, most importantly, how to thaw food safely after it has been frozen.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jessica Fisher is a busy mom of six young children, aged toddler to teen. Homeschool mom by day, freelance writer and blogger by night, she writes two popular blogs, LifeasMom.com and GoodCheapEats.com and contributes to both SimpleHomeschool.net and Food.YourWay.net. She also writes for various parenting publications in the U.S. and Canada. She lives with her husband and children in San Diego, California and is an avid home cook. Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze is her first book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction: This is Not Your Mothers Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook

Dinner time. The phrase can evoke memories of lively voices, cozy suppers, and candlelight; images of forks chasing the last morsels of this or that on the plate; flavors blending in a happy symphony; satisfied hearts and tummies. Contentment.

But the notion of dinner time can also bring to mind that frantic feeling when you come home tired, the dog is barking, the phone is ringing, and the entire household is clamoring, "Whats for dinner?" Stress.

You grope for an answer. Fast food? TV dinners? Canned soup? These are all quick fixes, but at what cost? All have excess sodium and additives, dubiously sourced ingredients, and questionable taste. What can you do to make mealtimes more enjoyable without resorting to less-than-best menu options? How can you make contentment, not stress, the norm at dinner time?

Turn to your freezer -- what Alton Brown calls "the most potent food-preservation device ever devised. That precious appliance can save your bacon when it comes to putting healthy, wholesome meals on the table in record time. Ive been preparing make-ahead and freeze meals for 15 years now, since I was a young high-school teacher with no one to feed but my husband and myself. Today I cook for a small army of eight: me, my husband, and our six children, aged tot to teen. And while I have my fair share of "Calgon, take me away" moments, mealtimes are usually pleasurable at our house.

Good eating has always been part of our family culture, from enjoying upscale Santa Barbara restaurants during our dating years to laughing as our first-born, at 10 months, devoured peach salsa from a spoon to grilling pizzas today on the backyard barbecue for a pack of famished children. For us, mealtimes are an event.

And while I love to cook, as a work-at-home mom, I also like to enjoy time with my family. Making many meals ahead of time allows me to have the best of both worlds. I regularly spend focused time in the kitchen, cooking up a storm and stashing the results away in the freezer for later use. The outcome? Perfect homemade convenience foods that serve us well, without undue stress.

In as little as an hour a week, you, too, can stock your freezer with make-ahead meals and meal components that are tasty, filling, healthy, and budget-friendly.

But don’t worry: These are not your mother’s—or your grandmother’s—frozen casseroles. Drawing on modern technology and a global food market full of diverse ingredients, the recipes that follow feature a wide variety of flavor profiles and cooking methods. They appeal to modern taste buds, and they can all be prepared in bulk to help you save time in the kitchen. These meals will put the lively voices and cozy suppers back into your dinner times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (October 9, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558327568
• ISBN-13: 978-1558327566
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 1.1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Professional Cooking > Quantity
  • #70 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Appliances
  • #75 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better than I'd expected October 11, 2012

By Joy M

Format:Paperback

I thought this was just going to be a cookbook of recipes you can freeze. But instead it's a complete how-to!

The recipes look delicious and realistic (not a bunch of weird ingredients), and instructions are spelled out very clearly. But my favorite part of the cookbook is the cooking plans. For each cooking plan, Jessica compiles several of the recipes based on type (breakfasts, meatless, beef, etc.), then includes a complete grocery list for all those recipes, packaging guidelines, gadgets/appliances needed, prep list, and a detailed cooking plan. For instance, if I want to make some breakfasts for the freezer, I can just refer to one of the Breakfast cooking plans and the planning's already done for me. All I have to do is shop and cook, and Jessica holds my hand the whole way.

This is so much more than just a cookbook (there's so much fabulous information, the recipes don't even start until page 65). The only downside is now I have no excuse NOT to start freezer cooking!

74 of 81 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed November 15, 2012

By JS

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Based on the other reviews, I had high hopes for this book. I own or have checked out most every freezer book out there. This one is pretty basic. There are a lot of recipes for marinades, which isn't what I was looking for. I have a whole other book of marinades and sauces. Unfortunately, each of these recipes only gives directions for "grilling over a hot fire", not oven directions, which is limiting.
The remaining recipes are pretty basic/mix and match. For example, there will be recipes for different kinds of pizza using the same crust, enchiladas, etc. There are also recipes for meat that you cook in the crockpot and shred for later. There are about 49 recipes for breads/desserts. The main reason I use freezer cooking is for dinnertime, but perhaps other families are different. While chopping and freezing ingredients ahead of time saves some time in the kitchen, a lot of the recipes need a lot of prep after thawing. That defeats the purpose for me. And though it claims not to use condensed soup like our mothers cooked with, there are recipes using a homemade cream of celery soup. There are maybe two recipes in here that I would use, and if it didn't cost half as much as the book to send back I would. The cookbooks I really like for freezing are Fix, Freeze, Feast and You've Got It Made. The health content of the recipes is similar and there is a lot more variety to work with.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Review by beachbrights.blogspot.com November 3, 2012

By BeachBrights TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Length: 3:07 Mins