Customer Reviews

52 Weeks of Recipes for Students, Missionaries, and Nervous Cooks

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a 'nervous cook', I bought this book with hopefulness, but I was very disappointed. There are only about 2 recipes for each of the "52 Weeks" mentioned. The recipes' instructions are often not simple or clear enough. The length of time required for most of the recipes would not allow a student or a missionary to make them. I am only a stay-at-home-mom, but they are too lengthy for my schedule. Also, many of the ingredient lists are not inexpensive. That would seem to exclude students and missionaries in my experience (but maybe I'm wrong there...). There is no apparent organization to the order of weeks. I am so disappointed with this book that I hope to get rid of mine immediately. 2 of the recipes I have tried were tasty, but they took too long to have for dinner that night.
Unfortunately, I don't see how this book made it past any editor. Please, someone, buy my copy!

This is a sweet little book. If your menu ideas have dried up, you are empty nesters, or you need something fast and easy, this is the recipe book for you. It gives complete meal ideas for each day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I like the fact that most of the ingredients are general pantry items, nothing exotic. You can whip up a meal in a few minutes, even quicker than running for take-out. The recipes are for good, economic, tasty meals that even children will enjoy helping prepare and eat.

With easy to follow directions and great recipes, this cookbook gets my vote. It has 2-3 coordinating recipes every week to try out. I much prefer this to having recipes for every day (that would be about 1,000 recipes. And if you gave a college kid a cookbook with that many recipes, they would be, to say the least, deterred from ever departing from pop tart toasting and frozen dinners).
This is not a 4 minute recipe book. These are classic goods like meatloaf, enchiladas, baked salmon, guacamole, taco soup, quesadillas, spinach salad and great desserts ranging from apple cobbler cake, cheesecake cupcakes, condensed milk fudge, and baked apples. Most of the recipes have some part you buy prepared, like cake mix, a jar of spaghetti sauce, onion soup packet, etc (think Sandra Lee's cooking show Semi-Homemade) so it's not hard. Prep time range from 5-30 minutes, plus any oven cook time. The authors even tell you where to find unfamiliar items in the grocery store that pop up in the recipes.
And the good thing about having a few recipes a week (which usually include an entrée, one or two corresponding side dishes, or a dessert) is that you can pick the day you have the most time to cook to try things out.