The Working Parents Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Great Family Meals [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Jeff Morgan (Author), Jodie Morgan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

Late meetings, soccer practice, and not enough hours in the day -- how can a family fit a good/smart/solid/worthwhile/ hearty breakfast or relaxing dinner into this schedule, much less have it be healthy and delicious? Working parents Jeff and Jodie Morgan show how in this can't-do-without cookbook for moms and dads with busy days, hungry kids, and a desire for family health and harmony. These "kid friendly" recipes are full of fresh ingredients, and most of them can be whipped up in 30 minutes or less. All of them let the chef know what he or she is getting into with prep times and complete, easy-to-follow instructions, including plenty of time-saving shortcuts and creative suggestions for leftovers. It's a near endless supply of ideas for quick breakfasts, weekday lunches, no-fuss dinners, and everybody's favorite: dessert. Parents will find options for the inevitable last-minute school potluck or bake sale that even finicky kids (or adults) will gobble up. With tips on everything from table manners to fast alternatives to processed foods, and helpful lists of essential cooking tools and what to keep in a well-stocked pantry, The Working Parents Cookbook is the real-world answer when family time is on the menu.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To help the hordes of busy parents who have to feed their children on the run, this husband and wife team have gathered 200 quick, family-friendly recipes that they have taste-tested around their own dinner table. Two serious foodies, journalist Jeff Morgan (Dean & Deluca: The Food and Wine Cookbook) and wife Jodie, a social worker and self-trained cook, offer sophisticated, typically 30-minute dishes—and, more importantly, strategies for how to get children to swallow them. The Morgans include a brief primer on healthy eating, shopping and stocking the kitchen, and amply cover breakfast through dinner, and all sorts of snacks, sweets and appetizers in between. Most of the selections are clever variations of more standard foods, like the Salmon Burger with Aioli or their "house" green salad tossed in a homemade one-minute vinaigrette that their daughters constantly request. Recipe introductions and sidebars offer time and/or money saving tips. For example, the Morgans often substitute canned cannellini beans in the Minestrone Soup instead of soaking and cooking dried ones (which saves time but costs more). While many recipes (as well as the penciled fruit graphics and colorful retro design) will appeal to kids and their more seasoned counterparts, some—like the Country Paté Sandwich with cornichons and sliced onions—may push the palate for both. However, if a child is not yet ready for the Prosciutto, Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza, the authors also include a simple Margherita. Overall, this cookbook promises to be a helpful resource for parents.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Experts say that taking time to share a home-cooked meal helps frazzled families reconnect. But as overscheduled moms, dads and kids can attest, that's easier said than done. To the rescue comes The Working Parents Cookbook, a lifestyle and culinary manual by Jeff Morgan, a Napa Valley vintner and journalist, and his social-worker wife, Jodie, who are raising teenage daughters. Most of their 200 recipes take less than 30 minutes to prepare and feature straight-forward directions. The dishes are wholesome but far from humdrum: salads range from Caesar to ni oise; entr es include tuna steaks and lamb chops. Says Jeff: "We're trying to help Americans rediscover that fast food can be good food and that the family dynamic will be enhanced by a healthy mealtime experience." - Time Magazine

I haven't been home from the office during the week in time to make a family dinner since, well, since I went back to work when my older child was a year-old toddler. Now 13 and 10, our kids eat with the baby-sitter hours earlier than would be possible if they had to wait for us.

Rejecting any semblance of respect for this particular 1950s ideal has always taken the pressure off everyone at our house. No one complains, least of all me.

So it was with great consternation that I read Jeff and Jodie Morgan's "The Working Parents Cookbook," a paean to the family dinner hour. Guilt started to gnaw at my carefully rationalized approach to dinner from the first page.

The Morgans' new cookbook, their first as a couple, grew out of their family maxim that the dinner hour is sacred. Preserving a time each evening when they can sit down to eat, and talk, with their two teenage daughters is religion to the Morgans.

Good food can be made quickly. Time, or rather the lack of it, doesn't need to be the enemy of the family dinner, according to the Napa Valley couple with careers as a vintner and social worker. (Jeff had a previous life as a wine and food writer, penning "Dean & DeLuca: The Food and Wine Cookbook," published in 2002.)

It's hardly a new idea. And I might have ignored the Morgans' take on it, as I have most everyone else's, if it weren't for their refreshingly down-to-earth approach. Our weekends can be as hectic as the weekdays, and appealing dishes that fall together fast are appreciated at our house.

The Morgans have a knack for creating enticing recipes that can sound as good to a picky 5-year-old as they do to a sophisticated adult. Their recipes are easy to make, probably even for teenage cooks. Take their chicken kebabs marinated in yogurt and spices, a refreshing dish for people who rely on the grill to get meat on the table quickly. Yogurt, fresh ginger, cilantro, garlic, cumin and coriander turn cubes of workaday chicken breast into a Middle Eastern treat.

Our family dinner night is Sunday. So before going to my son's afternoon baseball game, I spent 15 minutes throwing together the marinade, tossed in the chicken and put the whole thing in the fridge. After the game, it took only a couple of minutes to grill the kebabs. The meat retained a pretty sheen from the yogurt glaze, along with a milky moistness that defied the gas grill's tendency to suck the moisture out of chicken.

The couscous salad with tomato and cilantro could have used a little more olive oil and a little less raw red onion. Still, it got us thinking about couscous salads, previously not on our short list. A quick scrounge around in the fridge and we were adding cubes of feta, chunks of avocado and chopped celery to perk it up.

A dish that is as appetizing as the kebabs is the white bean soup with kale. It's a straightforward one-pot meal that's a notch above the typical bean soup m lange. The kale retained its structure and bite without being overpowering.

Making it work

It wasn't, however, a 15-minute preparation, as the recipe says. This was a 40-minute chopping project. And even though we had soaked the beans for 24 hour --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• ISBN-10: 0811836851
• ASIN: B0007LPDG8
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,046,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Title is a misnomer, November 10, 2004

By 

VAV (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Working Parents Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Great Family Meals (Paperback)

This is good as a general-purpose cookbook, with interesting foods using fresh ingredients. However, we found most recipes too complex to do on a hectic worknight with hungry kids underfoot. The end results were tasty for parents but again the complexity of the dishes turned off our picky eaters (ages 2 and 5). I'm setting this one aside for a couple of years; it may go better with older kids.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tasty, healthy and easy recipies make my life easier, August 17, 2004

By 

K. Jaffe (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Working Parents Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Great Family Meals (Paperback)

This is a well thought out book. The authors have made preparing tasty and healthy food a breeze. The recipies include prep and cooking times, and there are menus for both vegetarians and meat eaters. The lemon and rosemary pasta was a hit with both my hubby and 2 year old and took only 10 minutes to prepare! I highly recommend.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My All Time Favorite, November 17, 2006

By 

Busy "Busy" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Working Parents Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Great Family Meals (Paperback)

I LOVE this cookbook. I'm a very amateur, medium-confidence cook, and this book is right at my speed. Many of the dinners take an hour or so to put together, but that is the price of fresh food. If I were willing to eat Tuna Helper then I could indeed put together meals more quickly, but these are great recipes, great flavors. Recipes we've tried that we love are: Split Pea Soup, Basic Roast Chicken, Lentil Soup, Next Day Chicken Soup, Stevie Weevie's Waffles. My kids aren't wild about many of the recipes, but they are mainly bread-and-cheese kinds of kids anyway. I still prepare and present these good recipes and they are starting to try more.