Fix, Freeze, Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving - More than 125 Recipes (Hardcover)

by Kati Neville (Author), Lindsay Tkacsik (Author) "Begin by evaluating how busy you are and what your family currently likes to eat..." (more)
Key Phrases: thaw entrée, thaw one bag, indoor cooking instructions, Basic Red Sauce, Cooking Methods, Chipotle Roasted-Tomato Sauce (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Millions of shoppers save money buying groceries in bulk — trays of boneless chicken breasts, pairs of flank steaks, and flats of ripe tomatoes. But savings can quickly become losses if those bulk quantities spoil in the refrigerator or lie forgotten — unlabeled and unrecognizable under layers of ice crystals — in the back of the freezer.

Kati Neville and Lindsay Tkacsik have built businesses teaching home cooks how to take advantage of bulk savings by shopping wisely; converting food purchases into delicious, healthful family dinners; and labeling and storing the meals for easy access on busy days. They share all their best recipes and organizational wisdom in Fix, Freeze, Feast, a cookbook every price-conscious shopper will love, and warehouse club members shouldn't be without. With their help, home cooks will have freezers stocked with easy-to-prepare entrées, ready to be defrosted and cooked for weeknight family dinners. Imagine the comfort of knowing a homecooked meal is always available.

Each recipe includes instructions for dividing, preparing, and storing the raw ingredients, and a second set of simple directions for thawing, cooking, and enjoying the food. Designed for the way people cook today, Fix, Freeze, Feast meals are lighter and fresher than traditional bulk-cooking recipes, with a focus on simple stews and stir-fries, quick grilled or broiled main courses, and popular ethnic meals such as Beef Fajitas and Cashew Chicken Stir-fry.

Add to the entrées ready-to-bake cookie doughs, warming soups and side dishes, fruit smoothies, and portable kids' snacks, and those warehouse club shopping trips begin to look more valuable than ever. This is a system that saves time, saves money, and saves families from the empty calories of takeout food. Make room in the freezer for next week's dinner!

Praise for Fix, Freeze, Feast —

"[Fix Freeze, Feast] delivers some yummy new recipes that are easily stored and don’t look or taste like frozen meals when they’re served days later . . . Fix Freeze, Feast promises to ease the stress of cooking and ensure that you’re well fed, with hearty meals, throughout the week or month."
— lhj.com (Ladies Home Journal)

"Fix Freeze, Feast is a smart book to keep on the shelf . . . There’s nothing like a hot meal after a long, hard day at work, especially if all the work was done weeks ago!"
— Scripps News Service

"If you resolved to cook more at home in 2008, Fix, Freeze and Feast can help . . . In addition to recipes they also have tips for organizing your shopping list, packaging meals and preventing freezer burn." — Spokane Spokesman-Review

"If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to eat home-cooked meals as a family more often, Fix Freeze, Feast could be just the help you need to accomplish that . . . Fix Freeze, Feast won’t guarantee getting a scattered family home for dinner more often, but it will definitely make it much easier to get the meal on the table." — The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

"Not so much a cookbook as a bulk-saving survival guide for harried cooks everywhere." — Northern Virginia Magazine

"The authors do a great job offering clear instructions for the cooking, an important final step that is too often left to guesswork." — (Memphis) Commercial Appeal

About the Author
When Kati Neville went back to work after the birth of her first child, she learned to put home-cooked meals on the table every night by filling her freezer with make-ahead dinners. In 2002, she created Make and Take LLC, the first meal preparation service in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area.

Lindsay Tkacsik has always loved cooking with a wide range of foods and flavors. She brings her enthusiasm for bold tastes to both her meal preparation business, Mealtime Solutions, and her cookbook writing. Lindsay lives with her husband and three daughters in Washington.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; illustrated edition edition (November 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580176828
• ISBN-13: 978-1580176828
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,128 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best!, February 18, 2008

By	Amy Cathcart (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just got this book a few weeks ago, and I LOVE it! I live in a household of two, and am not a Costco-type shopper when it comes to meats, so everything I have made from this book, I have just halved the recipes to fit my smaller-packages-of-meat shopping patterns. No biggie. I still have three plus meals out of each type of meat I buy for the two of us.

My husband absolutely raved about the Sticky Ribs recipe...and being a die-hard foodie, he is VERY difficult to impress. He has insisted I make them again for a potluck this weekend. I won't give the recipe away, but trust me, for just four ingredients, this one can't be beat. It was worth the price of the book for this one recipe alone.

Overall, this book was a great intro for me on the pleasures of make-ahead cooking. I think I am addicted now! And the fact the recipes in this book do not contain any horrible ingredients like Velveeta cheese, canned "cream of" soups, or refrigerated biscuit dough is great, too! You can feed your family easily, healthfully, and with fewer preservatives and if you purchase this book and make some of the recipes as they are written. I highly recommend it!

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saving time and $$money$$, June 3, 2008

By	lisalisa (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews

We are a very active family and this book has transformed my time as well as my grocery bill. It is specifically geared to shopping "warehouse style". Now I am buying in bulk every other week and prepping 14-20 entrees in two to three hours, that need a minimum amount of attention before cooking and serving. Some of our favorites are the 4B's Flank Steak, Salisbury Meatballs, Honey-Glazed Chicken Thighs and Turkish Pork Chops. My husband estimated that I have cut our food bill in half. I like that we aren't wasting food in purchases I intended to make but find I'm too busy to actually prepare. I have bought a lot of OAMC books but I dont have two whole days of uninterupted time (nor do I want to!) for prepping. Fix, Freeze, Feast makes $en$e for me! :-)

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes 3 Meals at a time, all the same meal, February 2, 2008

By	kiwanissandy "Go Bucks!" (Heart of Ohio) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This cookbook is intended to mimic those places you go to and assemble your meals then take home to freeze. This cookbook is a little different in that I think it's geared more for those who want to swap meals with other families. Their intended assembly method is what they call the "tray" method, where you purchase a large tray of meat at a warehouse club and then come home and assemble 3 like meals out of it. You cannot make less than 3 meals, the ingredients are geared to be mixed together and then distributed among 3 freezer bags. I suppose there are a few recipes where you could in your head divide all the spices and mix-ins by 3 and then just make one freezer bag but if you make a mistake there's no correcting it.

I'm not sure my family would want to eat tequila lime chicken 3 times in a month but if you menu planned far enough in advance I guess you could have it once a month over the next 3 months.

What I think is fantastic about this cookbook is that you could find, for example, 2 other families (whether relatives or neighbors) and then you each make a recipe from the cookbook and swap meals with eachother. That way you're getting 3 different meals and only assembling 3 of the same meal. That for me was the best part of the cookbook.

It would also be perfect if you were providing meals for someone else. You could easily assemble and give to elderly parents, shut-ins, sick friends or relatives, new moms, etc and all they'd have to do is cook it. While that would take some work on their part sometimes it's the prep work and assembly that prevents seniors from cooking not the actual cooking itself. I know my senior mother has a hard time reading small print to see if it's 1/4 tsp or 1/8, etc. Also, chopping hurts her hands. But in this instance you've done all that work with the aid of this cookbook. And it still gives her enjoyment to know that she can put a nice meal on the table for dinner. But even if you needed to cook it before delivering it to someone else you could do that too.

All the final preparation and cooking instructions are included in the book to be copied or you can also download from www.storey.com and put on avery sticky labels to attach to the freezer baggie just like at dream dinners.

Most of the meals are geared for serving 4 but throwing 6 chicken breasts in a freezer bag wouldn't change the amount of other ingredients needed significantly or even decreasing it to 3 would be no problem.

In this cookbook, there are no pictures which is why I gave it a 4 rather than 5 stars. For some reason I think pictures are a needed treat in cookbooks. Most of these meals you freeze first then thaw and cook. Their suggestion is to pull the meal from the freezer the evening before and let it thaw overnight in the fridge and then prepare for dinner the next evening.

If you're not willing to make 3 meals of the same thing at once then this cookbook is probably not for you. I just think dividing spices and ingredients to come up with one serving might be too much trouble when there are so many other cookbooks that are already out there. Suggestions would be Super Suppers and Don't Panic: dinner's in the freezer. Both are very good cookbooks themselves.

But this cookbook is highly recommended for a MOPS group who want to start a dinner swap club; if you provide meals for others on a regular basis, or just want to ensure you have 3 meals in the freezer even if it is the same meal. Great cookbook.