A Dinner a Day: Complete Meals in Minutes for Every Weeknight of the Year

I've been using this cookbook for three years and I think I know the ins and outs of it. It is incredibly useful for day to day cooking and once you have a pantry stocked with various spices,oils and vinegars, it's not all that expensive. The main problem for where I live is the fish and the seafood. Im landlocked and we don't get much good seafood here. You can sub in a chicken breast, pounded flat, for a fish fillet, you can sub porkchops for lambchops, you can sub canned tuna for crab and shrimp for scallops. You'll save about 60 bucks a week. (and that's no insignificant amount.) The sides dishes, and the variety of vegetables are the main thing. You've never eaten such a variety of produce. If you've ever felt like life consisted of corn, broccoli and carrots, you'll get over it here. Flag the side dishes you like and repeat them at holidays. Your relatives will think you're the worlds' most accomplished cook.All in all, groceries, my once a week groceries which includes cleaning and laundry products, for a family of four is about 175.00. It saves a lot of thinking about things you dont want to think about. Buy a food processor, there's a lot of chopping. One IMPORTANT thing, skip the desserts, the kids will think they are nasty, if they are anything like mine. I mean, stewed fruits? Am I 80 years old? Just buy a couple of gallons of ice cream instead of the dessert menus. You'll save a lot of money for empty calories and the kids will be happy.But, if you can find any cookbook that's more helpful on the mass market for your particualar family, you'll be unbelievably lucky. You could spend a gazillion dollars on a personal nutritionist, who is gonna nail your EXACT needs (for a year). But you could also buy this book, throw out what doesn't work and keep what does. I think you'll be very pleased.

I bought this book, hoping it would help me with dinner planning. I have 3 children under 8 years old, and my mother lives with us. I was having a heck-of-a-time figuring out what to cook to make everybody happy, what to buy at the grocery store, ending up eating out way too much. Now I shop on Sunday afternoons, with the handy-dandy shopping list. Each day I look at the day's menu, seeing what I might have to prepare beforehand. Sometimes, you may have a crockpot meal so you need to start that in the morning. Otherwise, around 4 or 5, I start preparing the meal. The recipes are all on two facing pages, the order in which to prepare the recipes is also included, which really helps me with timing. We are eating such a variety of foods now, and a lot more veggies and fruits, which everybody needs! Not everybody in my family likes everything, but I figure as the kids get older, they will start trying more stuff. I didn't like to use any convenience foods before, but I trade off the cost/health factor because we aren't eating out as much. There is sometimes quite a bit of chopping. The whole meal is supposed to take under an hour to prepare, but I think if you have a lot of chopping, it might take longer. That is my only criticism of this otherwise wonderful cookbook. We have used it for 3 months now. We cook our old standby's on the weekend and eat out once a week now. I have served several meals to company and have gotten rave reviews! I should also mention I tried once-a-month cooking in several forms and that did not work at all. We needed more variety, more fresh things, better-rounded meals. This book solved all of my dinner problems! Now if it could just do laundry, my life would be perfect!

We love this book! My husband and I love to cook, but often don't like to think of what to cook, so we'd just fall back on pasta. Not anymore! It's gotten us to try things that we wouldn't normally (we'd only go for the sure successes), and while not everything has been outstanding, everything has been good.

I wish that I could claim to be a 5 Star chef who could proclaim this book fabulous, but alas, I am only a so-so cook, grateful to have found a 5 star cookbook. Fortunately for me, this cookbook makes up for my many shortcomings as a cook. My family finally gets more than my rotating 5 standby meals. Three cheers for this cookbook! Where's it been all my life? Nevermind, I'm just happy to have it now.

The most frequent argument that my husband and I have is "What do you feel like for dinner?" I finally went in search of a cookbook that would give me combinations of recipes to cook, ie: a main course, a salad, and a vegetable. (I am NOT a very creative or proficient cook!)When I found this cookbook it completely exceeded my expectations!!! Not only did it provide the recipes for different dishes, but it actually planned an entire meal for each night of the week, for an entire year with no repeats. My husband and son are picky eaters, but we took the authors' advice and we try every meal, even if it doesn't sound appealing. If we don't care for it, we don't have to cook it again for another year. So far, we have loved just about every dinner! Another positive is that we are eating more fruits and vegetables than ever before, and I am learning how to cook with a variety of different seasonings and spices. It is actually fun to cook dinner now. The shopping lists and the countdowns are also great time savers. What a concept! The authors have provided an incredibly useful tool to working moms and busy families. All of my friends are getting a copy for Christmas.