The Frantic Woman’s Guide to Feeding Family and Friends (Fireside Book Review)
This week, I read a book that was written just for me! Hard to believe, but true. I’m calling this a Fireside Book Review, but this is not a work of fiction. This book is what I call self-help for kitchen-challenged SharpMoms like me!
I’m not exactly a wiz in the kitchen. I recognize this and I want help–I’m just never sure where to get it. Well, today I got it. While half watching my son run around in his Little Gym class, I completed Frantic Woman’s Guide to Feeding Family and Friends, by Mary Jo Rulnick. The book provides shopping lists, recipes and tips for every dinner of the year, as well as my favorite section, Prep Work, which includes a Kitchen Survival chapter. It’s full of organizational tips, must-have kitchen gear, emergency substitutions (i.e. no mayo, use sour cream, yogurt or cottage cheese), weight and measurement charts and much more. It really is the only cookbook I need!
I like simplicity and organization and Rulnick really gives me everything I need in this book. She even jokes that to help organize your kitchen, you can donate all your old cookbooks, because you won’t need them now that you have her Guide–and she’s right!
The vast majority of the book is dedicated to seasonal menus. Rulnick provides two different two-week menus with shopping lists, for each season of the year. So, you basically have one month of meals for each season that you could easily repeat three times and have meals for the entire year! The two week shopping list enables you to only make two major trips to the grocery store each month with a couple of “pit stops” in between for milk and produce.
A couple of things to note:
- Most of the meals are easy to “construct” quickly
- There is a lot of variety in the menus–everything from casseroles and roasts to omelet and sandwich nights
- Lots of recipes include crescent rolls, biscuits, etc. Yummy, but not low-carb or low-fat. Beware!
- Purchasing two weeks worth of ingredients is great, but not the day you are doing it! Rulnick gives a lot of suggestions on labeling the ingredients, sorting the pantry by meals, pre-cooking chicken on Tuesday for Thursday, etc. This might all be too much even for me!
I’m going to give one of her two-week Fall menus a try with a few of my own adjustments and three hours set aside for grocery shopping! Here’s what I’m looking forward to: Purple Parmesan (eggplant!), Savory Stew, Boxcar Fish and Shrimp and Chicken Pizzazz. I’ll let you know how it goes!
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