Frozen Assets: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month

For those of you who are overwhelmed with trying to plan, shop, and cook for your families after a busy day, this book is for you. Once a month, or bulk cooking is not a new concept,but what I find refreshing about Frozen Assets is OPTIONS. My mantra has forever been "there's no ONE way to be organized", and this book shares that philosophy. Bulk cooking is just that; cook double batches for a week and have another week's worth of meals for your freezer. Cook once a month and have 30 days' worth of meals in your freezer. Try it out, a little at a time, and if you like the concept, tweak it for your lifestyle.

Deborah walks you through step by step, from planning to shopping to cooking to storing. I'm always looking at the way books are organized for quick reference, and this one delivers. The table of contents provides a quick look at recipes, which are cross-referenced for ease of use. Frugal tips for shopping and budgeting are included as well.

I highly recommend Deborah's book, and urge you to pick up a copy of your own.

I am glad I ordered this book. It has changed the way I feed my family. We have more time together. We save money every month. I use the book's instructions with my own recipes since we are vegetarians. I developed my own menu plans. The instructions for making meal plans led me through everything I needed to know. According to the book the recipes are mainly just examples of things that freeze well. It helped me to see what sorts of things I could consider putting in the freezer. Frozen Assets teaches readers how to apply this method to their own ways of cooking and eating. It has sure worked for me. I have spent nearly 50 percent less on my food bills after trying these ideas. And we are still eating all our favorite foods. We just have more time to enjoy them.

I've read and used several cookbooks and dozens of recipes for the Once-a-month cooking method and found all of them to be a waste of my time and money until I reviewed and tested Frozen Assets by Deborah Taylor-Hough. There are several important tricks to using this method. This book is the only one I've read on the subject which emphasizes the importance of calibrating your freezer to the right temperatures, as well as the importance of cooling, freezing and thawing the food properly in order to guarantee that your ingredients retain the texture and taste desired. I pride myself on being an excellent cook, but must admit that I failed miserably at the Once-a-month cooking method until I took the time to learn and apply Debi's common sense, but often over-looked techniques. I am a person who has a passion for really fresh food, but as a working mother I don't always have time to prepare all of our meals from scratch. Having simple dishes, such as Debi's Black Beans and Rice, on hand in the freezer, gives me the luxury of having the most time consuming part of the meal finished. I can add fresh salad or steamed vegetables for a quick, well balanced, fresh meal without having to settle for the compromise of instant rice or canned beans. While freezer meals aren't my first choice for dinner, having a few meals each month in our freezer saves me valuable time I don't always have. I have found her recipes to be simple, basic, economical, nutritious, and delicious. Good job, Debi! Food critics, like me, can be a pretty tough crowd to sell frozen foods to, but your common sense, economical approach to this method gave me a reason to try it again. I'm glad I did!

The many practical, step-by-step tips for saving money when choosing and buying food make Frozen Assets a worthwhile book, but it is the author's large-quantity recipes and instructions for freezing them that make her book truly valuable.

Although most recipes are not written for the health-conscious, as they contain many items high in fat and cholesterol, the author does include general advice on reducing fat and increasing nutrition in recipes. Most of the recipes in the book are child friendly, and can easily be adapted to a low-fat menu. The book includes sample shopping lists as well as lists of cooking tools that are useful in cooking large quanties of food.

Although I had already invested in a box-type freezer before I purchased this book, the author explains how she has applied her "Cook Big But Not Often" philosophy even to small refridgerator-top freezers. Since I began applying the lessons of the book, I have frozen a wide variety of dinners, including soups, chile, and casseroles. All of the recipes were easy, inexpensive, and tasty, and all made several meals that I froze for future use. But the nicest part-- thanks Ms. Taylor-Hugh-- is that I've only been turning on my stove about once every 3 weeks, and I'm working on reducing that figure. I'm expecting my second child in 6 weeks, and it feels great to know that I'll be prepared with good, homemade meals for those hectic first few weeks with a newborn.

This is a great book! Ignore any bad reviews you read about this title- I know I'm glad I did! I have tried several meals from this and they really work! They taste great (my family had no idea they were from the freezer)plus she helps you learn how to adjust and use your own recipes for your freezer. This is the 3rd book I have bought on this subject and this is the only one that has truly worked for me. I love it!