Book Review - Moosewood Cookbook

Remember a long time ago when I said that I was a nanny for a year with a family in Washington DC? Remember when I said that the family was vegetarian and I was in charge of cooking dinner for them during the week? Remember when I said that I loved that year and found some of my favorite cookbooks? Well, if you don't remember me telling you that the first time, just pretend you do.

One of those cookbooks is the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. Today, just about everyone has heard of the Moosewood cookbooks (there are nine of them put out by the restaurant), but back in 1988 when I received it, I had never heard of the books or the restaurant. A couple of the recipes that I cooked for the family came from this cookbook and I really liked the recipes. The Benton's (the family I lived with) bought me a copy for my birthday. Twenty-one years later, I'm still awfully glad they did.

This book is a vegetarian cookbook and so, of course, has no meat recipes in it. There are a lot of recipes that could easily be adapted, by adding cooked chopped chicken or beef, to be meat-ish. But most of the recipes are perfectly satisfying the way they are.

One of my favorites from this book is the recipe for Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Quiche. We make this all the time. Sometimes I substitute bacon for the mushrooms (a classic Quiche Lorraine) and sometimes I just add bacon to half of it (so my veggies can eat the non-meat half). This recipe is a good way to use up all those eggs I have from my chickens.

Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Quiche

Make your favorite pie crust recipe (or buy a pre-made crust) You will only need a bottom crust, not a top.

Place the crust in a pie tin. Cover bottom crust with 1 1/2 c. grated swiss cheese.

In a pan, saute in butter:

1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 lb mushrooms, chopped
salt, pepper to taste
a dash of thyme

Cover the cheese with the above mixture.

Make a custard by mixing together well:

4 eggs
1 1/2 c. milk
3 Tbs flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard

Pour the custard over the mushroom layer.

Sprinkle with paprika and bake at 375 degrees 40 -45 minutes or until solid in the center when jiggled.

Variations:

• substitute cheddar for swiss
• use fresh tomato slices instead of mushrooms (tomatoes don't need to be sauted first)
• substitute 1 cup chopped scallions for the onion
• add 1 tsp prepared horseradish
• add chopped cooked meat - bacon, chicken, ham, etc

And remember, real men do eat quiche.

Enjoy!

Jill

Book Reviews I've Done Before

Everyone here at my house is sick. Just last week I congratulated myself on our lack of sickness this winter.

"Oh, we must be practicing good handwashing skills. We must be eating healthy and getting enough sleep. We are so good."

Pride goeth before the fall, as they say. We are all sick. A really bad winter cold - snuffles, coughing, sore throats, sneezing, the works. That'll teach me to get all self-righteous!

Needless to say, I'm not very motivated to do blog posts. But since recently someone told me they get mad when I don't update (you know who you are!), I'm posting something.

I've done several book reviews in the past so I thought I would gather them together and update them.

I did More With Less this week.

Another book I have reviewed is Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. I don't actually own this book but I've checked it out of the library enough that I really should just buy my own copy. We really like the Garlic Lime Chicken and the Polenta Casserole. I need to check it out again (or just buy, sigh), and get some new ideas. Especially new ideas for bean recipes. They are so healthy and cheap and high in protein that I'm really trying to add more to our diet. This book had tons of bean centered recipes. I'm doing it this weekend, I promise.

One of my all time favorite books is Cheap Fast Good by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. This book is such a great book for a beginner cook or someone who just really wants to branch out but doesn't have a lot of time. Tons of recipes from soups to pastas to sides - all ready in no time. One of the recipes we use a lot is Mindless Meatball Minestrone. So good and if you have frozen meatballs in your freezer, goes together in under 25 minutes.

Mindless Meatball Minestrone

Heat in a large sauce pan:

1 can (or 2 cups) chicken broth
1 can (or 2 cups) beef broth

While it is heating, add:

2 c. frozen mixed vegetables
1 can stewed or dices tomatoes
20 or so already cooked meatballs
1/3 c. pasta (spaghetti broken in 1 to 2 inches lengths, macaroni, shells, etc)

Cover the pot and bring it to a boil. When it boils, uncover and stir well. Add:

1 can light red kidney beans (or other kind of beans)
1 tsp dried italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Continue to boil until the pasta is tender and the meatballs are heated through. Serve with grated parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

You can of course, soak your own beans and make this for a lot less, but I usually use the cans because they are so fast and the point of this recipe is for it to be "Mindless" right?

Yum!

So now I come to the end of my "I'm really sick but Ilene gets mad if I don't post" post. And I'm off. Maybe I should make some soup tonight. Soup is good for a cold, right?

Enjoy!

Jill

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

One of my favorite cookbooks is my More With Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre. I did a lengthy review on it before and I would recommend reading the review (not just because I wrote it, but also because it has a lot of information about why the book was written). This book is such a great book for people looking to save money on groceries.

I recently went back to my More With Less Cookbook to get a new bread recipe to try. I was looking for something easy, using whole wheat flour and able to use as a sandwich bread. I thought I would try the recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Bread. Man, I'm glad I did! It ends up soft but slices well. It makes two loaves of bread which is good because the first loaf goes really fast!

Honey Whole Wheat Bread
makes 2 loaves

Combine in a mixer bowl:
3 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. nonfat dry milk
1 T. salt
2 pkg dry yeast (or 4 1/2 tsp yeast)

Heat in saucepan until warm (or in microwave):

3 c. water or potato water
1/2 c. honey
2 T. oil

Pour warm (not hot) liquid over flour mixture. Beat with electric mixer 3 minutes. Stir in:

1 additional cup whole wheat flour
4 - 4 1/2 c. white flour

Knead 5 minutes, using additional white flour if necessary. Place in greased bowl, turn, let rise until double in bulk. Punch into loaves. Place in greased 9x5" bread pans. Cover and let rise 40-45 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

Let it cool and then slice. It is hard to resist it when it is hot because it smells so good!

This is a very sweet bread, perfect for toast with cinnamon sugar or jam. When we served it with soup it was a little too sweet. If I was going to serve it with soup again, I'd reduce the honey a bit (and probably let it rise a little longer). I make this primarily as a breakfast food and like the extra bit of sweetness. You decide.

Check out the More With Less Cookbook for even more cheap meals.

Enjoy!

Jill

Why Good Cookbooks are Essential

In my quest to lower my food bill, one tool has been invaluable: cookbooks!

Let me first state that I'm addicted to cookbooks. My husband laughs at me because I read them like novels. I check them out from the library and read them at night before I go to bed. I've almost always got a cookbook "going" beside my bed - a big bookmark about half-way through. Most cookbooks are good for just that, one read through. They give me ideas and new ways of thinking about food.

Some cookbooks need to be in my cupboard! My rule is that if I have check-out a cookbook three times or more, it should be purchased for my collection (from half.com at the lowest price possible, of course).

No matter if you are addicted to cookbooks or not, there are a few kinds of cookbooks everyone who is serious about saving money should have in their cupboard.

A General All-Purpose Cookbook
Everyone should have a general cookbook in their cupboard. My personal favorite is my The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook which was a wedding shower gift from my now mother-in-law (thanks, Mom!). There are other options out there for a general cookbook: The Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker Cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (the old red and white checked one your mom probably had), etc.

What you look for in a general cookbook is, well, general recipes. You want a recipe for pie crust, a basic cake, pancakes from scratch, fried chicken, how to prepare different types of vegetables, a basic bread recipe, a corn bread recipe, a frosting from scratch recipe. Not specific special stuff, just basic recipe that you would learn in home ec (if schools still had home ec!).

I go to my general cookbook all the time - you can tell by the warped pages and tattered cover. I use this for my pie crust recipe, my pancakes from scratch recipe, my crepe recipe, my basic cake recipe - lots of things. And when I buy a vegetable that looked really good at the farmer's market but I'm not sure what to do with it, I look it up in Good Housekeeping and they tell me what to do!

One of the biggest ways to save money on groceries is to stop buying prepared foods and make stuff from scratch (we're going to talk more about this next week). How do you learn how to do that? From your cookbooks! A prepared pie crust costs anywhere from $2 to $4. A pie crust from scratch costs about 60 cents. Pancake mix is pretty spendy but a from scratch batch of pancakes costs less than a dollar (and doesn't have preservatives and artificial gunk in it). A good basic cookbook will save you tons.

A Baking Book or Two

I love to bake. I love baking even more than cooking - mostly because I love bread so much. I have several (ok, lots) of baking cookbooks. I don't think you need to go that far, but a good baking book will serve you well. Recipes for muffins, scones, quick breads, different kinds of yeast bread, cookies, etc will give you lots of ideas for cheap, healthy snacks and sides for your family at a fraction of the cost of buying prepared.

Some of my favorite baking books are The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads, Bread for Breakfast by Beth Hensperger, Home Baking by Alford and Deguid. There are tons of great baking books out there. Check them out of the library until you find one that makes you say, "oh, I should try that" at least every 10 pages.

A General "Cheap" Cookbook

I like having a couple of "cheap" cookbooks around. You know, the kind that use ingredients you've actually heard of that don't cost $6 for a 4 oz jar! Most cheap cookbooks also have lots of tips and tricks in them that change your way of thinking about food.

Some of my favorites are: The More with Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre, Cheap Fast, Good by Mills and Ross, The Tightwad Gazette, and Miserly Meals by Jonni McCoy. I've also heard good things about Not Just Beans by Tawra Kellam, but I've never actually read it.

Having a source for really cheap recipes that are family friendly if so great. When I'm sick of our cheap meals, I turn to one of my cheap cookbooks and browse through to get some new ideas.

Other

There are lots of other cookbooks I own, because they are valuable to me. I own several mega-cooking books, some crockpot books, a cookbook put together by the ladies at church which includes several of my favorite recipes, and a couple of vegetarian recipe books because of my veggie girls. I don't think everyone needs these types of cookbooks, but I do. You need to just check different kinds of cookbooks out of the library until you find the kind that speaks to you. Yes, my cookbooks speak to me. I've talked to professionals, they assure me I'm not a danger to others.

So, go to the library and have fun. Read them like novels and when one speaks to you, go to half.com and find it for the lowest possible price.

Enjoy!

Jill

Book Review - Cheap Eating

Many years ago I took a trip to the beach with friends. It was all girls (we called ourselves the "Beach Babes") and we had a fabulous time going out to lunch, poking around in the shops, walking on the beach, curling up with good books and, of course, talking - a lot! On one of our trips into town, we peeked into a small bookstore. I, of course, went straight for the cooking section. This little book caught my eye - Cheap Eating - How to Feed Your Family Well and Spend Less, by Pat Edwards. At the time, my husband was just starting out in his career and we had two small children. I was working at the time but wanted desperately to quit my job and stay home with my girls. I was looking for anyway possible to cut expenses to allow that to happen. A book that could teach me to cook and eat cheap? For only $9.95? I'll take it!

Not long after that trip I was finally able to quit my job and stay home. I wish I could say this book was responsible, but it was not. However, it did give me some great ideas.

The first 130 pages of this book aren't recipes, but rather strategies and ideas to help you shop smarter and cook cheaper. If you are a hard-core frugal shopper, most of this information is nothing new. There are some tips and tricks you might not have thought of, but nothing earth-shattering. If you are the "don't make a list, throw whatever in the cart, convenience is the name of the game" type of shopper, you will learn a lot from this book. In fact, if you are that kind of shopper, some of these ideas may seem extreme and unrealistic. Let me assure you, lots of people shop and cook in exactly this way and it doesn't feel extreme to us!

The last 150 pages or so are recipes. Let me just say this, these are bare-bones, no frills recipes. An example is the recipe for lentil rice casserole on page 140. The ingredients are: lentils, rice, water, onions, salt and pepper. That is it, you don't saute the onion in oil or butter, there is not flavoring in the water, you put it all in a casserole pan and bake for 1 hour at 350. She lists "optional" ingredients as curry and grated cheese. I'm not sure if she's talking about curry powder or not, and she doesn't say how to add it. She recommends serving the cheese at the table to sprinkle on top. I'm not sure my family would go for this one. Her version is listed as only costing 73 cents for the whole casserole (not including the "optional" cheese).

However, these recipes can be the basis for some really cheap meals if you make modifications that don't send the cost skyrocketing. For instance, we do a variation on the lentil-rice casserole with chicken boullion added to the water, sauted carrots and onions and cheese melted on top. Mine is still really cheap but has enough flavor that my family gobbles it up.

One such "changeable" recipe is "Breakfast Muffin Cake" Here is the original recipe:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix in a bowl:

2 eggs
4 Tbls oil
1/2 c. molasses
2 cups water

Mix in a separate bowl:

1 c. dry milk
2 c. dry oatmeal
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
(optional ingredients are raisins or a couple Tbs of marmalade; 1/2 c. applesauce, cooked squash, or carrots)

Blend dry ingredients with wet, stir just until moistened. Bake in 9 x 12 pan for 15 minutes. Should last for two breakfasts. Cost: $1.65. (The book was printed in 1993, I'm sure prices have changed).

I made some modifications: I added 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1/2 c. dried cranberries. I used part whole wheat for some of the flour. I drizzled a powdered sugar glaze on the cake when it came out of the oven. It took almost 25 minutes to bake and I used a 9 x 13 pan (who has a 9 x 12???). My family liked it and I would definately make it again. Next time I would add the 1/2 c. applesauce (my family's one complaint was that it was a little dry), I would do raisins instead of cranberries, and I would blend the oatmeal (I used whole oats and they were a little crunchy).

So, it was a really cheap recipe, I made modifications that didn't break the bank, and I came up with a healthy, cheap recipe that my family likes. That's a winning combo!

If you don't like playing with your recipes, but want flavorful food, this is probably not the cookbook for you. If you have fun being frugal and don't mind tweaking a recipe to make it fit your family, you would probably enjoy it. In addition, I did a search on Half.com and on Amazon.com and found copies of this book for as low as 75 cents! Hey, for 75 cents you can't go wrong, right?

Jill

Book Review - Home Baking (and a recipe!)

As you may know, I have an addiction to cookbooks. I probably own about 50 cookbooks and I have my eye on at least two that I want currently. On of my favorite books to read is Home Baking, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. Duguid and Alford are husband and wife and have traveled extensively searching for baking recipes. The photography is amazing! This is one of those cookbooks that is so fun to read because each recipe has a story attached to it - where they got it, what the people were like there, how they changed the original recipe, or how they use the recipe in their own lives. I love cookbooks like this. I have tried several recipes from this book (and use Dom's Big Batch Boule recipe often, so yummy!). I tried a new one recently and my kids loved it. It is called Easy Cheese and Bean Rounds. The authors say that this is their take on papusas which are a type of corn bread made in Nicaragua and El Salvador. You need to have masa harina (or masa flour) which is the only sort of weird ingredient but is available in most grocery stores in the Hispanic food section.

In a food processor you process:

1/2 c. drained cooked or canned white beans
1/2 c. lukewarm water
1 TBS corn oil

Make a puree and then add:

1 tsp salt
1 1/4 c. masa harina

Process until a dough forms. Gather it into a ball and then let it sit, covered, for 30 minutes or so. While this is going on, combine:

1/2 c. loosely packed grated cheese such as Oaxacan string cheese, Monterey Jack, or mild or medium cheddar
1 TBS minced chives or scallion greens (optional)You'll have two bowls that look something like the above.

Break off small pieces of dough (about 2 TBS) and flatten it in your hand as flat as you can get it then mound a small amount of cheese (you want to kind of squeeze it into a ball so you can make it stay in the edges). Isn't that just the most beautiful picture of an arm you have ever seen? And that kitchen in the background could be a lot cleaner but you get the idea.

Fold up each of the edges around the cheese so you have dough enclosing all the cheese - then flatten it out. Place the flattened dough thing in a hot, oiled skillet and cook until it is golden brown on the outside. I flattened it more in the pan with my spatula. I served them with salsa to dip them in. I'm lucky I got any to take pictures of - but here they are:Not the most beautiful picture in the world but you get the idea. The taste reminded me of a quesadilla made with a corn tortilla.

Notes:

• I would double this recipe next time, this was not enough for me and my kids.
• This is a little time consuming but I got much better at it as I went along and the last several were much faster than the first several.
  
• I didn't use the chives/scallions and they were fine but I think I would use them next time.
  
• It was helpful to wet my hands when I was forming the rounds, it kept them sticking to my hands.
  

Enjoy!

Jill

Book Review - Cheap. Fast. Good.

In my endless quest to find the perfect cookbook I check out tons of them from the library. I love it when I find one that seems to have been written with me in mind. Such is the case with Cheap. Fast. Good! by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. When I buy a cookbook I go through it page by page and put post-it notes on the recipes I would like to try. As you can see from the picture, there were lots in this book! However, the recipes aren't the only reason to buy this book. It is filled with tips and ideas for how to cut your food budget. There is a section in the back where the authors describe their experience trying to feed their families for under $100 a week. The post the actual menus they used and notes on their experiences. Now, for us, ahem, seasoned homemakers (read: old), some of the advice might seem like stuff we learned already. For a beginning cook the advice is invaluable. In fact, this book is my standard wedding shower gift - I've probably bought eight copies in the last two years to give to new brides at church.

However, with the rising cost of food, I find myself turning to this book and the ideas and tips more and more. It is good for even us "seasoned" cooks to be reminded of all those basics. Some of the informational sections include such topics as "How to use up a big hunk of ham," "Making school lunches reasonable," "Super potato toppers (different things to put on top of baked potatoes)," "Making your own convenience items," and a look at "what keeps you out of the kitchen" and how to overcome it!

But really, you buy a cook book for the recipes, and this book is full of good ones. Especially if you have children in your home, these are winners. My favorite recipe is "Good Ol' Beans and Rice" on pg. 173. This page is splattered and stained, a testament to how often it is used (I actually almost have it memorized). Others that I love are Mu-Shu Pork at Home, Mindless Meatball Minestrone, Onion Chopped Steak with Easy Gravy, and Winter Roasted Carrots.

I really like this cookbook and would recommend it to anyone who is trying to feed a family and keep their food budget under control.

Winter Roasted Carrots (Jill's Reader's Digest Condensed version - the the actual cookbook for a much more detailed and, I'm sure, better worded version!)

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray. Peel and cut 1 lb of carrots into pieces approximately 2 to 3 inches long, 1/2" wide and 1/2" thick.

Place them in the pan. Peel two small or one large onion and quarters, then cut the quarters in half crosswise and add them to the pan.

Peel several cloves of garlic and add the whole cloves to the pan.

Drizzle 1 Tbs. olive oil over the vegetables and then sprinkle them with 1/2 tsp dried thyme an 1/4 tsp salt. Stir and toss the vegetables until they are coated.

Roast, uncovered, for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 to 15 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and drizzle 1 tsp balsamic vinegar over the vegetables and toss. Serve immediately.

Notes:

• We add washed, chopped red, russet and/or sweet potatoes to this dish.
  
• We have also added red peppers, broccoli, and lots of other things. Basically this recipe is a basic recipe for roasted vegetables and you can add anything that seems like it might be good roasted!
• Don't leave off the balsamic vinegar. At first it sounded weired to me but it adds an amazing tangy flavor without overwhelming it with vinegar flavor.
  
• We add more salt - it just seems to need more salt. Probably not as healthy, but it sure tastes good.
  
• We love to mash the roasted garlic cloves and use the "garlic paste" to flavor the rest of the veggies. My kids fight over who gets the garlic so I put LOTS of garlic cloves in there.
  

Enjoy!

Jill

Book Review - More With Less Cookbook

I decided to do a review of my all time favorite cookbook, the More-with-Less Cookbook, by Doris Janzen Longacre. But first a little story (it is what you have come to expect from me, right?). When I was 20 years old I was a student in my second year of college. Actually, to be more accurate, I was not a student in college - I had opted to stay in the college town I was living in and get a job rather than go to school. I was burned out on college and I really couldn't decided what I wanted to major in and felt I was wasting my money. While reading the campus newspaper one day I noticed some ads - "Nanny Wanted." Seems there was a booming business finding cute college coeds to be live-in nannies for families on the east coast. Hey! Since I'm not going to school anyway, why not travel, get paid, and not have to pay rent - all at the same time!! Sounds like a winner to me. So I interviewed with an agency then had phone interviews with several families. The family that I immediately clicked with was a family in Washington DC. The Bentons had two little boys, ages 18 months and 6 weeks. They had amazing red hair and the pictures were of some of the cutest kids I had ever seen. A few weeks after Christmas I packed up my life, boarded a plane and flew off to live with a family I had never actually met in person. I look back now and marvel at my chutzpah and bravery. I should have been scared to death (and at moments I was), but overall I was just excited for this new adventure.

My year in Washington DC, turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. The first month was a huge adjustment period and I cried often, but I learned to rely on myself and to trust myself. I made amazing friends and traveled all over the east coast - Maine, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut. The Bentons are vegetarians and one of my jobs was to cook dinner for them on week nights. I learned how to cook vegetarian dishes and founds some great vegetarian recipes. And, I found my favorite cookbook, More-with-Less Cookbook.

This cookbook isn't strictly vegetarian, it does have lots of meat recipes, but as the name implies, this book is about eating better with less and sometimes that means less meat. The book was inspired by a 1974 resolution by the Mennonite Central Committee. Part of this resolution was the call for all Mennonite and Brethren in Christ households to reduce their food budgets and consumption by 10%. This cookbook was intended to help them figure out how to do that.

This cookbook is not gourmet and it doesn't even try to be. But almost every ingredient in the book is something you probably have in your pantry right now (or you should if you consider yourself a frugal healthy cook!). There are "from scratch" recipes for sandwich bread, granola, tortillas, pizza, white sauce, "cream of" soups, and much more. The recipes are simple, cheap and quick. These recipes do not rely on heavily processed convenience food (no Velveeta here!), they rely on vegetables, beans, grains, and small portions of meat. Some of my favorite recipes from this book are:

• Basic Dry Cereal Formula - granola from scratch but this recipes allows you to customize it for what your family likes or what you have one hand or what happens to be cheap!
• Basic Baked Beans - baked beans from scratch - yummy and oh so cheap!
• Baked Lentils with Cheese - a vegetarian dish that is so good.
• Cottage Cheese Casserole - another vegetarian dish that tastes like comfort food.
• Indian Fry Bread - not low cal but cheap and can be used in a myriad of ways.
• Torta Pascualina - Argentine Spinach Pie. Trust me on this one, it's great.

The book also has dessert recipes and some weird stuff like recipes for Homemade Laundry Soap using "1 can lye."

For me cookbooks are kind of like good literature. I enjoy reading them even if they don't apply to my life directly. But when I find a cookbook that inspires me to get in the kitchen, that one I keep. This book is a keeper.

Jill

Book Review: Saving Dinner

My husband laughs at me for the way I read cookbooks. Ok, actually, my husband laughs at me for lots of things, but he really thinks I'm crazy for how I read cookbooks. You see, I check cookbooks out of the library and read them like novels. I always have a cookbook going next to my bed and I pick it up and read a chapter or so before I go to bed. Right now I'm reading, and loving, the book Saving Dinner, The Menus, Recipes, and Shopping Lists to Bring Your Family Back to the Table by Leanne Ely.

For those of you familiar with Flylady, the organizational website/email group, Leanne Ely is the woman who does all the food related content for Flylady. She also happens to be a certified nutritionist, cookbook author, cooking class instructor, food editor for ePregnancy magazine,and radio show host. The woman is busy, which must be why she wrote a book about quick, healthy meals that you whole family will actually eat.
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This book is the result of, and compilation of, Ely's Menu-Mailer program, a program where you sign up, pay a small monthly fee and receive a menu of meals, complete with shopping list, each week. As a result, the cookbook is set up in weekly format. At the beginning of each "week" in the book, you are given a list of the meals that week along with a shopping list. You could, of course, follow each weekly plan and use the shopping lists, or you could (as I did) pick and choose meals from different weeks and make up your own list.

Each weekly menu contains a crockpot meal, a fish meal, and a meal featuring beans.
Since I am trying to incorporate more beans into my families diet, because they are cheap, healthy and can be vegetarian (for my daughter Talia), I picked a bunch of the bean recipes to try. I have been very impressed . I tried the Polenta Casserole and my whole family actually ate it. I called it Tamale Casserole, because my children are convinced that polenta is the worst food item in the world, but since it wasn't actually called "polenta" they ate it and liked it.

One recipe I would definately recommend is the Garlic Lime Chicken. It was moist, flavorful and very yummy! I'm trying several more recipes this week and have already recommended this book to several people. I might actually have to go and buy it!

Jill