Everyone knows that making meals in bulk for the week is faster than making them each night after a tiring day. What the Ultimate Make-ahead Cookbook does differently? It gives you options.
Want to cook each night but not prep all the ingredients? The book has a plan for that.
Don’t want to eat the same protein multiple days a week? The book avoids that with its pre-planned weekly meal plans.
Think cooking for hours on Sunday cuts into your weekend and is both boring and lonely? Have a freezer meal party with several friends so you can socialize while you each cook one big batch meal and share it with each other.
Have some free time and want to better prepare for future cook-fests? The book has recipes for staples (i.e.; broths, soup bases and spice mixes) used for many of its make-ahead recipes.
The recipes are varied and sorted by type (i.e.; breakfast, soups, stew, appetizers, sides, and desserts). In addition, the main dishes are sorted by the main protein like poultry, meat, seafood, and meatless. The recipes include nutritional information including calories. They are flagged when they are dairy free, nut free, gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, and kid friendly. Better, the index contains a list of each recipe that is labeled with specific allergen-friendly tag making it easy to find them throughout the book. The recipes are family favorites like chili, burgers, enchiladas, lasagna, pizza as well as staples like meat loaf, baked chicken breasts and pork chops. The desserts sound delicious. They include macaroons, zucchini cupcakes, pies, gluten free brownies, and an ice cream birthday cake just like you can buy (for a lot more money) from ice cream shops.
The Ultimate Make-ahead Cookbook takes a good idea, to pre-make some weekday meals, and runs with it. There are multiple ways to make your weekday cooking shorter. The meal plans even let you plan ahead for parties. All the recipes include refrigeration and/or freezing instructions as well as how to warm up the meal later. The only negative is the pictures are limited. Everything else is well-organized and poised to save you one to two hours weekly. 5 stars!
Thanks to Rockridge Press and Callisto for a copy in exchange for my honest review.