Cookbook Review: Not Your Mother’s Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook by Jessica Fisher

Ever since Kati Neville and Lindsay Tkacsik introduced me to their freezer-cooking recipes in Fix, Freeze, Feast, I’ve been hooked. For the past two years I’ve done some amount of freezer-cooking on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s easy-going and I’ll just cook one or two recipes within the course of a month and freeze the extra portions. When life gets busy, I’ll choose 5 or so recipes and spend a few days cooking and freezing. There was one month that I borrowed a friend’s kitchen and, after 12 hours of cooking, had enough meals in the freezer for 30 days.

I love the methods that the authors employ in Fix, Freeze, Feast, and the recipes are superb, but after two years I was looking for some new ones to incorporate into our freezer-cooking rotation. And so, I was thrilled to receive a copy of Not Your Mother’s Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook by Jessica Fisher.*

Jessica Fisher, known to the blog-world as FishMama, is the author of two successful blogs including Good Cheap Eats. She’s a mother of six who understands the desire and the struggle behind feeding families good, wholesome food. She is the perfect person to have written a book full of freezer-cooking recipes. Her cookbook includes over 200 recipes (all of them appropriate for freezing and reheating) for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and even desserts. There is a wide variety of recipes that should appeal to a wide variety of kitchens. Ethnic dishes such as dal and falafel abound, but so do old favorites like lasagna, meatballs, and cheeseburgers.

If you’re new to freezer cooking, don’t fret. Jessica kindly holds your hand and gently walks you through the details of how to make the most of your freezer cooking, from planning to shopping to cooking to eating. Also included are oodles of meal plans for a variety of diets, and forms to help you plan your freezer cooking.

I was disappointed that there are no photos to accompany the recipes. As a person with food restrictions who “eats” with her eyes, I always appreciate photos to help me determine whether or not a recipe might work for our family. I also found myself frustrated that the recipes are written as single meals, and so I continually had to double, triple, or quadruple ingredient portions in order to have one meal to eat and extras to freeze. I know, it’s not difficult to do that kind of math, but busy mamas have many things vying for their attention and the less there is to think about the better.

Disappointments aside, the meals themselves have been excellent. In my freezer right now are Herb Butter Chicken Tenders, Outside-In Cheeseburgers, Italian Cheesewiches, Green Chile Rice Casserole, Tahini Vegetable Patties, and enough pizza dough to last for the rest of the summer. All of the recipes were super-easy to assemble (some of them required no cooking at all) and the ones we’ve reheated have easily passed the dinner-table taste test. Yes, my friends, we are eating well from the freezer at our house.

* Review posts are my opinions on items that were sent to me free of charge. The items were given to me, but the thoughts and opinions are my own. I only provide reviews of items that I find to be truly worthy of recommendation.