Periodically, cookbook publishers send me books to review, which is great fun. I get a chance to see books I wouldn’t normally have picked up. I’ve gotten some great recipes from some. Others aren’t quite my style but I can see how they would be good for other types of cooks. Budget Meals falls into that category.
The recipes are all in metric to begin with, which makes trying to follow them just a bit more effort for folks in the US, although there are sites that will help you with converting measurements and cooking temperatures. And of course you could always get a kitchen scale to help out with those things measured by weight rather than volume as we’re used to doing here.
Second, the recipes are oftentimes a bit too simplistic for my tastes. However, if you’re just getting started in the kitchen or just want to put simple meals on the table every night without too much ado, I think this book would be a great place to start.
There are 8 weeks of menu plans and recipes and shopping lists, with a few recipes giving you the option of fixing the main course in the oven or slow cooker as suits your needs. I do like to sit down and make up my own week’s menu, list of recipes, and shopping list but I cook too much to follow anyone else’s list. But when you’re getting started it can be very helpful to follow someone else’s plan a few times to get a feel for how to put together a whole meal, how to time the preparation so everything’s done at the same time, and so forth. Later, you can go back and pick your favorite recipes to create your own plan. And if you’re just having a brain-dead week, go ahead and follow someone else’s plan for that week and relax. I always say that coming up with the menu plan for the week is much harder than actually cooking dinner every night!
Drawbacks: There are a few recipes in here that gave me pause, including one that included directions of “follow the directions on the packet” for roasting a whole chicken. There are desserts for nearly every meal and there’s no way I’d serve dessert at every meal. I think it might have been better to remove these from the weekly plan and just offer a few easy desserts in the back section, with variations for variety.
So a mixed review. I wouldn’t buy the book for myself but I might buy it for someone else who needed a jumpstart in the kitchen.
Just found your newsletter and blog. Good stuff! I was wondering if you had explored using tvp in addition or instead of ground beef in tacos, shepherds, pie, chili, etc.