Time for Dinner: Strategies, Inspiration, and Recipes for Family Meals Every Night of the Week

Since having a child, this cookbook has become my nightly source. The recipes are fast, straightforward and delicious. THere are no complicated steps or obscure ingredients yet the meals don't feel rote. My favorite (and most used) section of the book is the part where the authors list a variety of random ingredients perhaps languishing in the refrigerator -- miso paste, boring beans, leftover chicken, a forlorn red pepper -- and come up with three easy, inspired recipes for each. Genius! Or there's another section front of book about steps you can take Sunday night to ease dinnertime prep during the harried workweek. For example, a pork shoulder roast on Sunday transformed into posole on Tuesday and Cuban sandwiches on Wednesday. And I love the overall laid back attitude behind the recipes: "Throw in a handful of this or that," instead of hewing to military measurements. The design and art direction are also top notch.

This is probably the most useful cookbook I have -- so many different approaches to managing family dinners, e.g. starting from ingredients, things to make whether you have more or less time, meals to prepare on the weekend and then use the components during the week...It has big pictures of the meals so that you can get an idea of what you're making, which also helps when you're busy. I've found this to be Jenny Rosenstrach's best cookbook for my family.

Eclectic recipes. Not great instructions. Very few photos. Tried to return but the seller never got back to me.

this is a fantastic cookbook for families wanting to sit down to dinnner without the hassle. i made two of the recipes just TODAY and they were met with rave reviews! there are a wide range of recipes and i think only one takes more than an hour. most are an average of 30 minutes. it defintely broke me out of my rut and re-inspired me.

I saw this cookbook in a bookstore, and it haunted me that I did not buy it! It took some sleuthing since I could not remember the title or authors, but I managed to locate it online, and I'm so happy I did! Everything about this cook book is excellent! The main format is one I prefer, one recipe per page including a color photo and using a reasonable amount of readily-available ingredients. The authors also add several great features, like recipes to use with the leftovers you generate, and recipes that begin with what you might already have on hand and need to use. While the book seems to be directed to families with younger kids (there is a toddler chapter) my 11 and 13 year old daughters and my husband have enjoyed everything I've prepared from this book so far. And so have I! After all of the positive comments I have made, it must be said that this book stays on my cookbook rack on the counter, I use it weekly, and have yet to taste something that I would not make again. I can highly recommend this wonderful book.I'm just sorry that the magazine which inspired it (Cookie) is no longer being printed, because it must have been terrific too!

This is a revolution in cookbooks, geared completely toward the busy family cook who wants the best tips for quick, painless, delicious meals to put on the table. The set up is beautiful, with sections geared toward your cooking mood. Have a lot of time, why not do cook-ahead preparations for the week? Short on time- go for the main ingredient based section to see what you can whip up. The recipes are inventive, flavorful, and give lots of wiggle room (aka variation ideas) to work with.

When you have as many low rated reviews as you do good reviews you've got to figure there's something wrong with the cookbook. But I purchased this cookbook just for the chapter Strategic Sunday Dinner. It's the same premise as  Semi-Homemade Money Saving Meals (Sandra Lee Semi Homemade)  meaning you cook some big meal on Sunday and then use the leftovers to transform into other meals for the next 3 days. The goal is to make it to Wednesday.The first recipe for Sunday is Flank Steak, grilled vegetables, and corn bread. Then you're to turn the flank steak into summer rolls w/dipping sauce, mexican steak & eggs, and then cuban sloppy joes. The excess grilled vegetables then become pasta & bean soup, chicken paprikash, and jambalaya. The corn bread then becomes corn griddle cakes, oven-fried catfish (cornbreading), and then vegetable pakorsas.I also loved the chapter "8 things to do on the weekend" and it was to make a marinara sauce, boil a pot of beans, roast a chicken, caramelize onions, make a vinaigrette, wash greens, blanch vegetables, mix a chili blend, and freeze ginger garlic and onion ice cubes. I regularly make a crockpot of spaghetti sauce and let it simmer in the crockpot all day to use through the week. This recipe for marinara was good but I would suggest getting  Saving Dinner: The Menus, Recipes, and Shopping Lists to Bring Your Family Back to the Table . She has a 40garlic chicken that is awesome and I really liked the sauces she has a little better than this one. But it's all personal taste.A fair number of the recipes are ethnic inspired. There's avgolemono soup, lamb, coconut chicken curry, borscht soup, buttermilk avocado soup, etc...some of the recipes might be a turnoff to small children. I like trying new things so you be the judge whether your family will eat it.The pictures are good quality, the pages are glossy so they'll wipe clean, it delivers on what it says.

Fantastic book. My son, who was getting pickier and pickier, got totally inspired looking through and choosing recipes and agreed to try a huge number of new things. He didn't like them all, but I still consider it a huge win.

loved the pictures and the time saving tips..