Review: Overall, Pleasantly Surprised
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 6, 2012
On the plus side, there's an introduction and an "About the Authors" section, which is somewhat unusual in most of the e-cookbooks I review.  The introduction is fine, except for the typo of being "crunched for times."There's an introduction following the introduction, though, which is a bit odd.  However, the second introduction does contain some helpful practical information on freezing food.There is a table of contents which is available in the sample to review before buying.  There are hyperlinks to the different sections, but not to individual recipes.I was a bit disappointed in the tomato soup recipe since it's not really a homemade soup, but rather a canned ingredient with a little bit of touchup.  There's also only one soup recipe.  I was also disappointed to see meat shaping and packing instructions included as a "make and freeze recipe."The fried chicken recipe has a combination of ingredients I haven't seen before, so that's intriguing.  I've also never tried freezing chicken cooked in this way, so that's a new idea as well.I am absolutely THRILLED that some recipes have sauces but do NOT include "1 can cream of X soup" in the instructions.  (To be completely fair, some of them do, but it's a better sign.)The fruit pie instructions are also a new idea to me, and I'm intrigued by it.  I have to say, though, that the suggestion for leftover pie after the initial bake is one I haven't had a lot of luck with - heating pie in the microwave just isn't as good.  Luckily, leftover pie is rarely a problem in this house.The book says it includes a link to "a downloadable text file to help you keep track."  When I went and looked, this was not helpful to me.  It wasn't "downloadable" and was just the list of recipes.  Nice thought, but not really much of a selling point.All in all, though, this one gets 4 stars.  I liked it, I'm keeping this one, and I think I might have picked up a few things from it.