Review: surprised this little gem is free
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2012
As the title "SMART SCHOOL TIME RECIPES: The Breakfast, Snack, and Lunchbox Cookbook for Healthy Kids and Adults" makes clear, this eBook is mainly aimed at parents who want to create healthy but quick breakfasts and lunches for their tikes. However, it's great for anyone who never seems to have enough time in the morning before they rush off to work or for employees -- especially teachers like me! -- who need to eat in a rush or at their desk. Not all of the recipes are golden, but that's true of any cookbook -- even my two favorites,20-minute Menus - Time-wise Recipes & Strategic Plans For Freshly Cooked Meals Every DayandEating Well Is the Best Revenge, both by Marian Fox Burros.The recipes are geared to the über healthy -- only one recipe contains real milk, most of these recipes are vegetarian or vegan, there's very little in the way of even whole-wheat flour, and the like. (That's not surprising as the author and the other contributors tend to be dairy- and gluten-free.) However, all are easily adaptable to how you and your family likes to eat. Can't stand the thought of spelt flour? (Count me in that club!) Then you can easily switch to whole-wheat or even all-purpose bleached flour. The thought of grinding blanched almonds to make your own blanched almond flour when you have so many papers to grade is making your skin crawl? You can easily substitute whatever you normally use. The same goes for vegan mayonnaise, quinoa pasta, sea salt, soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, garbanzo bean flour, tofurky, and the rest.It's got a lot of great healthy recipes that would appeal to families that don't subscribe to any special diets or aren't even particularly health conscious: Frosted Cherry "Pop-Tart" Pancakes, Pear and Raspberry Breakfast Crumble, White Bean Dip, Lentil Carrot Stew, various bulgar salads, Chicken and Avocado Salad, Take-Along Taco Bar, Veggie Packed Sloppy Joes, Corndog Muffins, and more. And anyone who has eaten at P.F. Chang's will love the P.F. Chang's China Bistro Chicken Fried Rice.Some of the recipes are really money savers, too: Making your own instant oatmeal packets, taco seasoning, pesto, Honey Mustard Chicken Strips, and Caesar salad dressing.One caveat: "Smart School Time Recipes" DOES NOT have a table of contents. However, you can make your own by bookmarking the beginning of each section and then highlighting the titles of the recipes you'll be using. It's not as good as a real table of contents, but, considering the eBook is free, you can't really expect the production values of a book publishing house.Especially at the price (free), you'll want to add "Smart School Time Recipes" to your Kindle or eBook reader.