Jeanne Muchnick

It was always my plan to have my family eat dinner at least a few nights a week at the table together, but despite my best intentions it has never really been sucessful. Juggling the schedules of four picky eaters aged 4 - 14, mine and my husband's work hours and commitments make it almost impossible. Most nights I cook up to four separate meals. My younger kids won't eat this, my husband won't eat that, my oldest daughter isn't home from training until 2 hours after dinner etc *sigh*Dinner For Busy Moms is a practical guide to making mealtimes less stressful and treat it as quality time for the family. There are tips and strategies to work with most situations and involving almost every age group. While the book emphasises the positives of a family meal time, the author is careful to repeat that it is more important to find what works for your family than place it under more pressure. Ideally of course every meal would be a family occassion but if you can manage only a night or two a week, or even a month, then the author recommends you do that. I appreciate the motivational tone the book maintains through out.Along with the helpful tips for getting the family to the table, the book includes strategies for planning and prepping meals. I can attest to the success of meal planning - with such picky eaters in the family planning ahead works well for me. I have a 4 week schedule that repeats itself. There are some nights when meals get swapped or subbed or we get takeway instead but it saves me a lot of time and worry over nightly menus. I always use a shopping list (once it was paper, now its an app) and since I know what I need I can make real savings when something is on special. Dinner For Busy Moms also covers things like reading food labels, food safety and online resources. There is a small collection of recipes, meal ideas and basic cooking tips, but it's not the focus of the book.What I really liked best about Dinner for Busy Moms is I now feel a lot less guilty about the days when I give up and allow one of the kids to have peanut butter sandwiches and an apple for dinner while the others eat the homemade rissoles that took me an hour to make, or when I am just too exhausted to cook and everyone has a big bowl of (no sugar)cereal. I am really glad to find I am not the only mother who does this!Dinner for Busy Mom's is a motivational book for parents who are struggling with meal times, I know I have already chosen a night, time and menu for a meal at the table with the entire family this week which I hope to continue.Ive added a recipe on my blog that other busy moms might like www.bookdout.wordpress.com… (mais)

This review was written for netGalley.

Jeanne Muchnick has written an encouraging book about the importance of family mealtimes. It is organized into eight very readable chapters that offer strategies for every aspect of creating a positive and healthy eating experience for your family. The first chapters are filled with facts and statistics about the value of making the most of this time with your kids. The most important message being the necessity of turning off the TV and electronics and actually facilitating conversation together. The middle chapters focus on the methods Muchnick practices for actually putting reasonably healthy meals on the table. Some of the best ones includes organizing your pantry, meal planning strategies, list making, what labels mean and how often to shop at the grocery store. She includes ways to get your children more excited about eating together by involving them in the process of shopping, prepping, cooking, setting the table and cleaning. She also devotes several sections to how to feed each age group (baby through teen). The last couple chapters give much needed encouragement to busy moms. Her message is simple. All Moms have felt inadequate at one time or another but if we stop beating ourselves up and accept our limitations (it's not necessary to be Julia Child) we can provide a happy environment for our family during mealtimes. There are some recipes in the back along with an index (even for the mom tips that are throughout the book) and many helpful websites but it's not a cookbook. At the end she mentions a desire to create a cookbook of recipes and calls for submissions and I for one would want that book. Recommended.… (mais)

Dinner for Busy Moms is not a recipe book. It is a book about why eating together is important, and tips and tricks for making that happen, even in the busiest families. It is a book about not feeling guilty for less-than-supermom kitchen performance, and how to make some babysteps toward improving family meal time. (Hint: Not all family meals need to be home cooking!)

This is a quick read. It's well organized into chapters such as shopping strategies, pantry organization, tips for different ages of children, etc. It has very attractive layout, with lots of illustrations and insets with tips from moms, cooking experts, and websites. It almost reads more like a magazine than a book, with lots of tidbits to attract your attention (or skip over) as you flip through the pages.… (mais)