If you're looking for tested dinner recipes that you can trust, this is your cookbook! It includes tips and over 150 recipes, most of which are easy casseroles, freezer meals, slow cooker recipes, or ready-to-serve entrees. Also included are 'One Grocery Bag, Three Meals'; one grocery list is provided and three different recipes you can make using the ingredients that are then shown. The recipes are not too intimidating, and with cooler weather arriving, many are the perfect stews, soups, and casseroles that I, for one, am ready for.

Sarah M. / Marathon County Public Library
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Before The Make Ahead Cook by America’s Test Kitchen was due back at the library, we made five recipes from three of the eight sections of the book:

1. Chicken Baked in Foil with Potatoes and Carrots (we added leeks)
2. Classic Chicken Stew
3. White Chicken Chili
4. Indian Style Vegetable Curry
5. Curried Chicken and Brown Rice with Red Peppers

We didn't prepare anything from "From Fridge to Table" because with temps getting cooler, we want HOT food, and we didn't make anything from the "Stock the Freezer" section because we are already really pushing the limits of our freezer. The "Shop Smart" and "The Sunday Cook" are interesting ideas, but I'm not sure I'm likely to use those particular strategies.

This book is subtitled “8 Smart Strategies for Dinner Tonight,” but it should actually be called, “8 Smart Strategies for Dinner Tomorrow Night or Maybe Next Week Sometime” because all of the recipes require advance prep time (some require quite a lot of prep time) and can’t generally be made for eating the same day, at least not at my house.

The recipes we tried were all very good meals we would be happy to have again---the curries were my ten-year-old’s especial favorites---but I’m not sure if I’ll buy the book or not. Many of the recipes would need to be modified significantly to remove dairy and/or gluten, and we’ve not been eating red meat, so those recipes are off the list for us right now without omitting the meat or subbing ground turkey or something. I'll have to decide if the great recipes are great enough for us want to own this one.
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The recipes are tasty, but not as easy as I was expecting. Some of the slow cooker ones involve a whole lotta chopping, and others involve many steps and up to 45 minutes of cooking after you’ve supposedly done most of the work! I picked up a few good, not-too-difficult recipes (most notably, the beef barley soup) and some good tips for building flavor easily (from adding soy sauce to soup to nuking chopped onions in tomato paste and oil), but overall didn’t find it as helpful as I had expected. ( )

America’s Test Kitchen shuffles and gathers its recipes into various collections based on themes, and this one interested me: “recipes you can prepare on your schedule” via eight “make ahead” strategies.

The ~165 recipes for meat, fish, grain and vegetarian entrees (serving 4, 6, or 8 people) are accompanied by full-color photos of almost every prepared dish (but without nutrition info). They cover the “expected” strategies, for example slow-cooker meals; big-batch meals (eat half, freeze half); and casseroles or marinades where the time-consuming prep/assembly is done in advance.

But there’s also a “Sunday Cook” section, where leftover roasts become weeknight soups/fajitas/fried rices/etc. There’s a “Shop Smart” section, where a dozen ingredients mix and match over three days into three different meals. And there are sections for foods intentionally cooked ahead and then refrigerated, such as poaches/salads served cold, or stews/braises that develop flavors while resting before a quick reheat. Throughout, the editors include tips for ingredients, preparation, storage and freezing that overcome the typical problems that otherwise make such dishes scream “leftovers.”

LOL my desire is not so much to “cook ahead” as to “cook less often” (and plan/shop less often). So I most appreciated the Sunday Cook, the Shop Smart (every recipe here!), and the big-batch (especially the Beef and Bean Burritos) sections.

(Review based on a copy of the book provided by the publisher.) ( )