A stay-at-home mom who, over a five-year span of time, saved $24,000 from her family’s grocery budget, has definitely got my attention!  When that same mom says she can show me how her money-saving plan can save me time in the kitchen, so I have more time to focus on family, service and recreation, I’m going to take notes!

Imagine a life where you don’t have to stop and wonder what to fix for dinner.  Would you like to be able to quickly put together a meal for a friend who is ill or throw a freezer meal baby shower for an expectant mom?  What single do you know who wouldn’t love a month’s worth of single-serving freezer meals as a birthday or Christmas gift?  You can easily provide each one of those gratefully received services by learning and using the techniques taught in Frozen Assets.

Frozen Assets, published by Sourcebooks, Inc, was Deborah’s first in a two-book series on the time and money-saving techniques of freezer (or once-a-month) cooking.  The concept is fairly simple: cook for a day, eat for a month.  Whoa!  The “practice” of the concept suddenly seems “less simple”.  But it’s not.  Frozen Assets provides recipes, precise shopping lists, menu plans, and step-by-step instructions for your cooking day.  Deborah provides  all the necessary information for  wrapping, freezing, storage, and labeling your meals so none of your hard work ever goes to waste.  Nothing is left to chance and every question is answered, so that you can put a month’s worth of dinners in the freezer in just one day.   Novice cooks can use the meal plans straight from the book and not have to adjust a thing .

But, here’s the part I really get excited about.  Not every recipe in this book will suit the tastes of my own family.  Ms. Hough didn’t craft a book that requires you to eat only what her family would eat.   This cookbook is more about the system than the recipes.  I view the recipes as a “bonus”.  Her “cook for a day, eat for a month” plan is artfully explained, so veteran cooks who want to utilize their own recipes can prepare the meals their families love and save time and money doing it.  You will learn the detailed steps for how to create your own menu plan, devise a money-saving shopping list, and organize step-by-step plans for prep-day.  The appendices of the book even include reproducible, blank forms to help you do it.

Still concerned at tackling a month’s worth of meals?  No worries!  Frozen Assets also includes a complete Two-Week Plan!  The same detailed recipes, shopping lists and prep-day instructions are included for those who want to start smaller and work up to a once-a-month plan.  It even includes a freeze-ahead plan for your holiday cooking, leaving you to enjoy the festivities instead of being harnessed to your kitchen..  Adapt and utilize these recipes, ideas and techniques to fit your needs and resources.  The time and money saved will be worth the effort.

Frozen Assets gives tips on saving at the grocery store, what food items freeze or don’t freeze well, reducing fat in recipes, and how singles can benefit from once-a-month cooking.  This book will be an irreplaceable resource in your kitchen.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Attraction of Frozen Assets

Chapter 2: Help! My Freezer is Too Small and other Frequently Asked Questions

Chapter 3: A Day in the Life of Frozen Assets

Chapter 4: The Ins and Outs of Meal Planning

• Getting started with ease
• Menu choice and planning for the trail blazers
• Making a list and checking it twice
• Shopping tips
• Steps for a successful cooking experience
• Freezing
• Thawing, serving and power outages
• Twelve additional cooking tips
• Frozen assets preparation steps

Chapter 5: The Thirty-Day Meal Plan

• The thirty-day meal line-up
• Shopping list
• Preparation Plan
• Recipes – Sauce over pasta, baked ziti, lazy lasagna, meatball sandwhiches, meatloaf, Salisbury steak, broccoli-ham bake, scalloped potatoes and ham, mix-n-match chicken soup, chicken broccoli and rice, sweet and sour meatballs, chili-day meatballs, chicken broccoli and noodles, mexi-chicken

Chapter 6: The Two-Week Meal Plan

• The two-week meal line-up
• Shopping list
• Preparation plan
• Recipes – chicken curry, texas style chili, spaghetti pie, broccoli quiche, sloppy Joes, stuffed peppers, poor man’s casserole, black beans and rice, lentil-rice soup, east Indian rice ring

Chapter 7: Ten-day Holiday Meal Plan

• Ten-day holiday meal line-up
• Shopping list
• Preparation Plan
• Recipes – turkey dinner, broccoli and ham bake, turkey rice, Texas style chili, sauce over pasta, lasagna, easy taco salads, turkey noodle soup, turkey stuffed manicotti, baked ziti, ham and cheese quiche, holiday breakfast casserole.

Chapter 8: More Main Dish Dinner Recipes

• bulk spaghetti sauce, lazy lasagna, calzones, baked ziti, spaghetti pie, meatloaf, meatballs, Salisbury steak, sweet-sour meatballs, chili-day meatballs, East-Indian meatballs, East-Indian rice ring, Tomato-sauced meatballs, Meatball stroganoff, California meatballs, all purpose ground meat mix, tacos, taco potatoes, easy taco salads, stuffed peppers, sloppy Joes, Texas Style chili, poor man’s casserole, mexi-chicken, chicken casserole, chicken broccoli, chicken creole, turkey-stuffed manicotti, turkey rice, crab and swiss quiche, basic “use it up” quiche, quiche Lorraine, chicken elegante, quiche Nicoise, green chili and cheese pie, crustless “use it up” quiche, stuffed potato shells, broccoli ham bake, scalloped potatoes and ham, split pea soup with ham, lentil-rice soup, lentil ranchero, black beans and rice, Mexican noodle bake, beef and bean burritos, enchilada pie, pizza blanks

Chapter 9: Breakfasts, Lunches, Desserts and Mixes

• Breakfast ideas and tips
• Lunch ideas and tips
• Dessert ideas and tips
• Holiday breakfast casserole, McBreakfast, breakfast burritos, Mix-n-match quick bread, mix-n-match soup, Debi’s million dollar chocolate chip cookies, multi-purpose baking mix, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, shortcake, snack cake, dumplings, pizza crust

Chapter 10: 100 Money-Saving Tips and Ideas for Groceries

• General money-saving food tips
• Saving strategies for grocery shopping
• Food purchasing specifics
• Breakfast ideas
• Lunch tips
• Dinner meal stretchers

Appendices

• Appendix A: Foods that don’t freeze well
• Appendix B: Recipe equivalents
• Appendix C: Tips for singles
• Appendix D: Reducing fat in recipes
• Appendix E: Creative uses for freezer meals
• Appendix F: Recommended resources

Index and worksheets

• Blank calendar for cooking plans
• Add your own recipe pages
• Blank shopping list
• Recipe index by main ingredient

I received a complimentary copy of “Frozen Assets” from Sourcebooks, Inc., in order to write this review.  No monetary compensation was received and the views expressed in this review are wholly my own.