Member Reviews
This was a useful reminder but also something that I would give my teenage children to practise on before they leave home. Some of the recipes I had worked out for myself so it amused me to see them in a book.
I would have liked more photos.
I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.
This cookbook is organized into "available time" rather than "kind of dish." It is designed to help the time-conscious cook with dinner planning. In the "20 minutes or less" section you can create a "Mac and Cheese with Candied Sausage and Green Peas." In "40 minutes " you can create a hearty "Vegetable Stew with Blue Corn Chips and Poached Egg." If you have "60 minutes" you can make "Sweet and Spicy Turkey Taco Salad." It is easy to learn a new recipe with the ingredients paired side-by-side with the instructions. One thing I like about this cookbook is however much time you have, you can find a recipe to help you get dinner on the table in this busy world we live in. Thanks to NetGalley and Shadow Mountain Publishers for a copy for an honest review.
This cookbook has a lot of potential but I just don't see myself reaching for it to make meals. I am okay with processed foods but it felt too processed. I also struggling with the layout. It is setup by time to cook meals. This was supposed to be a dinner cookbook. It felt more like an any meal cookbook, with lunches, appetizers and breakfast. Just not organized in a way that worked for my brain and meal planning.
Thank you to Shadow Mountain Publishing and NetGalley for the digital ARC!
This cookbook was an interesting read. The recipes were organized according to the amount of time that they took and was very clearly geared towards busy moms and beginner cooks who need help with planning meals. I liked this organization method, as it makes it easier to search for recipes that fit within the amount of time you have to make them.
Another cool thing in the recipes themselves is that the ingredients are grouped according to the recipe's steps. Again, I really liked this because it lets you easily know which ingredients you'll need first.
There were also pictures for every recipe, which I found helpful as it let me see what the finished recipes would look like.
The recipes themselves were fairly simple. Most of the first recipes were basically just ways to organize premade food from a supermarket deli or sprucing up canned or boxes meals like mac and cheese. Then they moved on to more homemade recipes and moves up in complexity as the amount of prep and cook time went up.
I saw some recipes that I might want to try, but not as many as I had hoped. Of course, this is my personal preference and I'm sure many people may find more of these recipes that they would want to try.
The author also added a blurb for every recipe and while some of them were fun to read, others felt like they were too long and didn't always fit with the recipe.
Overall, I think this could be a good starter cookbook for beginning cooks and busy moms.
20-40-60-Minute Dinners: Meals to Match the Time You Have is a good mix of any kind of recipe you may be looking for. The recipes range from very, very easy to somewhat harder. The best thing is that those who don't have a lot of time to fix a good meal after work will find recipes and ideas in this book.
My thought as I perused the pages of this cookbook, is this would make the perfect gift for kids going to college or moving out on their own. This would also make a great wedding present for newlyweds. There is an array of categories in which you can find something that everyone will like.
College-Style Dinners
Quick-Prep Dinners
Slow-Cooker Dinners
Frozen Dinners
Time-Consuming Dinners
Breakfast
Baking and Candy
I really liked the author's stories as she told of why she baked or cooked certain things for her family. It was fun to have a story with the recipes. It felt like reading a novel and not just a cookbook. I also liked how Prep Time, Cook Time, and Servings are also included with each recipe. There are also beautiful photos to go with the recipes. Also included are special instructions and guidelines for those with Gluten Free needs. My favorite recipe I enjoyed in the book was the Asian-Style Chicken Salad Bar with the Tortilla Soup coming in a close second. My favorite activity the author talked about is how to engage in "Table Talk" with your family and keep everyone at the table to eat and talk.
If you are looking for a gourmet cookbook you won't find it here. If you are looking for some quick and easy recipes and meal-planning ideas, 20-40-60-Minute Dinners is the cookbook for you.
-Thanks NetGalley and Shadow Mountain for the review ecopy.
I want to thank Netgalley and the Author for gifting me the ebook. This is a perfect cookbook for easy fast simple recipes. If you are learning to cook and put together a meal this will be perfect for you. It is also good for someone who likes to cook and is looking for some simple recipes with simple everyday items people already have in their house.
I read this on my kindle, and I don’t know if that was the best format for me! It was a little funky on the kindle app which made it hard to read. I love the pictures- both real ones and illustrations! The illustrations made it a little more unique! Great recipes with items most people have in their house too which is always a plus in a cookbook.
This cookbook was ok. It has a large number of processed ingredients, which is not really my thing. It's set up in a unique way, which is helpful for busy families. I found a couple of recipes that I would try, but unfortunately not too many as I try to stay away from processed foods.
Yes Please!
Always looking for quick easy weeknight dinners and there are so many good ones in this book!
Cannot wait to try them all !
This is a cookbook that has lots of great recipes that are quick and easy. There is anything from appetizers to main menus to some goodies that look delicious like the brownies and sugar cookies which I will be making this weekend. As I was scrolling through all of recipes i believe I would like everyone of the dinners. I am going to try a cook pot recipe tomorrow that looks absolutely delicious. I highly recommend this book I would go as far as saying this book is one of my top 5 cookbooks
This is a pretty fun cookbook. Loved the quick options. Definitely has some gluten free options which is helpful for people. But probably isn’t one I would use regularly.
I really love this cookbook! I have been working full-time recently and my time to make dinner is limited. This cookbook has helped me out tremendously! I really love the quick meals and the crockpot meals. My children love them too (always a BIG plus!). I look forward to continuing to explore the meals in this cookbook!
I love the idea of this cookbook because seriously, who isn't busy these days? These meals are simple and easy to put together after a busy day. Very family friendly and the photos are mouth-watering. There are many recipes I will be trying soon!
This cookbook starts out extremely basic, with "recipes" that aren't really recipes, just telling you what to gather from the store, deli, restaurant, or your pantry/fridge to have some "college-style" meals (they don't realy seem college-style to me, just quick on-the-go type meals), e.g., how to make a "toothpick dinner" with meats, cheese, and fruits you can eat with toothpicks or how to grab deli chicken and deli salads for a picnic-style meal. With that basic beginning, I think this is really more of a beginner/newly married cookbook. I was hoping, from the title, for more ideas for a busy mom/family. There are some really delicious-sounding recipes in this book, but a lot of them can also be found in other cookbooks. The book does progress to more intermediate and advanced recipes and covers a wide range of styles, from slow cookers to sushi to breads, desserts, and candies. Lots of the recipes are available in other books; there aren't a lot of new or unique recipes here that other authors haven't already published, just the formatting/set-up of the book. There are some food combinations presented that are very odd and I'm guessing are very niche to the author's family (pancakes with a side of smokey carrots??), but there are only a few of those. With the basic beginning to the cookbook, I think this would be a great gift for female college students and also as a wedding/bridal shower gift.
There is a very strong gluten-free focus to this cookbook, as the author herself mentions several times that she needs those types of recipes for her personal health issues. With that heavy focus, I wish the title/cover/promotional material focused more on marketing this book as a gluten-free cookbook instead of the 20-40-60 minute aspect, as I think that is the better marketing approach for this particular cookbook with how strong that focus is in this cookbook and I think a lot of cooks who need gluten-free recipes would pass over this book without knowing that every single recipe in this book has a gluten-free disclaimer or alternative or is completely gluten-free.
The author gives background on each recipe and how it fits into her family dynamic, some from her grandmas and great-grandmas to her own. There is also a full-color photo for each recipe, as well as an illustration relating to the recipe on the opposite page from the photo. I didn't understand why there was an illustration until over halfway through the book when the author comments about her daughter wanting to illustrate a cookbook, so I'm assuming that's where the illustrations come from and how they fit into the book.
I went back-and-forth on how to rate this book, between 3 and 4 stars, but ended up settling on 4 stars as I think it is a great cookbook, but I do think it isn't going to be a cookbook for the majority of cooks and that the title is a misnomer and that the marketing needs to focus more on the gluten-free aspects of this book. I like the set-up with the 20-40-60 minute dinners, but again I feel that is less about what this cookbook is about and that it really is a better gluten-free cookbook than a time-management cookbook.
This book was overall a solid idea, and I'm glad I read through it. I liked how there are gluten-free alternatives and other ways to add variety to the recipes. I liked how the book was organized and the overall variety of the meals presented. There were a couple I would definitely try out myself! However, my main disappointment was that so many of the 20 and 40 minute meals included just going to the grocery store to buy basically the whole meal as-is (like a charcuterie board or deli fried chicken), which is why I rated this 3 stars. Overall I love the concept of this and would be happy to explore more 20-40-60 minute style books!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review "20-40-60- Minute Dinners." I was very excited to review this book, because I am always looking for good fast recipes, the last thing I want to do after getting home from work is to take an hour to cook dinner so this cookbook seemed perfect. The table of contents showed an interesting grouping for the type of meals. College Style, Slow Cooker, Frozen, and Breakfast were some of the categories. The images in the cookbook left little to be desired, they were not very flattering and seemed like an amateur cooked these meals. The pictures in a cookbook are the main reason I would buy or make any of the recipes, if they don't look appetizing there should be drawn images which there were some. Overall the concept of the cookbook is great the execution could have been better.
What a great idea for a book! Thank you Netgalley for sharing this. It was filled with great ideas and east to follow directions.
The concept of this book was intriguing- different meals for different amounts of prep time- but the overall result was poor. The majority of the recipes in this book were very basic white American meals. Some could barely even qualify as a "recipe"- one was literally just buying a bunch of pre-made food and having a picnic, another was a bowl of boxed mac and cheese with Goldfish crackers sprinkled on top. None of the meals were particularly healthy or nutritious either. Each recipe was preceded by a large chuck of text with an anecdote or story by the author. Unless you are a celebrity (and even then it's still grating) a cookbook should be focused on the meals themselves, not the life story of the chef.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book wasn't what I expected.
The book is broken down by time - if it takes 20, 40, or 60 minutes. However not all of the recipes are actually recipes. I'm a believer in not everything needs to be made from scratch, a lot of these recipes are putting pre-made items together. One of the recipes is literally going to the store and buying a main dish and sides which isn't a recipe, but also not something I think you need a recipe book for.
It's an interesting idea and there are some helpful ideas if you're in a time crunch and new to cooking, but not for me.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC! I loved how this book was structured, and the introduction at the beginning with the tips for what to have in your kitchen, how it’s organized, and key things in your pantry that should allow you to make most of the dishes in the book was a great addition. At the end and beginning of each chapter of recipes was a nice inclusion, and I loved the little asides with tips for things like grocery shopping and shelf-life for goods. I also wasn’t expecting a whole section on breads and desserts but it was so welcome. However, a lot of the recipes themselves were not what i really expected and beyond the last section, I didn't find too many recipes I thought I would personally try. 3.5 stars rounded to 4