Rating: 
Summary: Buyer beware!
Review: If you are not a devout Christian, you may find this book as offensive as I did. There I was, thinking I was going to get a cookbook to help me get homemade meals on the table a little more often...but what I got was a bunch of proverbs to begin each chapter, and a table talk discussion guide (excuse me, but I think I know how to talk to my own family) that was filled with Jesus questions. As a Jew, it offends me to have spent my money on a religious tract when there was no hint whatsoever that that was what I was purchasing. The funny thing is, if I had known ahead of time that it was full of religious content, I could have made a decision to just ignore it and try the delicious-sounding recipes. But being blindsided by the authors and the publishers left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm unable to even consider trying them. The book is back in the box, on its way back to Amazon. I hope the next person who gets it is at least forewarned.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Idea, Not a Great Book
Review: I love the idea of "once a month cooking" and ordered this book with high hopes. I have to say that it is something of a dissappointment. There IS some useful info in the book [how to prepare for cooking day & freezing tips, etc], but it could all be contained in a 10 page booklet, easily. [Not worth [price]by any stretch of the imagination]. The book begins with a short intro explaining the theory behind OAMC that is pretty helpful and then moves into the "menu cycles", which are highly repetitive [to the extreme]. [The book includes 3 two week cycles and 2 one month cycles]. You get the same "preparation" pages before each cycle, and many of the recipes are repeated two and three times. The recipes themselves are a problem - most of them are loaded with fat and rely heavily on prepackaged "convenience foods" to cook [ie: velveeta cheese, canned soup, refrigerated biscuit dough, roll dough, pizza dough, jarred salsa, etc] . There is one two week "low fat" cycle included, but even that relies heavily on the convenience foods and most of them don't look very healthy to me. [many of them just substitute "low fat" or "fat free" convenience foods for the regular stuff]. For anyone who would like to have a more healthful diet or who would prefer to cook "real" food from scratch, the recipes are useless. I am glad I bought this book just in that I now understand the theory and can use it to adapt my own recipes to a 2 week or 30 day cycle, but I really can't recommend that anyone buy this book - check it out of your library and take what is useful to you. It really isn't worth the price. [Or, search on the internet - you could probably find more useful information on OAMC that way for free without even leaving your home].
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Cookbook Ever!
Review: After a long day of work, who wants to come home and cook for another hour? With this book, I came home DAILY to wonderful homecooked meals, and all I had to do was put it on the stove or in the oven! My husband is very picky, but liked every recipie in the book! It's so easy, they even include a premade shopping list, so you dont have to do any meal planning. I thank my wonderful Mother-in-law for this great find!
Rating: 
Summary: Success in the kitchen!
Review: This is a good book for walking you through the process of once-a-month cooking. I could not use the high fat recipes, but was able to devise my own plan and carry it out using the guidelines included in the book. I simply substituted my low fat recipes and worked from there. OAMC has been a great success here because of this book. This book motivated me to do more Net searching on OAMC. I will be doing more of this type of cooking in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Great advice and tips on how to start cooking once a month
Review: Introduction Chapter 1-Cooking the once-a-month way
*Overview
*Starting up
*Grocery Shopping Hints
*The Day before Cooking Day
*Food Storage & Freezer Tips
*Serving Suggestions
*Equipment Needed
I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who is a vegetarian or vegan since a lot of the meals in this cookbook contain meat. I would recommend this book for anyone who eats a variety of chicken dishes. This cookbook has lots of chicken recipes in it. For each recipe, it gives you suggestions on what you can serve with it.
Chapter 7-There is over 100 conversation starters and table talk questions Chapter 2-6, & Chapter 8 are full of recipes you can freeze. Chapter 9-Adapting the once-a-month cooking method
*Choosing Recipes
*Making a Memo Calander
*Figuring Shopping & Stapes
*Setting up an Assembly Order
*Evaluating Your Plan Chapter 10-Special Helps
*Equivalent Measures
*Food Handling Tips
*Freezer Storage Tips
Rating:
Summary: This is crazy but worth it!
Review: This was the craziest weekend I ever spent in my kitchen but I am sold on this process. I have two small children and work full time, so this was the answer I was looking for to the dinner time dilemma. Everything is so well laid out for you, from shopping lists to prep and cooking order. The recipes are simple but taste good. For those of you who worry about finding the room in your freezer, the two week plan doesn't take up a lot of space in an average size freezer. Start with that and take it from there. Everyone thought I was nuts to attempt this until they realized that we were eating like kings without any weekday effort. Buy this book if you want to spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family.
Rating:
Summary: Freedom
Review: Recently retired and hated at 4:00 saying what are we going to have for dinner. Also got stuck making the same 5 receipes. Hurray Freedom. The recipes are great, a wide variety. Since they serve from 4 to 12, we put them in serving of 3-4 and if we have company I just pull out 2 sets. Being retired we don't eat as much so the last batch lasted almost 6 months. We do have lots of company though. Anyway it has been great. We even have cooked the 15 day receipes for gift for friends and relatives. They have loved them. Its nice when someone moves in or ill, that I can just take a meal over to them. Its always greatly appreciated. We love it, and plan to cook next week our 5th time of cooking.
Rating:
Summary: Too much work for too little reward
Review: I was attracted by the concept of this book - home-cooked meals there when there wasn't time to prepare them. I decided to try the two week entre plan first and gradually assembled the ingredients over a couple of weeks. I set aside a Sunday when I knew I could work almost undisturbed. This was some marathon! Discounting preparation the night before and clear-up it took me nearly 12 hours. Still, I thought it may be worth it. The draw backs of the meals are the necessity to plan and remember to defrost the night before (they take at least this long to thaw). My family are also less than enthusiastic about the recipes and also claim they have that frozen taste. I may use a few of the recipes in future and cook those in bulk (the spaghetti sauce was good) but otherwise this is not a project for our family.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but check their math
Review: This book is fabulous - I recieved it for Christmas a few years ago and kept intending to try it out. Now, with a newborn and the end of my maternity leave nearing, I decided it was time. I did have my mom help me - it's easier to have someone else wrangling kids and tell you when it's time to take a break. The recipes are delicious, but double-check their shopping lists. I came home with ground pork that wasn't in any of the recipes and ran short of a few other items.
Rating: 
Summary: New Edition?
Review: I just recieved my new edition of Once-A-Month Cooking first written in 1986. I was dissapointed in the fact that the only new things added were a two week plan and table talk questions in the back(okay there may be a few more things). On the front cover it says that they are now including a low fat recipe plan but that was included in the old book. All of the recipes are the same as well. I am in favor of the book and love the idea which I will be trying myself soon, but was hoping to see new recipes so that some friends and I could trade books. Anyway, do recommend the book but was only dissapointed in the new edition.
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