Saving Dinner: The Menus, Recipes, and Shopping Lists to Bring Your Family Back to the Table | 
| Author: Leanne Ely
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $6.50
You Save: $8.45 (57%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  254 reviews
Sales Rank: 26896
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0345464869
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.54
EAN: 9780345464866
ASIN: 0345464869
Publication Date: September 30, 2003
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Product Description
Certified nutritionist Leanne Ely has a simple philosophy: “Make it and they will come.” Dinner, that is. Take-out, opening a can, or microwave fare shouldn’t pass for a nice, healthy meal–and nothing can replace a family’s time together. Believe it or not, preparing dinner can be a stress-free endeavor. Even your time in the supermarket can be cut in half!
Full of practical tips on simple, healthy meal planning, Saving Dinner is the ideal solution for today’s busy parents who would love to have their family sitting around the dinner table once again–sharing stories along with a nutritious meal. Efficiently divided by season, each section features six weeks of menus with delicious recipes, side dish suggestions, and an itemized grocery list that is organized by product (dairy, meat, produce) to make one-stop shopping a snap. Plus the book is packed with helpful hints and short cuts in the kitchen that make cooking easier and more fun.
From Big Basil Burgers and Salmon Carbonara to Crockpot Chili and Spicy Apricot Chicken, Saving Dinner will have your family coming back to the table–and back again for seconds!
Leanne Ely is considered the expert on family cooking and healthy eating. Between her popular “Heart of a Woman” radio show in Southern California and her weekly “Food for Thought” column on the ever-popular Flylady.net Web site, thousands of fans have already discovered Leanne’s secrets to easily prepared, well-balanced meals.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 249 more reviews...
 An Easy and Successful Way to Menu-Plan June 9, 2008
This is such a great concept- and it works, if you are faithful to it.
I got cookbook/guide a while ago and used it haphazardly at first, choosing to follow it on some weeks and ignore it on others.
Then, a friend of mine who saw it at my house and ordered it started following it faithfully and told me of her good experiences with the book. I decided that I would give it a go, and have not been disappointed.
I have only skipped one recipe in the "schedule," called Beans and Greens, because I knew my family would not go for it, but I make all the others without prejudice. For instance, last night I made the Mexican Lasagne and even though I KNOW my daughter doesn't like beans/legumes, I put the black beans in the recipe anyway, just as it was written. Surprise! She loved it!
I am of the opinion that it is good to expose our kids to all kinds of different foods and not give in to their eating quirks and preferences or you end up creating the "mac and chese-only" monster.
My family has enjoyed every recipe I have made, and I spend far less time stressing over dinner. We have saved time, money and effort, and I can safely recommend this book now from EXPERIENCE.
One caveat I should mention- sometimes I notice that the author could be a little more clear in her instructions. If you are a brand new cook, you may run into some confusion over some of the recipes. I would suggest reading through them first and making sure you understand everything before you begin cooking. For example, in the recipe I cooked last evening (Mex. Lasagne), one of the ingredients listed was a can of enchilada sauce. A can? How many ounces? I couldn't find enchilada sauce at my grocery, so decided to make my own from a recipe, but I needed to know how many ounces of sauce to add to the recipe. I ended up doing a search on the internet and found that Ortega sells cans of Enchilada Sauce that are 10 oz. it would have been a lot easier if the ingredient list called for one 10 oz. can of enchilada sauce....
Still, a little creativity usually overcomes these few shortfalls. I still think the book is good enough to give it a 5 star rating.
 I already have a cookbook May 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really bought this book because I have two small girls and I wanted my family to be the family who cooks dinner every night and eats at the dinner table instead of feeding the babies and us eating later. So I thought this would be more of a workbook or something to help me accomplish this. Okay, so I already have cookbooks and I can honestly say I can write and use a grocery list. So this seems to be all this book is. A cookbook with a grocery list. If cookbooks and grocery lists did it for me, I would already be cooking dinner for the family every night.
Wow May 12, 2008
I really love this book. I took 2 weeks worth of recipes in this book, because I had 3/4 of the ingredients from 2 weeks worth already in my kitchen, and I created 1 weeks worth of dinners and the grocery lists. My husband and I were really amazed at the different types of foods we can cook for LESS than the monotonous food we were eating before. We now have variety for a lot less.
 simple recipes for good cooking while living abroad May 12, 2008
I received this book as a wedding present and didn't open it for the first year I owned it because the recipes were too simple for my husband's and my taste. We love to cook and love experimenting with flavors, and everything just seemed bland and unimaginative.
However, it was the only cookbook I brought during the time I spent in South America doing research for a few months. I love the joy of cooking complicated recipes for my husband at home and honestly, I was worried that without him I would be too lazy to cook healthy meals just for myself. Also, I knew that it would be difficult to get many different spices and I didn't want to buy things in bulk that I would not go through in two months.
When I got there, I realized that the nearest supermarket was ten blocks away, a distance I would have to walk with grocery bags, and that because my stay was only temporary, I didn't have all my kitchen supplies from home to use.
I have given a number of the recipes in this book a try, and while I still hold the same views I did before, I have to say that for someone who needs to eat simply and does not have a wide range of ingredients or kitchen tools, these recipes have turned out reliably well. I have made the garlic lime salmon (not the chicken, although I substituted chicken for the salmon, but it is a different recipe than the one everyone raves about) and pepper chicken. I was glad to have extras so I would not have to cook every day, which took the stress off.
So I would recommend this book for someone who needs simple recipes with easy-to-find ingredients.
Didn't like the things I tried April 21, 2008
I made 2 dishes from this book, followed recipes to the letter, and both came out poorly.
The Orange Chicken was so bad that we ended up tossing 4 chicken breasts, 4 cups of rice and a lot of fresh broccoli. The book seemed to cost me more than saved me time.
I am moving on to a few other books and giving this to someone who might want to take more chances than I.
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