Time for Dinner: Strategies, Inspiration, and Recipes for Every Night of the Week

Guest post by Gillian Behnke, VancouverMom.ca Reviewer.

I have never been the most confident chef, and it was only when our second child was born that I really embraced cooking. Now back at work after maternity leave, I jumped at the chance to review Time for Dinner: Strategies, Inspiration, and Recipes for Every Night of the Week editors Pilar Guzman, Jenny Rosenstrach and Alanna Stang, it seemed like just what I needed to maintain my status as Queen of my kitchen.

The book grabbed my interest right away with its bright, colourful layout and playful attitude. The first thing you read before the table of contents says: “What you are holding in your hands is more parenthood playbook than cookbook. It takes into account that some days, you feel like Supermom, ready to prep for four days’ worth of meals; and some days, it’s all you can do to slather a little peanut butter and jelly on bread and yes, call it dinner.”

They had me at “slather.” Chapter titles invite even the most defeated mom to turn the pages – “The Family Kitchen,” “Do Sandwiches Count?” and my personal favourite, “If I Could Just Make It To Wednesday.” The book is filled with helpful tips, tricks and ideas to help moms maintain some semblance of order in their kitchens, enabling them to create easy, healthy meals throughout the entire week. With drawings and diagrams they teach readers how to stock “The Essential Pantry,” The Essential Fridge” and “The Essential Freezer,” ensuring the right ingredients will always be on hand when you need them.

The authors have created several meal plans, starting with “Strategic Sunday Dinners” that use ingredients whose leftovers are then incorporated into other meals throughout the week. I understand the concept and in fact think it’s genius, but I also know myself and I tend to get bored of dishes pretty quickly. Taking Sunday’s Roasted Kabocha Squash and then making Rigatoni with Squash, Cheddar-Squash Muffins and Curried Squash Soup during the week might be enough for me to take the next squash I see and throw it right out the window! It’s a time saver, a cost saver and a cool idea, I just don’t know how it would work in my house.

Time for Dinner has SO many good things going for it, but then it also feels like it’s trying to do too much at once. It has a section on rolling out solid food to a baby, but if you already have kids in the age ranges mentioned elsewhere in the book, haven’t you already been through the whole “when can my baby eat peas?” scenario? I’m just not sure which mom they’ve written the book for, unless one mom is supposed to read it very slowly over a few years!

My other favourite chapter title is “I Want Something Simple, Fast, and Hard to Screw Up.” This chapter had me written all over it with one small glitch. Of the 32 recipes included in the section, only about three really appealed to me. It was interesting as another section of the book offers tips on dealing with picky eaters, but the recipes in this chapter included things like Bibimbap and Avgolemono. Our son isn’t that picky an eater, but I know without even trying that neither of these soup-ish dishes would be up his alley. And don’t get me wrong, the kid likes his soup! The same goes for the other recipe sections. I have a pretty varied palate and like lots of different types of food, but none of the dishes grabbed me and made me want to start cooking. I love a cookbook where the recipes and pictures excite and inspire me, and this book left me a bit disappointed in that area. Everyone has different tastes, so I still urge you to give it a try as the recipes might call out to you!

I want to love this book, and can whole-heartedly recommend most of it. The tips and tricks alone are enough to make it worth the $19 on Amazon. I will absolutely be using the advice, just maybe not a lot of the recipes.

Gillian Behnke is a blogger at Finding My Weigh, where she writes about the joys and challenges of motherhood and her quest to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Gillian is also the marketing manager for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, BC/Yukon Region. She lives in North Vancouver with her husband, her three year old son and eleven month old daughter.

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