Cookbook review!

I have blogged before that I am always looking for new ways to save money by our menu planning. Therefore, I thought that I would start to try some new cookbooks and see if I could gain more recipes that I use to vary my monthly meal plan without killing my budget.

Let me preface this review to add that my children think that this is a horrid idea since they believe that I set out to ruin their lives daily by creating new recipes that vary away from their most desired meatless pasta set.

That is neither here nor there I suppose, but here we go...

Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds from Your Monthly Food Bill
is a very interesting cookbook. Half recipes, half stories, I actually found it a very enjoyable read. She is an adoptive mama of 10 children total, so that already gives her an edge in my world. She starts her cookbook out with all the tips she uses to prepare her grocery list and her short cuts to saving money. Some hints were pretty much common sense, but if you are new to the whole saving money thing I could see how they were useful.

She spoke a lot about stockpiling which I am a firm believer of, but sadly...SHE DOESN'T USE COUPONS! That about ruined it for me right there ladies! However if you stop and think about it, She has 10 children. Ummmm I am thinking I would have a lot less time to mess with coupons if I had 10 kiddos running around. Just sayin.

Anyway, I suppose the lesson to be learned is that if we follow her recipes, suggestions AND use coupons we can have family feasts for less than 75 a week. Of course I tried to spend less than 75 a week on my meals before I read the cookbook.

So I would rate the cookbook as a nice budget cookbook. She has two children that are adopted internationally from 2 different countries so she is fairly heavy on the ethnic food recipes. For me, I enjoy that...my kids will of course think I sit around all day thinking of ways to keep them from getting dessert.

There also is sections on helping you plan your grocery list, rotating menus as well as how to stockpile and store your goods. Her recipes are not overly complicated and she does a great job at making the directions clear. I did use the garlic cheddar biscuit recipe just to try one out and it was YUMMY!(and simple)

So final verdict? I am planning on purchasing this cookbook actually. She does a great job of varying her menu and there are many, many recipes that are intriguing and cost efficient for me to use to give my life some variety. Since I recipe plan monthly this is a big thing for me otherwise we end up having the same meals month after month. Good for my kids, boring for me.

What cookbooks would you like to know about?