Weekend Cooking: Feeding a Family by Sarah Waldman

What's my favorite kind of cookbook? One that helps me get a healthful, fresh dinner on the table even after a busy or stressful day of work. That's exactly what Sarah Waldman's Feeding a Family: A Real-Life Plan for Making Dinner Work (Roost Books; ISBN: 9781611803099; April 11) both promises and delivers.

Waldman, who has a degree in nutrition, is the mother of two young boys and is committed to serving home-cooked dinners pretty much every night. Her real life involves work, marriage, parenting, school, a tight food budget, and small-town resources. In other words, she's not much different from most of us.

The recipes in Feeding a Family are kid tested and adult approved. No, her kids won't eat every single dish in the book, but Waldman looks at this as a growing process. Inside the covers you'll find 40 dinner menus, arranged seasonally. Most are perfect for everyday dinners, though there are a few menus for weekend cooking.

When Waldman says her recipes are family friendly, she means it. She mentions cooking and prep tasks that children can do and provides notes for how to adapt at least part of the menu for infants. In a budget-friendly way, Waldman sometimes adds information on how to either stretch the leftovers or change them into a second dinner.

Don't skip the introductory material, which includes lists about nutrition, shopping, and food prep. You'll also find ways to get the family involved and how to feed picky eaters. Best is the list of pantry meals, what I call "desperation dinners." You know, those times when you are just too zonked to fuss. I'll be using that list a lot.

I really like the design of Feeding a Family: it's clean and easy on the eyes. A bonus are the beautiful photographs by Elizabeth Cecil. I love the mix of lifestyle and food images.

The recipes are solid and doable on a weeknight by families with modest skills. You'll find one-dish meals, pizza, veggie burgers, slow-cooker pork, grilled vegetables, brown rice pudding, and grain bowls. The flavors are varied and the meals range from meat and poultry through fish and vegetarian. The desserts are mostly fruit based and not over-the-top rich.

One thing to remember is this is a family cookbook. So, although the menus are delicious, the food is not highly spiced. I understand this. The idea behind Feeding a Family is to satisfy everyone, including babies. I've been adding extra herbs and spices, but we're not feeding kids.

Recommendation: If you're looking for new ideas for healthful, fast, family-friendly dinners, you can't go wrong with Sarah Waldman's Feeding a Family. I've discovered some great ideas and yummy dinners, and I bet you'll find some new favorites as well. Note: If you're vegetarian, you'll find a lot to love here, but you might want to borrow the cookbook before buying it.

Recipe: The scan (click to enlarge and read) shows a recipe for Skillet Spinach Pie, which I made and we loved. I've cooked spanakopita many times over the years, but I really liked the addition of ricotta here. I added some garlic and cumin and probably something like oregano. I know that many people shy away from phyllo because of the butter, but this recipe uses only 6 sheets of dough and 5 tablespoons of butter for 8 servings. That's not really too bad for a treat. The photo just above, shows the finished dish.

Note on photos and scans: The recipe and photos come from an advance reader edition and may differ from the final book. Also, these materials are used in the context of a review and all rights remain with the original copyright holders, Sarah Waldman or Elizabeth Cecil.

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