My blogging buddy, Susan at The Confident Mom, asked me last week if I’d review her new quick and easy recipe compilation.
Hmmm. Let’s see.
Someone who solicits my opinion. Requiring me to be opinionated. Opinionacious. Opinionable.
I thought about it for four seconds. That’s how long it took me to find the reply button on my smart phone. (Notice that the sellers of smart phones don’t make any promises that the user will be smart. That’s been a disappointment.)
I wrote something like, “Um, yes, please!” back to Susan, because I’m pretty sure I was born for opinionation.
Also, I finally (finally, finally) get to be like all the hip bloggers out there who review the books they’re reading. I normally can’t do that because the books that pass as literature for me may be more like mind fluff for the rest of y’all. So I just choose not to embarrass myself by ever admitting titles.
In my own defense, you should know that I have read exactly four books in the past year and a half that were reviewed on National Public Radio. If you push me into telling you what’s on my reading list, I’m prepared to use them. Don’t push. I will pull the NPR trigger.
Besides, this is way cooler than reviewing what I was already reading. This is the author asking me to do the review. Fancy!
And, even better, it’s all about recipes. Ah, recipes. I’m good at those.
I cook. In enormous quantities. I eat. In quantities I don’t want to, well, quantify. I’m pretty sure I’m completely qualified for this kind of review.
So here goes.
I have some good news and some bad news.
Good news:
- Susan’s recipe compilation is great. It’s called “Got Dinner?” and you can find it by clicking here.
- It’s for busy families, and Susan totally delivers on the words “quick” and “easy.” She could also have added “family friendly” and “delicious,” but that might have made for an unwieldy title. And no one wants an unwieldy title. Except, perhaps, for Donovan Hohn who just published “Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Enviromentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.” Mr. Hohn = not so concise. He and I should never have dinner together. Our lack of concision would be our doom.
- The download is cheap. I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to use the word “cheap” in a review. “Inexpensive” is more elegant. Or I could say something about how this is for the “frugally inclined.” But I like cheap. I like to buy cheap. Susan’s 40+ recipes cost $5.95 to download. And she’s offered a 20% discount to my readers if you use MOM5 at check-out. Thanks, Susan! I did the math, and that’s less than $0.12 per time-tested recipe.
- Susan uses common ingredients that are easy to find at the grocery store… well, in the U.S., anyway. And I bet you’ll do OK in Canada, too, Gwen, if you can manage to snowshoe out of your igloo, past the mooses (meese?), and make it to a trading post. I’m not familiar with Dutch, Romanian, or Kiwi grocery stores, so I won’t speak for the rest of the world.
- It’s immediately downloadable, which means it’s easy-peasy to start using right away. I’m a big fan of “immediate,” as patience has never been in my repertoire.
- Let it be noted that I didn’t have to use auto-correct on “repertoire” because I spelled it right the very first time I tried. I strongly feel this accomplishment deserves its own place on the good news list.
Bad news:
- I’m not getting any sales kickbacks here.
- OK, technically, that’s good news for you since it means this is an honest review.
- Not that I’d lie to you even for a kickback. I’d just like to have the moral dilemma sometime. “Integrity or money? Ummm, I piiiick…. integrity!”
- Susan has me thinking a lot more about food. What I think about, I blog about. That means I’ve got posts coming soon on my frozen food co-operative, Julia Child, what we talk about ’round the dinner table, and how fantastic I am at teaching table manners. If you don’t like it, you should contact Susan.
In conclusion…
Yay, Susan! I’m naming and claiming your Taco Cornbread Bake for my food co-op this month. And I just used your dinner conversation starters at the table last night with the anticipated blogilicious results. Which sadly have to wait for another post, as I must away to my bed.
Wishing you all a good night and good eating,
The Reviewer
9 responses to “Review: Got Dinner?”
You had me at Taco Cornbread Bake. ;P
And you had me at “in Japan.” How fun for me, to have you reading from there! I hope it’s OK that I linked to your blog. BEAUTIFUL paper pages… just gorgeous.
The intolerant in me begs to know: How many recipes are dairy-free?
Ms. Kimberly! So good to hear from you. I’ll ask Susan to weigh in on your question, but I looked through the recipes with an eye to dairy-free. Most seem to use dairy, but many of those use “omitable” dairy (for example, leaving out cheese). I don’t know how many of the dairy items are substitutable. Susan should have the final word.
I would say that true dairy free recipes – about 7-8 – but there are others that have cheese, like Beth said which you could delete or substitute with tummy friendly products! If you decide to purchase it and then find it was not a good purchase for you, I will gladly refund your purchase!
Beth – thank you for your kind, honest and gracious review! You always bring a smile to my face and warm my heart – Can’t wait to hear the rest of the story either!!
My pleasure, Susan. Thank YOU for the opportunity!
well, alrighty then, Susan’s downloadable recipes it is! Let’s see, where’s my credit card? I’m just pretending to now know this, knowing all too well my precious better half has it hidden from me, aka in his pocket, for this exact reason… But I bet if I mention the words ‘easy’ ‘delicious’ and ‘dinner’ he’ll whip out that thing faster than you can say ‘Dutch grocery store’! (which reminds me, I have to go to that exact place and get milk, and it’s raining, it’s pouring, cats&dogs and all that, and forementioned better half has taken the car to work *sigh*) Anyways, I’ll let you know how I did on the ‘finding ingredients’ part, I’m sure I’ll be fine, our grocery stores are pretty 21st century I think. I think. Though every time I walk into an American one I keep thinking ‘oh the choices, oh the overwhelming choice of, well, everything!’ I love it! I do. I should move to the US. I should. If only I could decide on East Coast or West Coast. Impossible. 🙂
Couldn’t agree more about the overwhelming choices in U.S. grocery stores, Carina.
When my family moved back to the States from SE Asia in the 80’s, my mom took me to the grocery store. You’d think that’s a harmless activity.
We made it to the cereal aisle before I had a panic attack, and we had to leave.
An aisle. An entire aisle dedicated to nothing but cereal.
We’d been living with a tribe in the highlands of Papua, Indonesia. The kids had the orange hair and distended bellies common to malnutrition.
A couple of days of airplane travel, and I was standing in an aisle of cereal products.
Overwhelming? Yes. Also terrifying, depending on your context.
Sadly, I’ve acclimatized quite well. To the point of irritation if the store is temporarily out of any ingredients I think I need immediately. Hmmm… maybe I should think about *that* a little, eh?