The 30-Minute Cooking from Frozen Cookbook: 100 Delicious Recipes That Will Save You Time and Money—No Pre-Thawing Required!

 

The 30-Minute Cooking from Frozen Cookbook is a technique and recipe guide by Carole Jones. Released 6th Oct 2020 by Simon & Schuster on their Adams Media imprint, it's 192 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. 

This cookbook embraces an interesting (and appealing) concept: how to get tasty food on the table in 30 minutes using at least some frozen ingredients. The only times I had ever done that before were for things like frozen fish fillets, frozen pizza, french fries, and smoothies. Admittedly, smoothies are included in this collection, but the author presents so many more creative ways to incorporate frozen convenience foods in everyday meals.

The recipes are arranged thematically by chapters: breakfast, side dishes, chicken, beef & pork, fish & seafood, vegetarian, and desserts. Each recipe includes an intro description, ingredients listed bullet style (measurements in American standard only, metric conversion tables in the back of the book), and step by step instructions. Nutritional info: calories, fat, protein, sodium, fiber, carbs, and sugar, are included at the end of each recipe. 

The recipes are what I would classify as "everyday fancy" - perfectly attainable and do-able but without hugely involved effort or expensive (weird) ingredients. The ingredients will be readily available at any moderately well stocked grocery store. 

The photography is not plentiful. At a rough guess, probably 15-20% of the dishes are pictured. The photos which are there are clear and well done. Serving suggestions are appropriate and attractive. The lack of photos detracted a bit from the overall experience for me. 

The recipes are varied and the ones we tried were all tasty and enjoyed by my family. Many of these would be great for cooks who are learning to cook on their own. This one would make a superlative choice for a newly-moved-out student or someone living on their own for the first time. Many of the recipes have large yields (6+ servings), so for singletons, some adjustments will need to be made for leftovers. (I saw that a lot of the recipes would lend themselves very well to meal planning/once a week cooking - so that's something to keep in mind).

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.