Sue Gregg Cookbooks

Did you know that you should presoak AND boil you dry beans before cooking with them to decrease lectin concentration? (This is especially true of kidney beans.) Or did you know that presoaking, fermentation, or sprouting of whole grains is important to unbind valuable nutrients in digestion? Sue Gregg explains how to modify your recipes to include this Two-Step Process. These are just two examples of the nutrition and cooking tidbits presented throughout Sue’s material. It is important to use healthier foods, but how you prepare them makes a difference as well. All of Sue’s books I have seen include tips to help you get the most nutrition from the foods you cook.

The Sue Gregg products specific to this review are Lunches and Snacks With Cookbook for Children (on CD), Introducing Whole Foods Cooking (on CD), and Meals in Minutes. I will attempt to give you an overview of these books which will hopefully help you determine if they might be a helpful addition to your kitchen.

Lunches and Snacks

Planning for Lunches includes: Breaking the Sandwich Syndrome, Sample lunch menus, Sample snack menus

Planning for Teaching includes 5 Keys to Success with Children and What Children Can Learn (at various ages)

Children’s Cookbook includes ABC’s of Food Preparation, Kitchen Safety and Food Storage, Nutrition Quizzes after recipes, and Menu Planning Guidelines

Also included in this cookbook are sections for:

• Beverages
• Breads
• Crackers, Dips & Snacks
• Salads
• Sandwiches & Spreads
• Soups
• Desserts

The CD has step-by-step instructions with pictures for 60+ recipes and processes such as kitchen safety, washing the dishes, and setting the table.

Introducing Whole Grains CD-ROM

Includes a Personal Guide with 12 weeks worth of Lesson Plans

Includes a Leader’s Guide for 6 lessons

Includes a semester-long class called Whole Foods Menu Planning and Meal Preparation
   -Suggested prerequisite: Baking with Whole Grains (Semester)

Meals in Minutes (from Freezer to Table)

Meals in Minutes starts off with a Basic Stock List. It then continues on with instructions on how to freeze main dishes including how and when to add seasonings, how to prepare different types of ingredients, and methods of freezing. It also shows thawing and reheating methods. Extra timesaving tips are also included.

Sometimes when changing cooking styles, all the different ingredients can be a little overwhelming. Meals in Minutes includes a Shopping Guide to Quality Ingredients to help you navigate those waters. There is even a section that teaches you how to cook chicken or turkey.

Then comes the Meals in sets of 5.

• 5 Timesaver Meals
• 5 Convenience Meals
• 5 Quick Meals
• 5 Make-Ahead Meals
• 5 Ready-to-Serve Meals

Each of these sets of 5 has the following:

• Menu List
• Shopping List
• Assembly Schedule: Day Before, Cooking Day, Complete Recipes

The remainder of this cook book includes various other helps:

• Nutritional Goals section
• Suggestions for Fighting the Battle of the Bulge
• Nutrient Data Explained
• A Caution About Microwave Ovens
• Vegetarian Alternatives
• List of Other Freezer Recipes (from other SueGregg Cookbooks)

FINAL WORD

Our family hasn’t been too fond of the recipes we tried, but there were two recipe that were hits. The Best Burrito Beans (Meals in Minutes) tasted good before freezing and were very good when thawed.  My Own Whole Grain Bread Dough Recipe (Lunches & Snacks with Cookbook for Children) is my newfound bread recipe. It uses the two-step process mentioned earlier. The texture is solid but soft (even on the third day). And the crust is soft even using my old metal pans. So even though most recipe flavors didn’t meet with the approval of our family’s taste buds, the method of presoaking grains, beans, and rice is one that I am adopting. And I am definitely sold on the two-step process for baking.

You can read more about Sue Gregg’s methods and cookbooks on their website. You can read other Crew reviews here.

Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.