The Fresh 20: 20-Ingredient Meal Plans for Health and Happiness 5 Nights a Week

I can't tell you how excited I am about this! Reasons I love it:1. No more sitting down and trying to decide what to make for dinner for the week. (Five meals planned for you, and we use the other two nights for going out, take-out, or making some of our own regular favorites!)2. No more scanning a bunch of recipes to make a grocery list. (Done for you!)3. Less wasted food4. Uses a variety of fresh vegetables. I was feeling so stuck in a rut with the same things over and over again before. Love the variety this has to offer!5. Healthy and fresh!!!! Love that this has us eating more healthy, fresh foods. Love that nothing is processed. My husband and I have really been trying to be better about what we eat, and this is a huge help.6. Gives you a heads up on what you can prep ahead of time! I love doing this while my little ones nap to cut down on cooking time later!7. I wouldn't consider myself to be much of a cook, but the recipes are well-written and easy to follow, and I feel like a gourmet when I make them! They even LOOK beautiful!We've tried just a couple of meals so far. One was good, and one was amazing! Can't wait to try more. Flipping through the book I only saw a couple that I wasn't sure I'd like. So, so many look absolutely wonderful and we can't wait to try them!It was such a relief today to realize, "Hey, I don't have to figure out what to make for dinner! And I don't have to worry that I am missing an ingredient either!"Highly recommend this if you want to save time, money, try some new things, and eat healthier!

This book is a revelation! I've been a subscriber to the Fresh 20 meal-planning service since July 2012. It has changed my life. I had made halfhearted attempts at meal planning on my own before, but usually all that meant was I wrote down a meal to cook each day on a calendar. But each meal was independent of one another and I didn't know how to control for portion. So I did a lot of food preparation every night and sometimes I had leftovers and other times I didn't have enough to satisfy the whole family. The Fresh 20 meal service organized my efforts around amazing food. I felt more confident in the kitchen; I was able to follow their instructions so that weekend food shopping was less scattered; and I saved time by doing food prep once so it was not repeated on subsequent nights. Bonus: my kitchen/cooking skills improved and my husband and son loved the food.I knew that I had to get The Fresh 20 cookbook. I was a little worried that as a subscriber to their gluten-free meal plan the cookbook might not fit my needs (The Fresh 20 meal plan offers several tracks for special diets). I needn't have worried. Every recipe that fits into a special diet category is coded with 'GF' or 'V'. There's no guesswork. For those reading this on special diets, even the recipes that aren't gluten free can be easily modified.I loved picking up the cookbook -- it's approachable. I just like how it feels heavy with a smooth soft cover. I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of it. There's no hunting around for elaborate ingredients off of super long ingredient lists. With daily menus building off of each other, I can continue avoiding extensive daily food prep that I've gotten used to through the meal-planning service. And the portions will be just right for us: enough for dinner plus leftovers for lunch.Although this is a practical cookbook that will save you money, it feels rich with tons of yummy color photographs. I think Melissa, or better her photographer husband, took a photo of every single recipe. The photos are jaw-dropping. I'm hungry -- I just want to start cooking out of the cookbook immediately. Whereas I might be inspired to cook one dish out of other cookbooks I have, I see myself going through the book seasonally as it is written and cooking week-by-week.I feel like Melissa wrote this cookbook just for me, but I imagine myself gifting it to friends who express an interest in meal-planning and cooking more with real food. I've already been recommending the meal-planning service and now I'll tell them they might need to start with the book! Thank you Melissa!

I just finished the first week (5 recipes) in the book and want to share some of my experiences. I am NOT a Fresh 20 subscriber, so this is my first experience with a meal planning concept.First off, I love the shopping list and layout of the book. Very convenient. I was confused about the "20 ingredients" mantra, because it took me a bit to realize that it's 20 ingredients plus a hundred herbs/items you probably have on hand. In other words, the recipes involve a lot of items.Week 1, spring menu (ratings from 1-5*)Parmesan Chicken Nuggets with Herbed honey carrots - 4*Coconut Curry-style Fish with lime coconut rice - 5*Korean-style short ribs with braised napa cabbage and brown rice - 5*Pan-seared chicken panzanella - 4*Baked potato soup with simple cabbage salad - 1*As you can see, 4/5 recipes were excellent, but the baked potato soup was bland and flavorless, even with extra salt (and optional cheese & bacon).Each week has a "prep ahead" section, but I quickly learned that each recipe has far more prep than expected. There is a lot of chopping involved, and every recipe took far longer to cook than anticipated. I am hoping to find a few weeks that we like and then just repeat them over and over.A few problems I encountered:-The prep ahead included making bread crumbs and 2" bread cubes. I followed the directions and ended up with "croutons" that were 2x2x2 (a 2" cube). I didn't realize this was the final product, and I ended up having to chop them all up for the salad. I think the author meant 1" cubes. Spending 40 minutes preparing bread crumbs and croutons was a lot of time spent!-My toddler isn't much into eating a salad for dinner, so this presented some obvious challenges.-The "braised napa cabbage" was flavorless. You remove everything from the pan and then throw in the cabbage/carrot combo, but by doing that, it had no flavor. Maybe I should leave some of the juice from the ribs in there next time.-TIME - again, each recipe took far longer to prepare/chop/cook than anticipated. I will try prepping this chopping ahead of time in the future.Overall, we are pleased with the book and plan to try out a few more weeks, but we also plan to take a week off in between weeks. I'm not a pro chef, and it was a lot of work. Give it a try!**UPDATE 6/11/13**We recently completed a week from the fall menu which was absolutely delicious! The menu is this:-Muffin Tin Meatloaf with Broccoli Forest Rice - 5*-Shrimp Gumbo - 1* (unfortunately, it was flavorless and we couldn't even eat the leftovers)-Chicken Tamale Spoon Bread - 5*-Spaghetti & Meatballs - 5*-Broccoli Cheddar Soup with leftovers - 5*As you can see, 4/5 meals were five stars. One great thing about this week's menu is the prep ahead section. We prepared the meatloaf and the meatballs at the same time. I also chopped about 80 pounds of onions up front, which saved a ton of time since every recipe required them. These meals all made plenty of food plus leftovers. They weren't served with "side salads", but rather the veggies were built in. While I can't say my toddler came within ten feet of the broccoli forest rice, she did actually eat the broccoli soup. Twice!!I'm very excited about how well this week went and how the prep seemed to make a lot of sense. I didn't feel as exhausted or beat down as the previous week's experience and I will be more cognizant in picking weeks ahead that I can really get the most from. Enjoy.

Fantastic! This has been an amazing way to stay organized and eat well. Recipes are delicious and my 3 kids love it! Real food without the stress! Plus, our babysitter is able to help with food prep even though she has no cooking experience. She simply follows the recipes and produces delicious food. The fact that the fridge is perfectly stocked is hugely helpful.

Dieses Buch bietet saisonale Rezepte mit Wocheneinkaufsplan.Es gibt also erst eine Einkaufsliste für die Woche und dann die entsprechenden Rezepte.Wer nicht alles isst oder z.B. nur vegetarisch isst, kann diesem Plan nicht ganz folgen und muss sicherlich etwas improvisieren, kann die Kapitel aber als Anregung nehmen.Die Rezepte sind alle bodenständig und für Familien geeignet und vielfältig (Suppe, Salat, Polentapizza, Erdbeergazpacho, Avocado-Pesto-Spaghetti, Honig-Limetten-Hähnchenkeulen etc.)Zwischendurch gibt es immer wieder eine kleine Warenkunde zu saisonalen Produkten (Gemüse, Obst, Kräuter).

its easy to use, i like the short shopping/ingredient lists and the kids most of what i cooked, and a lot of it can be doubled and frozen. love that its divided into seasons.

I love when recipes have pictures for every page. This book even goes farther with weekly shopping lists and what you can do to prep ahead. This is meant for a family of 4 I believe so I do have to cut down the recipes but everything is delicious and so easy to make! Love the turkey burgers!

I am a mother of 2 that was stuck in a food rut. On a whim I purchased this book and I'm so glad I did. The recipes are tasty, healthy and fairly quick to make.