Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I got this cookbook for 2 key reasons: 1) so my husband and I could cook together and 2) to learn better, time saving techniques. The benefits I ended up reaping were weight loss and a smaller grocery budget. I have a couple of the other ATK cookbooks including the Slow Cooker one and Cooking School. After making a few of the recipes, I shelved the cookbooks because we just ended up with too much food. Cutting recipes in half wasn't always practical (and still produced too much food) and sometimes they could be more labor intensive than is worth it for 2 people. And forget about baking, the dessert recipes just made too much and the temptation to eat more than I should was too great. I didn't want to give up on ATK because their cookbooks have clear instructions and consistent results. With illustrations and a central reference, my husband, who does not cook, is able to help out in the kitchen. I was so happy to discover Cooking For Two!! Cooking For Two isn't just the regular ATK recipes cut in half or third. They've actually re-engineered their recipes to use smaller cookware and streamlined techniques to minimize appliances and overall number of dirty dishes. There are a number of dishes that start in a skillet and go into the oven, in the skillet, where the larger recipe would require transfer to a baking dish. Probably my number one favorite recipe in this book is the Skillet Pizza. We used to spend about $50 a week on high end takeout pizza. I use store-bought pizza dough and making that recipe actually takes *less* time than ordering takeout. A lot of the recipes using tomato sauce have you make your own by running a can of diced tomatoes in the food processor which is significantly cheaper than buying premium ready-made sauce, and tastes better too. Another one of my favorite recipes uses fresh ravioli or tortellini from the refrigerated section and you cook the pasta in a single skillet with a watery sauce that thickens as the pasta cooks. Again incredibly easy and even faster, and cheaper, than delivery. Every recipe I've tried has taken 15-30 minutes of hands on prep time max and has come out perfectly every time. I'm watching my calories (I don't do "low fat" or "low calorie" because that's an express ticket to a midnight ice cream binge) and my husband is a light eater. The recipes say they serve 2, for us it's usually 3-4 servings. The regular recipes average about 500-600 calories per ATK-size serving, so even if I do eat a full serving, it's not that big of a deal. And when you're cooking a lasagna in a 9"x 4" bread loaf pan, half of that looks pretty huge. Compare that to a 13" x 9" lasagna pan where a 4" x 4" slice would look pretty measly. Desserts are no longer off the menu for me as I can eat a half serving without having to throw away half a cake (thus removing the temptation to eat too big of a serving). Quick breads are baked in mini-loaf pans, miniature layer cakes are 6" in diameter, cookies are by the dozen, and pies are 6". I love the mini bundt cakes. All of the desserts are easily 4 small servings which don't break my daily calorie bank. And if I'm tempted to overdo it, well, there isn't that much to overdo it on. Breakfast options are also scaled down, for instance to 6 total pancakes (3 servings for us). Seriously, Cooking for Two does a lot for your portion size perspective. I've already lost almost 20 lbs and cook almost exclusively from this cookbook. For a household for 2, we used to spend about $1000 a month on food (both groceries and restaurants/takeout). Since using this cookbook, we spend about $500 a month on food including restaurants and takeout. If you're just one or two people, or even 3, and you want to lose weight, save money, cook really good food from scratch with minimal fuss, and/or make cooking a spending quality time together activity, then I highly recommend this cookbook. It's been a real lifesaver for me. UPDATE: I've now lost 65 lbs since I wrote this review! I'm still using this cookbook regularly. It's a great reference for cutting down their other recipes. I am such a fan of their cookbooks, I've managed to pick up a few more. I highly recommend Make Ahead Cook, One Pan Wonders, and Cook It In Cast Iron, all of these are pretty easy to scale down. If I'm not sure the best way to halve something or the recipe seems too labor intensive I just refer to a similar recipe in this one. When scaling down the Dutch Oven recipes, I use a half sized dutch oven (3 qt). I recently purchased a Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven and switched from non-stick skillets to using Lodge cast iron skillets with loop handles (instead of long handles) so they fit in the smaller oven easily. If you do a lot of smaller scale cooking, I highly recommend this appliance. While it only fits up to a quarter sheet pan, I was already using a quarter sheet pan for most of the recipes in this book. Probably my most made recipe in this book is the "Ravioli with Meat Sauce" recipe. I use Barilla dried cheese tortellini with no other adjustments, and just cover the pan for the recommended cooking time in the recipe. My main complaint is that I run into a recipe here and there that is literally a normal recipe cut in half. Also the serving sizes are a bit all over the map. Some recipes really do serve 2 while others can feed 4. I usually assume I'll get 3-4 servings out of the recipes and just plan on an extra side for the ones I know make less (like the Teriyaki Steak Tips). Another thing I wish they'd have included is scaling down on grilling. I have an 18" Weber Jumbo Joe because for 2 people it makes no sense to use a full size 24" grill. The recipes in the Grilling chapter work great on my smaller grill but the charcoal amounts didn't. Cook's Country only recently published an article discussing this, they suggest scaling the number of briquettes down by 25%. They also recommend putting water in a large (7x5ish) loaf pan instead of the 13x9 pan, and reducing the water by 25% (but keep the amount of wood chips the same). I still use a full sized chimney starter but for 2 people it just makes sense to have a smaller setup and use less briquettes. Hopefully a future version of this cookbook will have a better grilling section!! Finally after using the book so much, it's fallen apart. I wish they made a spiral bound version with waterproof pages!