Easy family dinners

Yes, it’s finished, yeah hooray. The collection of recipes that I’ve been working on for you, for over 6 months, was completed Friday June 8th. And everyone who pre-ordered a copy has already received their volume of “Successful Home Cooking.” Have you received yours?

I thought it was only going to be 95 pages, but it kept growing and growing -- there was so much great stuff to include — that the document grew, and grew to 122 pages long!

It’s been quite an adventure putting this together. With suggestions from all over the globe (chicken tandoori), and readers sending me their wish lists for perfect lasagne, for a great spaghetti sauce recipe, for a fish recipe that is cooked perfectly, for apple pie that is sweet and sour and has a rich crumbly top, and for easy meals that come together with regular grocery store ingredients…

Well, you don’t have to listen to me

You can read what Dawn wrote:

“Dearest Shelley,

Thank you so much for sending me the pdf version of your book. Was I ever pleased when I came across your site two weeks ago. I immediately signed up for your newsletter and what excellent candor! It is so wonderful to have an email from a real person in my inbox every week.

I agree with you about your last email. I have been pulling my hair out in the kitchen because once I had settled on a free recipe [out of thousands] from the internet, it almost always turned out badly.

All I want are some down-to-earth recipes from somebody who has tried them and say they work.

Yours is the first cookbook I have ever bought — mine have all been passed down — and I don’t find my current recipes very practical because they are for six to eight [my Grandmother had a big family] and I am only cooking for three.

I am the kind of person that usually cooks meals that include all the food groups already [fajitas, stir-fries etc.] because I am panic-stricken about side-dishes. I will panic no more, however, because you have saved me the grief and simply told me what to include as a compliment to the meat dishes.

The book is comprehensive, the recipes interesting, mouth watering, the ingredients are available. To boot, you have included a price list of each recipe.

You have taken all the major kitchen concerns into consideration, yet kept it simple without making me feel stupid. What this cookbook is, really, is a cooking class with enough good solid recipes for me to keep busy for some time. The kitchen is no longer a place to fear, but a place to rejoice. I am all praise, Shelley — my only complaint is not finding you earlier!

With gratitude, Dawn (in Calgary, Alberta)”

 

Check out OneRoastChicken’s new publication, “Successful Home Cooking” which is now available for order. This is not just another cookbook. This is a cooking school in full-colour delivered right to your kitchen. All recipes include pages of colour photography and step-by-step instructions. And to keep you on budget, every recipe includes the price per serving. How about Meatloaf with Spicy Ketchup for $1.32 per serving? Or Chicken Tandoori for $1.81? Order your copy of “Successful Home Cooking” now…

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu, Owner & Head Chef
www.oneroastchicken.com

“I won’t pay for recipes!”

Lise in England writes: “There are a lot of cheap people out there. And there are so many free recipes online that people won’t want to pay for them.”

I understand Lise’s point. There are in fact billions of recipes online. Let’s take meatloaf as an example. If I go to epicurious.com, and search for meatloaf, there are 48 recipes. Yikes, how could I pick one? I start reading through the first two or three. The first recipe uses oatmeal (yuck), the second one has a list of ingredients as long as my left arm including white wine, and the third recipe also uses oatmeal (what’s the matter with these people?) and calls for something called ‘meatloaf mix’. Now, I don’t know about you, but without a definition, I’m not exactly sure what meatloaf mix is …

Now pretend you’re my ex-boyfriend for a minute, you can picture him – he’s the one with lots of disposable income but for whom cooking wasn’t one of his greatest strengths, although eating in restaurants was. Imagine you’re him, this guy with cash, who finds cooking to be a chore, who says “let’s just order in.” His favourite at-home meal? Meatloaf. But he can’t cook it himself. Never learned how. So, if you’re him, and you go to epicurious.com, and you start looking for a meatloaf recipe, you’d be overwhelmed in about 2.5 seconds.

OK, so to get back to Lise’s email. What she sees as a downside, I see as a problem to be solved. Indeed, the problem is that there are soooo many recipes online, but are any of them any good?

Are these recipes fully illustrated with step-by-step instructions, foolproof, with full colour photography? Do these millions of online recipes come with the email address of a breathing human where you can send your questions if you get into trouble?

Try to imagine if Martha Stewart actually cared if someone could follow her recipes and successfully get dinner on the table night after night. Imagine if Martha Stewart created recipes that used only regular grocery store ingredients. Imagine if every recipe included how much it cost to make per person.

And what if LOTS of the recipes included a mini-recipe version… how to adapt the ingredients and timing to make the same meal for one (or 2 people) (instead of the 4-8 people most recipes feed).

The new book by www.OneRoastChicken.com isn’t a cookbook. It’s a cooking school. It isn’t even called a cookbook. It’s called “Successful Home Cooking.” Because I actually want you to be successful, and I’ve done everything in my power to design and create the best product for you so that you can be successful.

Here’s what Priscilla said after she made the meatloaf recipe in “Successful Home Cooking”:

“I really should enter therapy because of my meatloaf and grisly bologna experiences as a child.

I made your meatloaf tonight, Shelley. It tasted unlike any other meatloaf I have ever eaten in my life …… GOOD ! It was more like paté than the chunky dry square hamburger I usually concoct …

I got a little worried when I started your recipe – it started off really smooshy and then all of a sudden it all glued together like really light bread dough. Must have been a combination of some sort of chemical reaction, patience, and following the recipe. I have always balked at the idea of smothering meatloaf in ketchup – but your “spicy” ketchup has a little more class. And it worked for the potatoes too.

I like the details you give: the REASONS for doing things and EXPLANATION of why you do something. (Like don’t reheat in the microwave unless you want to eat sponge.)

I can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow and for more recipes.”

To make this recipe and more…

Check out OneRoastChicken’s new cookbook, “Successful Home Cooking” which is now available for order. This is not another cookbook. This is a cooking school in full-colour delivered right to your kitchen. All recipes include pages of colour photography and step-by-step instructions. And to keep you on budget, every recipe includes the price per serving. How about Meatloaf with Spicy Ketchup for $1.32 per serving? Or Chicken Tandoori for $1.81? Order your copy of “Successful Home Cooking” now…

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu,
Owner & Head Chef
www.oneroastchicken.com

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