Book Review: Cooking with Food Storage Made Easy

Please note: This is part of a series of reviews we are doing on food storage, emergency prep, and self-reliance type books. For more reviews click here.

Cooking with Food Storage – Made Easy
Hundreds of tasty, money-saving recipes your family will love
by Debbie G. Harman

Background: Obviously the name of this book is what initially caught my attention when I stumbled upon it at Wal-Mart (yes they really do have food storage books at Wal-Mart in Utah). Since our whole philosophy is to try to make food storage “EASY” I was hoping that this book would be right up my ally. When I flipped it open I fell in love. There is only ONE other cookbook that I have ever sat and just READ through the entire thing straight through and that is Pioneer Woman’s cookbook (which I get to have signed by her next week, yay!). This book totally reminds of Mary Engelbreit’s style which I have always really liked. It’s very appealing to look at, and when you get into the content it is great too.

What I Liked:

Full of cute illustrations that make it so enjoyable to read
Large font sizes that make for easy reading and following recipes from a distance in the kitchen
Inspirational quotes and scriptures scattered throughout the book
Helpful tips added in to many of the recipe pages
SIMPLE recipes that don’t call for tons of ingredients or weird things you wouldn’t have on hand
More than just recipes! Sections on emergency prep, preserving meat and fish, growing and preserving, spices, and basic storage principles

Favorite Part: I have had a great time over the past year or so teaching myself how to do different types of home canning projects. I tend to follow my manuals and my Ball canning guide, but sometimes you just wish you could get tips or recipes from a REAL PERSON. Well this book fulfills my needs in that department. There is a great preservation section that includes tried and true recipes and instructions. I’m excited to try some of the variations!

Feedback: There are really very few things I could say that I would improve on in this book. The only area I felt could have been expanded on more is the actual proper way to store long term storage foods. This is an concept I am wanting to learn more about so I was hoping for a more robust section on that topic.

Summary: Cooking with Food Storage – Made Easy is a great overview book for a beginner, that won’t get you feeling too overwhelmed. But it is also a handy guide for people more experienced with food storage as it includes so many recipes. The recipes are just regular meals (and desserts) your family would love to eat but made with mainly shelf stable and food storage ingredients. I really think everyone should get a copy of this book!