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(More customer reviews)THE PREGNANCY COOKBOOK is a good book, but not a great cookbook. It consists of two main sections, the first on nutrition and the second on recipes, plus appendices that list which recipes are particularly rich in each of four key nutrients (iron, folic acid, fiber and calcium). The Nutrition section contains good, readable information on nutrition. Even if you already have a good command of nutritional basics, as I did, this is good material.
The Recipes section is what I bought THE PREGNANCY COOKBOOK for, and what I give mixed reviews to. On the plus side, there are some very good, very nutritious recipes in here, including a number of dishes my husband gives an enthusiastic thumbs-up to. Issues I have with the recipes:
- Some of these recipes took me 1 1/2 - 2 hours to prepare, at least the first time. The time estimate given was nowhere close to that.
- The author's short time estimates for prep time either assume that you already have everything peeled and chopped/sliced or that you prep foods much faster than I do. Perhaps they are based on your having a food processor?
- Many recipes contain ingredients that I cannot easily find in a mainstream grocery store.
- Uncommon ingredients are not always glossed with an explanation, and no substitution is offered. For example, a recipe using pappardelle looked appealing. I had a vague idea that pappardelle was a type of pasta. Googling it confirmed that for me, and also let me know that fettuccine is a workable substitute. Checking at my grocery store, I found that indeed we do not have pappardelle, and I will be trying that recipe with fettuccine.
- Not all recipes are as well written a set of instructions as they could be. For example, starting the water for pasta was listed as step 7 of 8 on one recipe I tried last week. Fortunately, I preread the recipe and realized that needed to be step 1. Another recipe had me scrambling when it told me to do something with "the vegetables," except that it turned out that "the vegetables" did not include the red peppers, which were being reserved for another step.
- Serving sizes seem to be overly generous. Recipes described as providing "four main course servings" offer more like six at my house. I don't mind this a lot, but I have learned to plan for lots of leftovers when using these recipes.
- Sections could have been more clearly labeled visually. Finding the first trimester recipes was easy enough, but the only way to find the low calorie first trimester recipes is to find the end of the section and then flip forwards to look for the page that states that the low cal recipes start there.
- The introduction says that this revised version contains simpler recipes. For me, many of these still seem fairly complex. I use this for a couple of special dishes a week, rather than a source of everyday help. At my house, the pregnant woman is also the cook, so simpler is more of interest to me!
There are some recipes in here that I think are very, very good. If you get THE PREGNANCY COOKBOOK, I recommend trying: potatoes stuffed with spinach and broccoli (p. 195); spaghetti with turkey sausage, red bell peppers, onions and tomatoes (p. 207; my husband loves this); chilled sesame noodles with vegetables (p. 241, another winner with my husband, though we like a less sweet sauce); rigatoni with wild mushroom ragu (p. 244); chicken, broccoli and mushroom stroganoff (p. 247); turkey sausage with white beans, tomatoes and basil (p. 278; we didn't find lean turkey Italian sausage so we use lean turkey sausage and throw in some Italian spices).
As you may be able to guess from that list of recipes, my other comment would be that THE PREGNANCY COOKBOOK has a definite Italian-American slant. There is nothing wrong with that, but you do want to know!
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