Is Meals In A Jar For Everyone?

Meals in A Jar,from Julie Languille is a recipe book that stems on the idea of stocking up your pantry with ready to cook meals.It includes many recipes to make for breakfast,lunch,dinner and even dessert.Its quite a creative recipe book and includes a lot of information on how to store food to last up to a year. Now, there is one question that has to be asked, is this cookbook for everyone?

Well in my opinion, I will have to answer this question with a, big no.This cookbook isn't for everyone because it actually targets a specific hobby.I feel this cookbook isn't tailored to a person that loves all the aspects of cooking especially the prep work and the use of fresh ingredients.For me, its not well suited to my lifestyle because its difficult to afford the equipment to store the meals and the ingredients are excessive in most recipes.So with just this aspect it has made it quite difficult for me to test out most of the meals in this cookbook, even without storing them.So, in this predicament I was only able to find a couple recipes to test out for review.

So with these recipes they were quite simple to put together;however it seemed strange to me that they were even part of meals in a jar since homemade syrup and lemonade can be easily made on the spot.For example the syrup side-kit is only made with brown sugar and salt,which are ingredients that most people have available in their pantries.Now for the lemonade all you need to make one pitcher is sugar,dehydrated lemons and ice water.Both these recipes seem impractical to store for future use since you can just as easily make them with fresh ingredients.Don't get me wrong though these recipes do create a delicious thick syrup and sweet, lemony drink.I just don't see the point of storing it;however for most of the other recipes I can actually see them being great for quick, homemade meals.

In the end, I felt very disappointed with Meals In A Jar because I at least expected to make a few simple meals that weren't way over my budget and I also could give away as gifts.This is solely a hobby cookbook and less about the experience of actually cooking.I love cooking and most of these recipe can be made just as quick and subsequently cheaper without the use of airlock bags and jars.This cookbook is best suited for someone with a lot of knowledge on canning and owns many of the equipment already.So be warned before you pick up this book in the store because its not all what it seems.If you already have these in your kitchen then I recommend picking this book up for yourself.Its just not a book well suited to me and maybe one day I'll find the best person to give this too.

Also, to learn a little more about Meals In A Jar cookbook be sure to check out the personal reviews on amazon.You will notice a pattern of love it and hate it relationship with this cookbook.