This past weekend, we were super excited to be sent a copy of Real Life Dinners by Rachel Hollis, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, entrepreneur, mom, wife, speaker and overall awesome human, from our friends at St Martin’s Press in New York. In order to review a cookbook, it is necessary to cook from the cookbook, and luckily for me, my entire family participates in Sunday meal prep, thereby providing the perfect opportunity to test out not one, not two, not even three recipes, but rather a whole week’s worth of recipes.

We selected:

• Italian Dressing Grilled Chicken
• Baked Ravioli
• Hawaiian Chicken
• Tex-Mex Fiesta Rice
• Pineapple Chicken Stir Fry

Each of these were recipes that Dave and I were confident the kids would enjoy, and would be easy to bulk buy, as we are continuing with our Low Waste Lifestyle. With the choices above, we had Meatless Monday covered (Ravioli), three days worth of chicken, allowing us to buy club packs of tenders, and Tex-Mex Fiesta Rice, as an outlier, for Taco Tuesday.

The best thing about Real Life Dinners is that each meal is easy to prepare and family-friendly. Not once did my kids complain about the food that we were preparing, nor did they turn their noses up at the idea of eating any of Rachel’s dishes. (And when you have two kids, there is usually something that at least one of them won’t eat!!)

Overall, I would highly recommend Rachel Hollis’ cookbook, Real Life Dinners, because they are actually designed for exactly that. If you suffer from food intolerance, or are working on an unique lifestyle (such as we), the recipes are easily adapted – for example, the recipes are non-vegetarian, but the proteins could be exchanged for plant-based proteins, and the carbs could be replaced with gluten-free options, such as rice or quinoa pasta.