Easy meal prep The ultimate playbook for make-ahead meals

Francisco, editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping, shares the secrets of making meal prep easy and offers more than 100 recipes for delicious meals in this savvy cookbook. Meal prep, she argues, shouldn't be a stressful endeavor, and to that end, she shares her three favorite tips for doing so: cooking in large batches, splitting dishes into individual portions for grab and go meals, and chopping, peeling, and slicing ingredients early in the week so that weeknight meals come together quickly. Tasty dishes like minestrone ("This produce-packed soup lasts up to five days in the fridge"), pork ragu rigatoni (the ragu can be frozen for three months), and a make-ahead egg and cheese sandwich ("assemble as many sandwiches as you will eat in a month--they'll keep in the freezer for up to 30 days") are on offer. Francisco's writing is breezy (" 'What's for dinner?' Do these three words strike dread in your heart?") and she peppers the recipes with fun facts, such as that frozen fruit is often fresher than off-the-shelf, since it's picked, frozen, and packaged at peak ripeness. She also includes a useful weekly meal planning chart and a list of substitutions for those wanting to experiment with flavors. This is great for anyone looking to take the stress out of getting food on the table. (Mar.)