Time may be short and budgets may be tight, but these 365 mouthwatering recipes are sure to draw families into the kitchen and around the table day after day. Crowned Queso Queen, Leigh Oliver Vickery shares her passion for including the whole family in cooking and eating dinner around the kitchen table. From tasty breakfasts, soups and salads to sumptuous main dishes and desserts, Food Family Style delivers just what readers’ families ordered.

Vickery is an entrepreneur and founder of Leigh Oliver’s (www.leigholivers.com), a specialty, all natural food company. Her original white cheese queso and more than 25 other products can be found in Central Market, Whole Foods Market, Brookshire’s, Costco, Kroger and other retail venues across the country. She is now in her second season as a food offering at the Dallas Cowboys stadium when you order chips and queso or cheese steak. Those popular choices even made the list of foods given a four star review by the Dallas Morning News.

Throughout Food Family Style are symbols indicating recipes that double easily, freeze well, are gluten-free or vegetarian, can be made in a slow cooker, and more. And since there’s more to mealtime than just the food, this innovative book also includes tips about how to involve kids in meal preparation, meaningful conversation starters and simple ideas to bring warmth to your home.

Leigh Oliver Vickery is creator and founder of Leigh Oliver’s, a specialty “fun food” company with numerous products on the market in at least twenty-five states and grocery chains, including Whole Foods Market and Costco. She is the former food editor of the Tyler Morning Telegraph in Tyler, Texas, and now blogs at www.onebighappytable.com. Leigh also has a regular twice-weekly segment on two local TV stations called “One Big Happy Table with Leigh Vickery.” She lives in Tyler, Texas, with her husband, two sons, and three dogs.

My Thoughts

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of eating the same things over and over. When I received Food Family Style I was so excited to get started on a few recipes. Sunday is usually the day that I try new recipes, because I have tons of time. There were great recipes and they all sounded really good. Beside the recipes it will also tell you if the recipe can be easily doubled, if it will freeze well, gluten free, slow cooker or vegetarian.

The book is divided into 12 chapters. Breakfast, sandwiches, burgers and Pizza, snacks, salads, main dishes, soups and deserts. There is also a chapter on table talk, I loved this, questions to ask each other as a family during dinner. There is also a chapter on what to make on the special occasions, what great ideas.

I decided to make the grilled shrimp, grilled street corn and lemon punch cake. The grilled shrimp was fabulous. It said I could marinate it up to 4 hours. I was only able to marinate it for about 1 hour and wow the flavor was fabulous! It only called for ½ tsp. of hot pepper sauce; I think I would have preferred a bit more spice.

The grilled street corn was amazing! I already love corn on the grill, but this was out of this world. Mayo, chili powder, garlic salt and black pepper spread on the corn after it has been grilled. My entire family loved it; they actually wanted to know if there were any more ears of corn to grill!

Lastly was the lemon punch cake. I actually had to tweak the recipe a bit, because I didn’t have the yellow cake or lemon gelatin. Instead I used a lemon cake and lime gelatin. This too was refreshing and a great treat for after dinner.  I think this cake could work with any type of combinations. Yummy!

I am looking forward to trying more recipes from this great cookbook! Great job Leigh Oliver Vickery on a great cookbook!

Michele
Review Crew