Book Review - The Hour that Matters Most

Recently I was contacted about reading and reviewing the book The Hour that Matters Most: The Surprising Power of the Family Meal. Since planning weekly menus and having dinner with my family on a daily basis is very important to me, I gladly agreed to do it.

If I already was not planning and eating dinner with my family, this book would have convinced me to do it. Co-authored by the founders of Dream Dinners, a meal assembly business, The Hour that Matters Most provides several reasons why family meals are important. Statistics showed that a majority of parents and children surveyed said they were more relaxed and less stressed when they ate together as a family. And the meal didn't necessarily have to be homemade every night. It was the time spent together that mattered.

The book also provides several recipes and tips for planning meals to make the job less stressful.

How about some yummy Baked Chicken Salad?


Or maybe some Easy Sloppy Joes?


You'll find those recipes and more in this book. There is also a chapter on how to start a fix and freeze club so you and some friends can work together to assemble freezer meals to help all of you with meal planning and preparation.

And though all of that information was wonderful and dear to my heart, since I love to cook and plan meals, my favorite parts of the book were written by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrot. The Parrots are co-directors of the Center for Relationship Development at Seattle Pacific University. They offer wonderful suggestions for building and maintaining relationships with your children, which is, after all, one of the goals of family time. They also mention the practical aspects of spending meal time together, such as teaching etiquette and gratitude to our children. Only by spending quality time with our children can we pass on our values and faith to them. I was challenged and convicted about my own relationships with my children and have several ideas now about how to solve those problems.

I whole-heartedly recommend The Hour that Matters Most. Even if you already take time to plan your meals and eat together as a family, this book is a worthy read and can give you more ideas about your own meal time traditions.

To find out more about the book and the authors, visit The Hour that Matters Most. You can purchase the book from Amazon. com or Barnes and Noble beginning Tuesday, September 6.

* All the images in this post were taken from Hour that Matters Most by Les and Leslie Parrott with Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna. Copyright © 2011 by Les and Leslie Parrott and Dream Dinners. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: I received no compensation for this review except for a copy of the book to read. The opinions stated above are entirely my own.