Customer Reviews

Cooking 'Round the Clock: Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

`Cooking `Round the Clock' is by Rachael Ray, who is seeming more and more like an old friend, as this is the fourth of her books I am reviewing on top of watching her an average of 90 minutes a day on the Food Network and twice that on Fridays when her travelogue / celebrity interview shows air in the evening.

For those of you who really live the 30 Minute lifestyle and can't wade through my usual 1000 words, I will say that this volume is as good or better than it's `30 minute' precursors because it gives recipes for those times of the day which simply are not well covered by most cookbooks. And, Miss Rachael continues her previous style of easily available ingredients, very few `convenience' prepared foods, lots of fresh meats and vegetables, and no preaching about prowling local farmers' markets for the stuff which was in the ground two hours ago.

I continue to be impressed by the fact that both her '30 Minute Meals' and `$40 a Day' concepts were all hers before she started with the Food Network. And, after six cookbooks in about four years, I also like to think that all her recipes are also her own creations, although from the evidence of her acknowledgments and other chef / writers' practices (such as Jamie Oliver), I suspect a lot of Rachael's contributions to these books are rough drafts on TV scripts, cocktail napkins, and Dictaphones, all assembled and tightened up by a copy editor. My mother, for one, wonders how she can manage three shows AND cookbook writing all at the same time.

But, most of this is idle speculation and the real issue is how useful is Rachael's latest work to her core audience of busy young family members who like to cook but have no time to read Julia Child or Marcella Hazan or Paula Wolfert, or even `The Joy of Cooking' for that matter. One cannot discount the fact that looking for a recipe and shopping for ingredients may take as long as the time in front of the range. In this regard, Miss Rachael's recipes maintain the fast cooking lifestyle by not requiring any Internet shopping or trips to distant big city specialty markets.

This book gives lots of recipes for the neglected meals of the day, a hearty breakfast, a fast but tasty lunch, evenings in front of the TV watching a movie, and late night snacks. Among the more than 300 cookbooks I have reviewed, I have seen but two on breakfasts and one on sandwiches. Rachael fills this gap for people who want good, interesting food the other 23 hours of the day and don't have time to track down uncommon books by authors whose names they don't know. Nancy Silverton and Marian Cunningham may be foodie heroes, but the average 10 hour a day young professional does not know who these people are and whether or not they can trust their sandwich and breakfast books respectively. Rachael's `brand name' is a lot like that of Howard Johnson's in the 1950's. You know you are not getting gourmet fare, but you also will not get an unexpectedly poor meal.

In spite of the non-primetime dishes, these recipes still require a modicum of kitchen skills. Rachael's familiar aversion to measuring is not something you can acquire by reading. It takes practice and attention to what you are doing. Rachael's recipes also do not require a lot of kitchen equipment, but prep work and cooking will go faster if you have the right skills and a few pieces of high quality equipment. Topping the list of `not cheap' equipment is her Santoku knife, rangetop grill, two very good large (12 inch) saute pans, one or two large good Dutch ovens (8 quarts), an 8 quart pasta pot with pasta insert. A very good relationship with your oven's broiler is also necessary. I constantly envy her for her very retro range on her '30 Minute Meals' set. It is a much more convenient broiler than the floor level gas grill in most ovens. It is almost as convenient as a professional salamander.

Like most of her books, recipes are arranged by meal in the same style as her shows. This means that instructions for each meal show you how to organize the whole meal, not just a recipe at a time. The meals include:

Rise and Shiners (breakfast) with lots of scrambled eggs, French toast, scones, and hot cereals.
Let's Do Lunch with pasta salads, sandwiches, crudites, wraps, burgers, and did I say sandwiches.
Early Bird Specials with easy suppers based on chicken, thin pork chops, fast steaks, soups, and casseroles.
Sit Down Suppers with hearty retro recipes for slaws, grilled cheese sammies, linguini, and more burgers.
TV Dinners & Snacks with recreations of classic takeout dishes and finger foods.
Bistro Meals, or `Tony Bourdain without the swear words'.
Late-Nite Bites This chapter alone will have you keeping this book in your kitchen.

If all this were not enough to convince you, I offer the opinion that Rachael's procedure descriptions are quite good in that all prep instructions are given with the list of ingredients and each short paragraph begins with the most important verb. There is not a lot of instruction going on here. This is the recipe, the whole recipe, and nothing but the recipe. That's why you need to expect to make the most of Rachel's recipes only when you are comfortable in the kitchen with a very sharp knife and very hot oil.

One small caveat is that the pastel colored print can be hard on older eyes. I ran into more than one person who genuinely had trouble reading the instructions.

Rachael delivers the goods again to her core audience. Highly recommended if you like her show or her earlier books.

Rachael Ray can be painfully perky at times and I wonder at her inner life, but the woman sure can cook. And unlike other glamorous FoodTV babes who make it look easy but produce quite challenging recipes with hard-to-find/expensive ingredients, Ray's dishes are cheap, easy and good. Friends still ask about her cream-cheese potato recipe that I made for Thanksgiving--three years ago!

Rachael Ray is the Queen of the Easy, Great-Looking But Inexpensive Meal on the food-tv network. The recipes in this book fall right into that genre; all the ones we've tried have been quick, simple, & good! The chili-dog nachos & buffalo chicken salad are a particular family fave (Rachael presented it on her show last January as a "Big-Game-Day menu", so now we always refer to it as the Super Bowl dinner.)

All that being said, WHERE'S THE FREAKIN' INDEX? And what's with the hard-to-read aqua & salmon type? This is a good cookbook that could have been SOOO much better if the editors had only been paying a little more attention to usefulness.

I'd give it 3 1/2 stars if I could, all on the strength of the recipes. The editors should hang down their heads & weep with shame on this one.

I have to totally disagree with Cinnamon Heart's review. Rachael DOES NOT rely heavily on processed ingredients, and she does offer a wide variety of recipes. Her recipes are not thrown together, but well thought out with plenty of options for any occasion. Not every recipe contains taco shells and tortillas. The canned/pre-packaged items she uses are for simplicity - beans, broth, dried pasta, etc. But otherwise, she uses fresh ingredients. Also contrary to Cinnamon Heart, she does not instruct people to chop lettuce for salads. She almost exclusively uses the pre-washed and bagged lettuce. I have never seen her use bottled salad dressing or pasta sauce - she makes her own. Her recipes include many kinds of seasonings and spices (not just jalapenos). Her recipes are not all tex-mex but include a wide variety of tastes and types. She also uses everyday kitchen tools that just about every kitchen probably has - you don't have to go out and buy any new equipment for just one recipe. Her main utensils include a knife, cutting board, and pots/pans, with the occaisional use of the microwave, food processor, and blender (I think I've seen her use the blender once in the year since I've been watching her).

This particular book is laid out as it is titled. She begins with breakfast/brunch recipes and then moves her way to lunch, dinners (early and late), and late night snacks.

She will rely on some boxed ingredients when baking, but she is the first to say that she is not a big baker and uses pre-packaged mixes to accomodate her 30 minute timeline.

The only thing I would say is that a 30 minute meal can sometimes turn into a 45 minute meal for me since my knife skills aren't nearly as good as hers. Yes, she's perky, but she's also engaging and entertaining. I'm amazed that she continues to come up with such great ideas. I can't recommend her recipes highly enough. I use them almost exclusively in my kitchen and haven't been disappointed yet.

I also have to challenge the previous reviewer who very obviously has maybe caught only a few episodes of RR's 30 minute meal show. Her recipes are easy and focus on fresh and healthy ingredients. With even a bit more creativity you can "health" up her recipes even more if you feel the need to do that. I watch religiously every day and I can reassure you that she doesn't use tortillas and taco shells frequently. It's quite the opposite. I'm amazed by the wide array of flavor combinations that she continually comes up with.

My only thing -- you don't really need the book. Tape the show, and download the recipes (which are all available of the website) and make your own book of your favorites.

Bottom line -- Great recipes for people who want good healthy food fast.

There might be some great recipes in this book, but it's so poorly organized you'll never find them! All of the recipes are grouped by what time of day you might eat that particular food. Seven time frames, such as, Early Bird Specials, 4:00pm-7:00pm; sit-down suppers, 7:00pm-9:00pm; etc. The front of the book has a list of the recipes in each section - but even that list in a completely random order. There is no other way to look up recipes. This is the only cookbook I've ever come across that does not have an index. So, imagine you have chicken breasts, and you think, "I'll check Rachael's cookbook" - you can't look up 'chicken'. You can't look up anything. Even skipping the 7:00-11:00am breakfast section, you still have 6 "time zones" of recipes to browse through, one recipe at a time. Why bother? You could pick up any other cookbook in your collection and find a chicken recipe in a matter of seconds!

I like Rachael Ray, but the unconventionality that could have made this cookbook truly unique has, in actuality, rendedered it somewhat useless.

I received this book as a Christmas gift from work. All I can say is FABULOUS! I absolutely love Rachael Ray; she is very imaginative and creative with her meals, the recipes are easy and delicious, and she is very positive about everything.
Several people have said that the cookbook does not have an index. Although this is true, it does have a table of contents towards the beginning of the book, separated by meal time, that gives the name of the dish and page number. So, if you were looking for a dessert, it would not be hard to find.
I am thrilled to have this book. It is the first cookbook that I have from her collection, and I plan on buying more of hers in the future. This would be a good investment to make.

The lack of an index has been well documented, but it is totally annoying. "I have some spinach and some artichokes, wasn't there a recipe in Rachael Ray's book? Let's see, was it in Let's Do Lunch? Early-Bird Specials? Bistro Meals? Oh here's one...no, that's not it." Even if I don't have to waste time searching for a specific recipe, it is very, very difficult to complete one of these recipes in only 30 minutes.

That being said, the recipes that I have tried so far have been very good. The Crispy Chicken Cutlets were outstanding, and the Garlic Roast Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary earned compliments from my mother-in-law - a true rarity! The pasta salads that I have tried are good as side dishes or as the main dish for a quick lunch. I found the scones were too dry with just a 1/2 cup of cream (as the recipe calls for) - the dough didn't even form, but with the addition of a little water they turned out great!

I have never seen Rachael Ray on TV and I didn't know much about her when I bought the book. But I love to cook, and I really like her recipes. The flavor combinations are imaginative and tasty. On the recipes alone I would have given 5 stars, but the layout of the book takes away from the enjoyment of it. I will buy more of her books - if they have indexes!

Rachel makes cooking fun, not stressful. No hard-to-find ingredients are used and no expensive kitchen tools are needed. And the results are always delicious! Not having an index is the only reason I did not give this book 5 stars.

I grew up in a home in which eating out was the norm. My family's schedules made it too difficult for someone to spend the time cooking only to have everyone walk in late or, for that matter, at all. So, as I got older I had a certain built in aversion to the kitchen. Sure, it seemed harmless enough, but...Wouldn't I hurt myself if I tried to "julienne" something? Hey, I still might, but over the past couple of years the kitchen and I have managed to come to terms with each other.

Rachael Ray's books have helped with that. I may not mind the kitchen as much, but I also don't want to spend my whole day in one. So having a lot of varied options that I can get ready in a relatively short amount of time is wonderful. Plus, Ray doesn't make the novice cook feel stupid because he or she doesn't know what certain cooking terms mean. She keeps the recipes simple from the wording right on through to the ingredients. I've never had trouble finding what's necessary for the meal in my local big-chain grocery store.

For me, this book is the best in the series. And even though she breaks the recipes down into the time of day they may be best served, each and every one is a healthy, satisfying dinner in itself. I went through the book, marking each recipe I wanted to try with a little slip of paper, and by the time I was done it looked like I'd have a month's worth (probably more) of dinners planned out. Plus, she has recipes for simple desserts and yummy sounding hot drinks that look like they'd be great for entertaining and/or rainy nights.

Ray really makes cooking seem enjoyable and the cute stories she provides with some of the recipes makes her writing enjoyable as well. All I can say is that if you've enjoyed the other books in the `30 Minute' series, you'll love this one even more.