Customer Reviews

Rachael Ray 2, 4, 6, 8: Great Meals for Couples or Crowds

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Perhaps Rachael Ray is becoming a bit overexposed as she now has many cookbooks flooding the market, a televison show and a magazine. While I applaud her moxy and industrious nature, I am beginning to think that she is spread too thin. This latest offering, "2,4,6,8 - Great Meals For Couples or Crowds" is not up to par with some of her earlier offerings. The idea is great - menus sized for the number of guests that you are planning on cooking for - and all of this is supposed to be accomplished in 30 minutes as well.

For starters, the recipe lists are long - so that tells me right away that only an accomplished cook will be able to achieve these menus in under 30 minutes. A newbie in the kitchen will struggle to put these dinners on the table in under an hour. Some of the ingredients are a bit exotic - personally, I like that as I cook like that all the time. But again, for a newbie or perhaps a mom with fussy eaters, this could be a problem. The other issue is the portion sizes. I made the "Crab Cakes With A Creamy Grainy Mustard Sauce" with the "Wilted Spinach With Tomatoes" (page 69 listed as Appetizer-as-entrée). This was supposed to be a menu for two - but the crab cakes amounted to a half pound per person. This was WAY too much for myself and my husband! (I ended up taking half of this mixture and transforming it into a crab bisque the next day - it was wonderful!) If I ate like the portions suggested, I would be as big as a house! 1/2 pound meat portions seem to be the standard here. That was very disappointing to me, but I shouldn't be surprised, Ray always states that she is not skimpy on portions.

The menus are clever enough and most will be satisfied with the offerings here. There is plenty of variety: Indian food, Italian, Tex-Mex, Moroccan and more. You will certainly get ideas for your family or guests. I think the book is good overall, but not my favorite. I think her "Express Lane Meals" and "Classic Rachael Ray" are far better offerings.

I rate this as an average cookbook for several reasons.

First, if you own any of her other books or any other good cookbook, then this one may not be your favorite. It doesn't add too much to the cookbook world that's not already out there.

Second, and most importantly, most of the recipes, though designed to be quick, 30 minutes or less, have too many ingredients to make it a really easy cooking or buying experience. Many of these dishes would be expensive if you didn't already have the chipotle sauces or other "specialty" items (that I don't normally have in my pantry). And, I just don't know how to get it all done in 30 minutes--I'd have to have a staff helping prepare the ingredients.

Have there just been too many cookbooks too fast for this author?

However, if you don't own any other cookbooks, and you do like a friendly, fun writing style, then this would be okay, because Rachel's recipes are good and she is a hoot.

I went to the store today and flipped through this book, taking my time to read the ingredients to each recipe. I must say there is not 1 recipe that I was interested in. I love her express lane meals and her 2 original 30 minute meals cookbooks, but I will not buy anymore. I'm just not happy with the recipes in them. I came so close to buying this here when it first came out and I'm glad I didn't. Saved me from having to return it.

I'm sorry Rachael, I really do like your other books, but lately, the recipes are not one's I would use.

If this hadn't been given to me as a gift, I'd have returned it. It pretty much caters to having friends over for watching sports on tv. A lot of sandwiches, burgers, potatoes. I wasn't attracted to the meal choices and half the ingredients seemed hard to find in the local supermarket: Piquillo peppers? Giardiniera? Manchego cheese? (I'll admit I'm pretty ignorant of certain ingredients, and some of these recipes seem like I'd spend more time searching at the market than preparing it).
Her recipes on tv seem so much better.

I realize that this book sounds like it's a cheer for Rachael Ray, and Ms. Ray acknowledges that with her perky dedication to cheerleaders. If you are a busy couple with limited cooking experience who sometimes have two, four, or six family members or guests over for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you'll feel like cheering instead. Rachael Ray has done it again in creating a niche book for a special purpose that most cookbook writers totally ignore. And all of this comes within the context for 30-minute meals for fast choppers who keep the Rachael Ray basic ingredients on hand (lots of Extra Virgin Olive Oil - EVOO. garlic, most seasonings, and lots of fresh and frozen vegetables). By dividing up the menu to match the number of guests, you know you have a good chance of finishing up within 30 minutes whereas if you tried to quadruple a menu for two . . . you might not be even close! Unlike some of her cookbooks, this one has some gorgeous photographs of eight dishes to give you a sense of how to make them look great, too.

The book opens with 25 menus or main courses for every moment over 24 hours a day . . . to serve two. These choices range from the simple (steaks and salads) to the more adventuresome (chicken marvalasala and pappardelle with rosemary gravy). Here are some of my favorites:

Garden salad with smoked almond-cilantro dressing served with smoky chicken tortilla soup with chipotle and fire-roasted tomatoes;
Sea bass with puttanesca and potatoes;
Serrano-wrapped halibut with tortillas, savory cabbage, and warm cinnamon-chipotle tomato salsa;
Chorizo-stuffed bread bites with warm mushroom and sherry vinegar salad;
Sliced steak with green olive and tomato sauce with sautéed artichokes and mushrooms; and
Veal topped with prosciutto and fontini served with a green olive-dressed green apple and arugula salad.

Naturally, the menu choices for four will get the heaviest use for serving guests. This is the biggest section with 34 menus or entrees listed. Actually, if you have two teenaged children who frequently don't show up for meals, this cookbook would also work well for you. When the kids are home you use the recipes for four . . . and use the recipes for two when the kids have disappeared. Here are some of my many favorites:

Sliced chili-rubbed flank steak on spicy rice with shrimp and guacamole stacks:
Grilled shrimp and chorizo skewers with piquillo pepper gazpacho;
Hors d'oeuvre dinner -- giant stuffed mushrooms, killer crab and potato cakes, and bitter salad with sweet dressing;
Chipotle potato salad;
Beef tenderloin bites on a bed of arugula;
Lemon and egg soup, and Greek-style shrimp scampi and linguine;
Chicken in orange-scallion-sesame sauce and big fat spicy sate noodles; and
Thai-style chicken and veggies over ginger-lemon rice.

Meals and menu choices for six is a smaller section with 22 menus and entrees. Here are some of my favorites:

Lemon spaghetti, flounder franchese, and lemon sorbet with limoncello liqueur;
Honey-Dijon dressed greens with toasted pecans;
Three-alarm Italian-style chili mac served with smoky bacon and bean salad and pistachio ice cream; and
NASCAR caution-flag chili with flat-tire corn and black bean toppers followed by peaches and cream.

Menus and entrees for eight is understandably the smallest section with 19 choices. It's tough to feed eight in 30 minutes of preparation! I didn't find any favorites in this section: It's filled with tried-and-true basics that you'll be happy with if you don't know how to make these dishes (frittatas, baked cod, mushroom rigatoni, vegetable stew, spaghetti, chicken burgers, sausage and tortellini soup and Caesar salad; grilled chicken breasts; turkey burgers, breaded pork chops, seafood soup, and potato pancakes).

I think the best part of using Rachael's recipe books is imagining her in your kitchen working up a storm alongside you as the 30 minutes quickly pass. Have a ball!

`2, 4, 6, 8 Great Meals for Couples or Crowds' by `name above the title' Rachael Ray is the latest twist on her probably copyrighted `30-Minute Meal' cookbook rubric. I rarely use Ms. Ray's recipes; however, I have an enduring respect for the quality of her presentation to her audience who wants to cook at home, but not make either a hobby or a career of it.

The broad audience for this book, as announced in the title, is couples, small families, and larger families / entertaining occasions. My first impression is that Ms. Ray and her colleagues would have done better to make this into two books; one for couples only and one for large group entertaining. But then, each audience would have been smaller than these two audiences combined.

The very best thing about this book is that it brings back a presentation of recipes which matches the format of her '30 Minute Meals' show, where work on three or more different dishes is interwoven to reach the end of the half hour with a complete meal. The absence of this pattern has been a complaint by many reviewers. Its return clearly adds value to the presentation in this book.

A second important value to this book is that it does not simply do the same 25 or so menus with the four different serving numbers. That is not to say that such a book would not be a good idea. It's just likely that in many recipes, multiplying quantities could invalidate the 30-minute time limit. Also, the level of detail needed to get all this math straight would likely ruin Ms. Ray's patently breezy style. Another value to having 100 or so different menus is that each menu has a theme that may strike a chord when you browse the book for entertaining ideas. And, if a two (2) or four (4) person menu appeals to you as the basis for a party, you can always do the math yourself and bump it up to eight or more seats.

The ability to do this math is part and parcel of something I've always said about Rachael's cooking. You will succeed in coming close to her 30 minutes only if you have some basic skills in the kitchen. That is, you need to know how to cook. And, buying one of Rachael's Santoku knives will not instantly impart good knife skills to your digits. You need to practice and be able to dissect your mirepoix (onions, carrots, and celery) in a few minutes in order to get the full benefit of Miss Rachael's cooking fast with mostly fresh, basic ingredients instead of using a lot of prepared produce.

One new observation I can make about Rachael's books is that it simply does not fuss with non-essentials. There is no Martha Stewart or Ina Garten or even `semi-homemade' Sandra Lee fussing with table settings or decorations or centerpiece ephemera. Rachael is all about the food, and matching the food to the mood.

Rachael as much as says that her recipe write-ups are literally ghost-written for her by scribe, Pam Krauss, from, I suspect, a collection of notes and recordings on a pocket Dictaphone. This professional wordsmithing may account for the fact that these recipes are all very nicely written, with just enough detail to guide a modestly experienced cook. Ms. Krauss does keep all those famous Rayspeak expressions such as EVOO, sammies, stoups, and scrambles. As I detect a slight improvement over the years in Ms. R's recipe writing, these neologisms have ceased to annoy me, and I suspect her audience would miss them if they went away.

Regarding how much this book overlaps her earlier volumes, I'm sure there is some, but I believe the added value of the complete menu format by size of table makes up for any burger, soup, or salad recipes which may have appeared in earlier books. Another big saving grace is Rachael's traditional lower than usual list price. How can you argue with 200 well-organized recipes for under $20 list price!

Thank goodness Ms. Rachael's audience is fairly young, because one irritation I continue to find in her books is the poorly coordinated pastel type on a similarly hued, but darker background, making this text hard to read. Even the excellent index is done in a dark Robin's egg blue and sans serif font which I simply find harder to read than a solid black Times New Roman font. Rachael, in the next book, please loose the pastel palette!

Otherwise, a proud addition to a worthy line of books for people who want to cook, but not make a career of it!

OK, lets start with the good. There are some delicious recipes in this book. I especially loved the "take-out" recipes, where you make your own take-out style meals. Also, there are recipes for different serving sizes. Even though there are only two of us, I would usually make the recipes for 4 or 6 to have some lunch leftovers.

Now for the bad. The serving sizes are enormous. I would say that it is actually out of control. I have a pretty big appetite, but this crossed the line over into ridiculous. Nobody should eat this much, and few people can. Also, the ingredients lists are long and have some oddities that are very difficult to find. I have found that most of the recipes take more than 30 minutes, even with my husband helping.

I do not rate this more than an average cookbook. It presents what are supposed to be meals that take under 30 minutes, but this is not actually the reality. Many of the recipes have a lot of ingredients or specialized ingredients that would make it difficult to prepare the meal in a short time.

In addition, most of the recipes here are for what I would classify as "junk food" or "inexpensive appetizers." This is certainly useful for many people, but I'm not sure having "great MEALS" in the title really captures the essence of the book.

From a publishing standpoint, the book has a nice cover, layout and is well-organized. The fonts and pages are attractive and author is witty and entertaining. If you do a lot of entertaining for teenagers or informal sports gatherings, you might find this book particulary good for inexpensive suggestions and novel ideas using many common ingredients.

If you are looking to cater a formal party or prepare a romantic dinner forget it! Although the book sets out to satisfy people looking to do both, I don't think it accomplishes either. It would have been better if she wrote two more comprehensive books targeting at these specific groups.

This is not a bad book, just know what you are getting. It is an average cookbook with above average design elements and a nice cover.

Rachel Ray has done it again! What a delightful book with some fantastic recipes. I bought two as gifts and then had to buy one for myself as I kept finding recipes I liked for us!

I bought this cookbook because I wanted something with recipes for two. Unfortunately, the recipes are too complicated for our simpler tastes and use too many ingredients that take too long to prepare. This would be good for someone who considers cooking an art and that loves to experiment and isn't intimidated by intricate recipes. I ended up selling this to a friend who is more daring than I.