Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table [Paperback]

Robin Miller (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Book Description
Set the table for fantastic weeknight meals with the help of Food Network star Robin Miller.

It’s great to have an ambitious plan to cook healthy dinners from scratch every night. It’s an entirely different story to execute it! Not to worry. Robin Miller—star of Food Network’s Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller and Robin to the Rescue—is here to save the day.

Known for her quick, bright ideas for healthy and satisfying meals, Robin shares her unique and completely realistic strategy for a busy workweek in Robin Rescues Dinner. It’s as simple as planning three dishes in advance so that you’re prepared, no matter what the week brings! Here you’ll find 52 weeks of meals, each including three weeknight main dishes, heaps of suggestions for morphing one dish into another, a bounty of side dishes and desserts, and clever tips and techniques to speed up preparation time.

Robin pairs her practical know-how with delectable flavors in more than 350 brand-new recipes brought to life in 38 beautiful color photographs. Starting in January and ending in December, the recipes follow the seasons, with comforting cold-weather dishes in winter and summer plates that make the most of seasonal produce. With Robin Rescues Dinner, weeknight dinners have never been easier—or more delicious!

From Robin Rescues Dinner: Grilled Flank Steak with Blue Cheese Crumb Topping

This is a simple way to take an everyday steak over the top. Since it takes just a few minutes (and practically zero effort) to make the creamy-crunchy topping, think of this for your next dinner party.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 flank steak (2 to 2 1/2 pounds), or 2 flank steaks (1 to 1 1/4 pounds each)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

(Serves 4 (with leftovers for quesadillas))

Directions

1. Coat a stovetop grill pan or griddle with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat. Season both sides of the steak with salt and pepper and add to the hot pan. Cook for 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Remove the steak from the pan and let stand for 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, to make the crumb topping, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until soft. Add the bread crumbs and cook for 2 minutes, or until golden brown. Add the blue cheese and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the cheese starts to melt and the mixture is crumbly.

3. Cut the steak crosswise, against the grain, into thin strips. Serve half of the steak with all of the blue cheese mixture sprinkled over the top. (Reserve the remaining steak for quesadillas.)

Quick Side Dish: Maple-Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Peel and cube 2 pounds sweet potatoes (2 to 3 medium) and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Transfer the potatoes to a large, rimmed baking sheet, in a single layer, and roast at 400 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes, until tender. While still hot, toss the sweet potatoes with a mixture of 1/4 cup 100% pure maple syrup and 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard.

From Robin Rescues Dinner: Steak Quesadillas with Spinach and Caramelized Onions and Chunky Ranch Guacamole

We love quesadillas in our house, so I’m always creating a new version. This simple combination contains tortillas stuffed with steak, cheese, spinach, and caramelized onions. What takes them over the top is the guacamole on the side—an awesome (and ridiculously simple) blend of avocados, ranch dressing, lime juice, tomato, and cilantro.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup sliced yellow or red onion
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 ripe avocados, pitted, peeled, and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup prepared ranch dressing
• 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
• 1/2 cup diced ripe beefsteak or plum tomato
• 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, to taste
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Cooking spray
• 4 8- to 10-inch flour tortillas
• 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 2 cups baby spinach leaves
• Reserved cooked steak slices (or 3 to 4 cups sliced cooked steak or chicken)

(Serves 4)

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sugar and cook for 7 to 8 minutes, until soft and golden brown.

2. Meanwhile, to make the guacamole, in a medium bowl, combine the avocado, ranch dressing, and lime juice. Mash with a fork until blended. Stir in the tomato and cilantro. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

3. Coat a stovetop griddle or large skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat.

4. Arrange the tortillas on a flat surface. Top half of each tortilla with shredded cheese, spinach, reserved steak, and caramelized onions. Fold over the un-topped side, making a half moon. Place the quesadillas on the hot pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until the tortillas are golden brown and the cheese melts.

5. Serve the quesadillas with the guacamole on the side.

More from Robin Rescues Dinner: 17 Pantry Pastas [PDF]

From Publishers Weekly

Star of the Food Network's Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller and author of Robin to the Rescue, Miller offers an organized, simple approach to dinner for the time challenged. She provides a year's worth of weeknight flavorful, healthful and varied meals that make the most out of seasonal produce. Each chapter includes a prep list of steps that can be done in advance, and throughout Miller offers time-saving tips, such as cooking extra chicken breasts now for a second meal later in the week. Recipes have prep and cook times listed and most double easily and freeze well. When appropriate, she offers suggestions for morphing one meal into another: grilled steak with shiitake mushrooms, wilted arugula and shaved parmesan can be served the following night as beef and noodles in whiskey cream sauce. Miller also includes suggestions for quick side dishes and desserts, including cumin-roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, buttermilk onion rings and banana-blueberry fool with honey-roasted peanuts. With today's busy lifestyles in mind, Miller offers cooks a wealth of options for making appealing, healthy meals, even on hectic weeknights. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; Original edition (June 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307451402
• ISBN-13: 978-0307451408
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robin has been a food writer and nutritionist since 1990 and she is the author of Robin Takes 5 and the bestselling cookbook Quick Fix Meals. Her popular show, Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller currently airs on Food Network and she has a weekly blog, Robin's Healthy Take on www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats.

Robin's recipes and nutrition features can be seen regularly in Clean Eating, Health, Cooking Light, Parade, Guideposts, Experience Life, Fit Pregnancy and Fitness magazines.

Robin has been a guest on hundreds of local and national television and radio programs. She has hosted home videos (for Jane Fonda), cable television vignettes (for Food Network and a variety of food companies) and spoken at media events in various markets nationwide. Currently, she appears regularly on local, network and cable television. Programs of particular interested include: The Early Show (CBS), Regis & Kelly, The View, The Today Show (NBC), Good Morning America (ABC), CNN, Fox News Channel, Food Network, Discovery Channel, and HGTV.

She has written nine books: Robin Takes 5 (Andrews McMeel, 2011), Robin Rescues Dinner (Potter, 2009), Robin to the Rescue (Taunton, 2008), Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller (Taunton, 2007), Picnics (Potter, 2005), Verdure (Potter, 2001), The Newlywed Cookbook (Sourcebooks, 1999 and 1991), The Daily Soup (Hyperion, 1999) and Jane Fonda, Cooking for Healthy Living (Turner, 1996).

Robin has a master's degree in Food and Nutrition from New York University, 1998.

www.robintakes5.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robin does it again!, June 16, 2009

By 

Christina (Christina in Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table (Paperback)

I've purchased two previous books from Robin Miller, one I liked, the other not so much so I was really wondering which way this third book would go for me.

The book is laid out in weeks. The weeks run from January through December (they aren't labeled as such) but she mentions in the introduction the 'warm you up from the inside out' meals will be in the beginning and the end with the warm weather menus that use fresh summer produce are in the middle.

Each week has 3 meals. I can't tell you HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS!! I've learned in the past that I don't cook 5 meals, regardless of all the shopping and planning I put into it, I just lose steam and don't 'feel it' come day four and five of the week. So the fact that she features three menu's for each day is WONDERFUL!

At the beginning of each week she lists the menu and a page entitled "Prep List"


for example week 24 includes



* Grilled Chicken w/Sherried Carmamelized Wild Mushrooms
* Baja Chicken Soft Tacos
**quick side dish: Olice and Tomato-spiked rice
* Seared Tuna w/Miso Broth and Sesame Soba Noodles
**Quick side dish: Chunky Tomato Salad

then on the opposite page is the "Prep List"
* Cook extra chicken for the tacos when you make the grilled chicken. (Refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before using.)
* Cook soba noodles for the tuna dish; toss with oil as directed (refrigerate up to 2 days).

The recipes are on the next three pages complete with prep time and cook time. I've never been one to prep ahead but I'd be curious to see how it works, I may have to try it.

The recipes are in a nice large font, the ingredients in bold with a lot of options for each recipe, ie; morphing into another meal, or a quick side dish option.

All in all, the book has a VERY NICE layout, pleasing to the eyes as you browse through it. There are two groupings of pics, not a lot but hey the book is $20 so I'm not complaining.

I GIVE THIS A TWO THUMBS UP or in this case FIVE STARS!!!

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Premise but a Lackluster Book, October 28, 2009

By 

Megan Ellinger (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table (Paperback)

I really enjoy Quick Fix Meals so I picked up this cookbook thinking it would be a great addition to my library. I was really unimpressed. I was hoping the recipes would be more like the ones she showcases on her show--quick, family friendly and reasonably priced. Instead, the book is full of expensive cuts of meat and very heavy on seafood--something my family doesn't eat a lot of--and low on the chicken.

This book is definitely for families who aren't on a dinner budget and who do not have picky kids. If you regularly eat salmon and scallops, this may be the book for you but if you more like my family who eats a lot of chicken and ground beef, you will be sorely disappointed.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robin's Best!, June 24, 2009

By 

j.s. "mr z" (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table (Paperback)

Admittedly, I have never been a huge fan of Robin Miller. I am not a fan of the whole "cook one recipe, use the leftovers for another recipe" genre. Robin's entire Food Network persona was built around this premise and I, obviously, didn't pay much attention.

BUT, I decided to pick up her latest offering, "Robin Rescues Dinner." This book has dropped the emphasis on leftover recipes and, instead, offers meals for 52 weeks (an entire year!).

Older fans of Robin should not fret because she still offers the leftover recipe option. The difference in this new publication is that, for people like me, Robin also gives you the option to create meals without having to use ingredients from previous recipes.

Now that we've dealt with the whole leftover recipe issue, let's move onto the food itself. This book definitely has an emphasis on proteins (chicken, steak, salmon) with a Southwestern/Asian flair. At the bottom of each recipe, Robin offers "quick side dish" ideas and hints on "quick desserts." I love this element because it brings depth to Robin's proteins (which could have gotten stale on their own).

This book really reminds me of a Rachael Ray cookbook...with less ingredients and a slightly more healthful approach. It is accessible to those who aren't interested in utilizing "leftover recipes" and the addition of "quick side dishes" and "quick desserts" add more bang to your buck.

In my humble opinion, this is Robin's best offering yet. I highly recommend it to cooks looking to spice up the standard protein/salad/dessert fare without too much fuss.