Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals: What to Keep on Hand, What to Buy Fresh for the Easiest-Ever 30-Minute Meals (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ray has made quite a name for herself on The Food Network, where she hosts four shows, and in a baker's dozen of cookbooks mostly dedicated to easy-to-prepare cuisine. To love this book is to love the author's quirks, like calling extra virgin olive oil "EVOO" and hearty soups "stoups." But her recipes are tasty, simple and often sophisticated enough to turn even doubters into fans. This cookbook, the author's 11th, is dedicated to quick after-work meals and is separated into chapters called "Meals for the Exhausted," "Meals for the Not Too Tired" and "Bring it On! (But Be Gentle)." A meal for the pretty much awake, Smoked Paprika Chicken with Egg Noodles and Buttered Warm Radishes, is the sort of thick, nourishing plate a person craves when the thermometer drops. Pasta in a Creamy Artichoke and Saffron Sauce is luxurious with its sauce of saffron, heavy cream and parmigiano. The chicken and chorizo burritos called Dinner, Wrapped Up are cheesy, filling kid-pleasers, even if the accompanying text can be wince-inducing ("it's a way-cool mega-rrito, dude!"). But what's most remarkable about these dishes is that they take less than an hour to prepare-often a lot less-but they taste like they took all day. For busy, exhausted cooks, that's worth all the quirkiness in the world.
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Product Description

How can you get a wholesome, delicious dinner on the table without spending time on long lines at the supermarket? Rachael knows how!

Her secret weapon is keeping plenty of versatile, flavorful ingredients in the cupboard, fridge, and freezer, combining these staples with just a few fresh items—never more then ten—to create delicious meals for every night of the week. In Express Lane Meals, Rachael provides her personal go-to list of must-have items—so you can do a big shop every week then simply zip through the Express Lane to make any of these 30-minute meals.

She divides the recipes into three categories: “Meals for the Exhausted,” “ Meals for the Not Too Tired,” and “Bring It On! (But, Be Gentle).” No matter which you choose you’ll learn handy tricks and shortcuts to get the most impressive-looking meals on the table in 30 minutes or less.

These are Rachael’s quickest and easiest recipes yet and a breeze to shop for—because you shouldn’t have to spend all of the time Rachael saves you in the kitchen standing in line at the grocery store!

RACHAEL RAY IS A VERY BUSY LADY . . .

And she knows you’re busy, too. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a delicious, healthy, and home-cooked meal every night of the week. Not when cooking is as simple as this!

In Express Lane Meals, Rachael Ray is back and faster than ever! With her latest batch of recipes this beloved Food Network phenomenon takes her 30-Minute Meal concept to the next level, creating recipes based on staples from a well-stocked pantry and just a few fresh items—so few you’ll never be stuck on a long grocery line again.

YUMMO!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (April 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400082552
• ISBN-13: 978-1400082551
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

157 of 165 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too busy to cook or shop? Not any more!, April 19, 2006

By	Sparkle Reed "smartmouth" (MILWAUKEE, WI USA) - See all my reviews

"Rachael Ray is a very busy lady" - so says the back of Ray's new book, "Express Lane Meals". With a show on the Food Network, a slew of cookbooks and a recent magazine venture, you would think that she has no time left to write another book. But obviously, this wonder woman has found the time to do it again!

This book is focused on those of us who come home from work, exhausted, but still want a good, quality meal on the table without a lot of fuss. In Express Lane Meals, Ray emphasizes that this can be done - with a well stocked pantry and freezer - plus a few simple ingredients that you can pick up at the store on your way home. The secret is this - about every two weeks (or less depending on your usage), you do a "big shop", where you buy all the staple pantry/freezer/fridge ingredients that you keep on hand(ex: eggs, Parmesan cheese, pasta, frozen corn, lemons, canned beans, etc.) and then, you combine these ingredients with a few fresh items - and presto - you have quick, delicious dinners faster than you can say checkout!

The food is typical Ray fare: lots of pastas, some Tex-mex and Asain, plus plenty of Italian. The recipes are really nice and tasty with everything from Balsalmic Chicken with White Beans and Wilted Spinach to Thai-Style Grilled Beef in Broth with a Lot o' Noodles. Each recipe features the "Express Lane Shopping List" (what you need to pick up at the store) as well as a list of ingredients that you should have on hand from those 'big shop' days. This is a really handy feature and it helps you to be organized so that you are not caught without your necessities.

The book is divided into three sections: Meals for the Exhausted, Meals for the Not Too Tired, Bring it On! This allows you to choose from super easy to more complicated meals. I also like the "Master List" for the big shop days - this gives a good idea of what a well stocked pantry should be. It certainly gave me a few ideas that I didn't think of!

I would recommend this book for working moms, harried executives, busy families, college students or those of us who simply want a nice home cooked meal without a lot of fuss. You really can't go wrong with any of her books. Well done!

246 of 274 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rachael does fast cooking with a sound new twist., April 21, 2006

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

`Express Lane Meals' by Rachael Ray, the '30 Minute Meal' diva does `pantry cooking' right where almost everyone else gets some important part of this concept wrong.

I always feel the need to justify my liking Rachael Ray's books and TV Show, since my personal taste in cooking runs to masters of the serious and elaborate recipes of Julia Child, Paula Wolfert, and Marcella Hazan.

First, Rachael has a twist to her '30 Minute Meal' shows which I have seen no one else do. That is, like a printed recipe, Rachael starts by ticking off the ingredients she will need for her. Then, she gives more than the average information on how she preps and how to do it for the 30-minute meal objective.

Second, Rachael uses very few gadgets and tricks in her prep work. I usually see no more than a very good Santoku knife, a microplane, some wooden spoons, a spatula and a vegetable peeler. She occasionally uses the food processor she rarely uses the microwave. To be sure, she uses a lot of pots and pans, but one would probably be able to do everything Rachael does with two large skillets, two large saute pans, an 8 or 12 quart stock pot, and a two burner grilling surface.

Third, Rachael manages to carry out her 30-minute strategy with relatively few prepared products. And, one can always easily make your own versions of those prepared items such as stocks, salsas, and sauces if you wish.

Fourth, Rachael rarely gets into the `weekend prep ahead' mode popular with some quick cooking advocates. I suspect that if you really have not much more than 30 minutes to cook on a Monday, your weekends are probably also pretty well booked up, so you don't really have much time to do 3 to 4 hours of prep work, labeling, and freezing.

Fifth, I really believe that most of Rachael's recipes can be done within 30 minutes, IF you have good kitchen skills and a well organized kitchen and you can move around the kitchen quickly AND you know the recipe by heart. That's a lot of ifs, but if you are serious about good cooking quickly, these are things you must have.

I have seen many cookbooks claim to present whole chapters of pantry only recipes, where every recipe includes at least one ingredient I, who cooks every day, would not imagine keeping in my pantry. Rachael solves that problem by billing her message in this book as how to shop and cook based on the two or three items you can buy quickly on the way home to supplement what you will have in your pantry. Rachael also avoids the stance that you must run out and buy all the things in her pantry list. She is much closer to the sage advice from Madhur Jaffrey who said that you build your pantry by buying what you need for each recipe. What Rachael's list gives you is the assurance that a particular pantry item such as capers or shallots is a genuinely useful thing to have around for recipes in her books.

I have mixed feelings about Rachael's advice on the spice cabinet. I once read a distinctly minority opinion claiming that the value gained by throwing out spices over 6 months old is misplaced. This writer said she commonly checks all her spices by smell before using in a recipe and if they seem just a bit weak, she simply uses more of them. I submit that this makes sense especially if you avoid dried herbs and spices that simply don't work very well, such as basil and parsley, and if you get the whole spices such as nutmeg and black pepper. I have a bottle of whole nutmegs which is easily a year old, and my freshly ground spice from this bottle would put ground nutmeg fresh off the supermarket shelves to shame. But I still endorse her suggestion of getting the smallest size available (except for the really frequently used stuff like salt, pepper, cinnamon, and thyme).

Overall, I think Rachael's list of pantry items is one of the best I have seen, although I have a few suggestions. For example, I would not buy pre-grated Pecorino Romano. I'm also just a bit surprised that Rachael calls for two bunches of parsley in the fridge, yet she makes no provision for backup storage (what the bookstores call `overstock') of extra (usually unrefrigerated) unopened containers of mustard, mayonnaise, capers, hot sauce, and Worchestershire sauce. I also think the suggestions from the `wine rack' could have been better. Instead of 750 ml bottles of wine, I get the 3 liter (4 bottles worth) `wine in a box' packages which last me for about 3 months of cooking and `sampling'.

My biggest arguments with Miss Rachael concern canned tomatoes and her `diced fire roasted tomatoes'. First, every serious Italian cooking writer recommends using canned whole tomatoes rather than diced, crushed, or pureed product. I confess that the time taken to mush up the whole tomatoes may take a bit from the precious 30 minutes, but I suspect the difference in quality of the final dish is worth it. And, I have been listening to Miss Rachael for about a year now putting `diced fire roasted tomatoes' into her recipes and I have finally located a Muir Glen product in the Health Foods section, thanks to reference from my far flung correspondents!

The very best thing about this book is that Rachael mantains her pantry / express line shopping technique throughout the book, by for every recipe citing the things you will want from your pantry and the things you will want to pick up on the way home.

This is one of Rachael's better books.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, not great but good pantry meals, October 29, 2006

By	LovetoRead (Boston) - See all my reviews

It appears most reviewers either love this cookbook or hate it. I'm firmly in the middle. I bought this book because this is a pantry-meal cookbook. No exceptional ingredients (in my opinion), doesn't take more than 30 mins (I did the Leek-y Chicken in 7 mins.) and the recipes are easy to manipulate if you want to go in another direction.

So, its a pantry-meal cookbook. Its a great place to turn when you're looking for something basic, easy and in your pantry already. I haven't loved the recipes yet--they are actually somewhat bland. But I've done them by the book, so to speak.

I didn't by her book for fine cuisine. I bought it to give me some fresh ideas when I'm feeling brain dead after a long day--and REALLY don't want to make rice and beans again or mac and cheese. I consider these recipes to be a great starting point from which I can add my own touches. The recipes that I've read, but not made, all seem solid and workable.