30-Minute Meals

My husband bought me this book for mothers day after we had been watching Rachel for about a month or so. At first I thought she was a dork, but after watching the first episode and then making the meal the following day, I was (and still am)hooked. I have just placed an order for three more so that I can give then to several friends, as well as ordering her other books.If you've happened along this book by chance, and have no previous knowlegde of Rachel Ray or her show, I cannot express this enough. Buy it!. But I have to go now, 30 Minute Meals is on in 5 minutes.

If you're tired of heating up leftover leftovers but aren't quite up to cordon bleu, Rachael Ray's "30-minute meals", derived from her hit show on the Food Channel, offers up all kinds of yummy possibilities. Ray is fun to watch on her show; she's perky and down-to-earth and doesn't make cooking seem like some kind of exalted rite that intimidates beginners who haven't progressed beyond Boiling Water 101. Her bouncy exuberance comes across in her book and makes it enjoyable to read. I especially like the way her book is organized; there are special sections on Top Ten Meals With Fewer Than Ten Ingredients, Top Ten All-Time Favorites from her TV show, 30-minute pastas, salads and veggies, make your own take-out (pizza, sandwiches and Tex-Mex), burger recipes, Asian flavor, comfort food, and her own family favorites.
Can all of these meals actually be made in 30 minutes? Well, unless you're as well-organized as Ray on her show with everything right at hand, slicing and dicing up a storm, probably not; but none of them should take more than 45 minutes and some of them really can be made from start to finish in half an hour. Her book is pretty heavy on pastas, which are typically quick to prepare, and if the Asian isn't 100% authentic, it's still fun to make and delicious to eat. Ray's instructions are simple and direct, easy for anyone to follow. What's more, none of the meals are difficult to prepare and all of them emphasize healthy eating. This is a great book for anyone who enjoys good eats without all the hassles that go into preparing them. Grab it and hit the kitchen.

I am such a HUGE fan of Rachael Ray and her TV Show "30 Minute Meals," that I couldn't wait to get my book in the mail. But when it came, I was so disappointed to find that there wasn't one picture in the entire book! I am still a novice at cooking and am drawn to the pictures of an entree before I attempt to make it. If you're not an expert who can use their imagination to know what the dish will look like, you'll probably be a bit disappointed like me. The only reason I'm still going to try the recipes is because I watch her show, have made her meals, and have been pleased with the results.

This is a great book that contains wonderful ideals for quick, easy, healthy meals. Although the recipes have consistently taken me more than 30-minutes to prepare, I have never been disappointed with one yet. I admittedly don't like to cook, and find it easy to avoid cooking altogether by eating unhealthy fast-food, but this book has definitely helped me avoid the temptations of easy, low-prep., unhealthy eating that has become the staple of my diet. This book will definitely make it easier to make healthy eating more consistent, but I'm convinced that the only way to really stick to any diet is to make it part of your routine by making it a habit. A friend of mine who is a clinical dietitian gave me an amazing book entitled The Power of Habit. It explains how our eating (when we eat, what we eat, and how much we eat) is all habit. It teaches you how to change your eating habits to make healthy eating a permanent, automatic part of your lifestyle. 30-Minute Meals gives you great, easy, low-hassle recipes, and The Power of Habit teaches you how to stick to them. I highly recommend both books.

A very average collection of recipes from the Food Network star-of-the-month Rachael Ray. You've seen these recipes before in different forms in hundreds of other cookbooks. Skip this one.

Every thing that I have tried out of the book has been great.My whole family has enjoyed the food.

I was a little disappointed in this book. It has a nice cover and all that, but the pages inside were a little low budget in appearance, and that psychologically made the recipes less exciting than they really are.

Cooking definitely isn't a passion of mine, so the quickest and easiest recipes are the ones that appeal to me most. However, without pictures of the finished product, I found it hard to choose recipes, because firstly, I want to see what I'm getting, and secondly, I really like seeing if my creation kinda looks similar to the professional one.

One of my problems was getting some of the basic ingredients - there are a lot of capers and anchovies required - but people living in the USA shouldn't have a problem. A lack of the various deli items and cheeses as well as the specialty bottled sauces made half the recipes impossible without substitution, but again, if you have these things close at hand you should do fine.

The recipes are easy to follow, even though I noticed that one of them omitted to tell you when to put in a certain key ingredient, and they have cute names - nothing highbrow here. I don't need step by step pictures, but some finished food shots would have made all the difference for me.

Okay for experienced cooks looking for some quick recipes, but a bit underwhelming for beginners.

Amanda Richards, June 12, 2005

Rachael Ray delivers yet again! Before she was a Food Network favorite, this hard working former server and PR genius wrote up a number of recipes for genuinely appealing meals that could be prepared in a half-hour or less. She used to go to supermarkets and do demonstrations and sell her books that way. She's earned her current status as one of America's favorite cooking personalities and this book shows why. Unlike so many cookbooks, everything in here is kitchen-tested, it works, and it's absolutely worth the time it takes to make. Rachael Ray has kept food preparation simple and she really goes the extra mile in passing on her time saving tips on how to prepare fine meals in today's hurried world. This is a fabulous book and I recommend it without qualification!

Just thought we would share our experience with Rachel Ray's first book, 30 Minute Meals. Organization is key! You must prepare the ingredients ahead of time before you begin cooking to really make the 30 minute recipes in 30 minutes - but the recipes are fantastic and by no means, bland. We've only had the book a few weeks, and I can tell you that my 11 year old son was very enthusiastic about planning and making the menu suggestions from the book. So far we've made over 5 of them and all have been great. The book is wonderful for new cooks - young and old alike.

Rachel Ray makes cooking look easy and her enthusiasm encourages you to want to try to cook a meal in 30 minutes instead of running out for fast food - and these recipes are much better tasting!

Rachel Rays personality is her greatest asset. She has no formal chef training and most of her recipes are very basic and somewhat bland. She seems like a fun person, and in todays television rich society, at times if your liked, it masks a lot of imperfections.

Her cookbooks are always somewhat unorganized due to the lack of quality indexes and pictures. Her recipes are also hit and miss; I think her sauces are bad at times, but sometimes she has a great idea for a simple appetizer or pasta. Again, very basic cooking but with her personality, she could pretty much sell anything. I think she'll continue to grow though and hopefully the food network won't ruin her.

She will never be a great chef but she's popular and a good spokesperson for simple dishes, and hopefully her books will improve as she does; I think both will get better.