Has anyone tried recipies from one of Rachael Ray’s books? Are they any good? Is the 30 minutes for real?
I need to add some varity to dinner that won’t eat up a lot of time.
Thanks!
Da Mouse
I havent looked thru her books, but I have seen her tv show way too many times, and I’m just assuming that they correlate pretty well. That said, yeah, in the tv show she finishes everything in the 30 minute segment in “real-time” including getting stuff form the fridge and pantrys, preheating ovens, etc.
You probably have to be at least moderately good at multi-tasking in the kitchen, tho. And Rachel does do stuff like pre-washing her herbs, so she doesn’t have to spend time doing that during the show.
The 30 minutes is semi-real. I saw a behind the scenes show about it, she does actually prepare the meal in 30 minutes, but they spend a reasonable amount of time choreographing to make it work. She goes right from one task to another, the ingredients and tools are right where she expects them to be, she doesn’t have to keep referencing the recipe for amounts or techniques. She’s also determined the right order for tasks so that there is no wasted time, based on her skills and tools. I would expect to spend at least 45 minutes on one of her meals, especially if it’s the first time.
I’ve had a few of her recipes that were very tasty, so I can recommend her for that, at least.
I have one of the cookbooks and it is definitely possible to do the whole meal in 30 minutes, but you had better be organized and plan out your time beforehand. I found that trying to get it all done in 30 minutes was good for teaching me how to use otherwise “dead” time while making dinner.
She’s definitely in my “trust” file as well as Tyler Florence, Alton Brown, and Giada de Laurentis. Pretty much anything they make comes out really good and tasty.
I am a straight up multitasker in the kitchen… and I don’t think I’ve ever made one of her meals in 30 minutes. Best, probably about 45. Sandwich meals are the closest I’ve come to making it in 30.
Rachael’s all about the organization. She can do her meals in 30 minutes because it’s a neat kitchen. My sister is always complaining that she’s a fraud, but my sister is also always losing her keys—every single time she visits, unless I succeed in confiscating them the second she walks inthe door and keeping them myself.
So yeah, RR rocks. When I am godking her death will be quick and painless.
I have the 365 meals book, and the ones I’ve done have come pretty close. (And I can see how if I were more focused and organized, they’d make the 30 minute time frame).
There’s nothing that actually involves a lot of preparation or a long cooking time…but you can’t linger and loiter around the kitchen (which I do) if you want it done in 30 minutes.
I’ve made stuff from her show, and I agree - it takes her an honest 30 minutes, takes me an honest hour.
I’m a huge RR fan, and both Mrs. Know and I have made many recipes from her show. The missus has taken to calling the show “30-minutes-my-ass”. When I mentioned that it’s probably because she wasn’t using a “garbage bowl”, I learned that humor is best attempted when your wife isn’t holding a frying pan! 
Seriously, though, I go with the 45-to-60 minute time frame as more realistic–especially when you’re working in a kitchen half the size of Rachael’s.
All these recipes are also familiar ground for her. I spend a hell of a lot more time chopping. But, after gaining some confidence with the dishes, I speed up to something akin to a half hour.
My boyfriend’s sister got the books for Christmas and uses them frequently and loves them. But, like Rachael, she has a bigass kitchen and plans her time well.
I think this has a lot to do with it. I’m not a trained chef, so I can’t chop and peel and whatnot nearly as quickly as she can, plus I have a tiny kitchen so I can’t spread everything out assembly line style. The food that comes out is generally worth it though. Her turkey meatloaf things take us a really long time and they look like cat food, but they’re really good.
The thing that gets me is her portion ideas. Apparently she is used to cooking for ravenous giant sumo wrestlers, because when it says “serves 2-3” we usually end up with a lot more than that, especially with the “Stoup”.
My wife was so impressed by a pasta and meatballs dish she saw on Rachael’s show, she went to the website and downloaded the details, and went out to buy all the stuff - fresh herbs, wine, gorgonzola cheese, cream… and followed the instructions to the letter.
It tasted like ass.
We threw the remains out.
I think she can save a whole minute if she just said “extra virgin olive oil” instead of “EVOO - that’s extra virgin olive oil” every damn time it comes up.
This recipe?. Now, admittedly, Ray Ray annoys the living crap out of me, but that recipe looks fine, and the users seem to agree. Whatever it is, even I wouldn’t blame Rachel Ray for you guys not liking the dish.
We like her recipes. Never even try to meet the 30-minute mark. But the food’s good.
That’s the one. Of course it looks fine, but after a few minutes, we started tasting hints of bitterness in there somewhere, and the cheese just tasted weird. We wondered if perhaps we don’t have a sophisticated enough palate to enjoy food that tastes like ass, but we came to the conclusion that our taste buds were just fine, and the food tasted like ass.
We don’t blame Rachael.
It’s going to take me more than 30 minutes to prepare and eat this dish:
Man, it would take more than 30 minutes just to scrape the makeup off of that.
You joke, but a “garbage bowl” speeds things up immensely! I learned this when visiting a hippie commune where we composted all the kitchen waste, so there was a big bowl on the counter (taken out twice a day) for compostables, and one next to it for garbage garbage. It’s not exagerating to say that a 45 minute prep time can be cut down to 30 minutes with a convenient bowl for trash. Not only do you save the steps and time of walking to the garbage can and opening the lid 19 times, but you don’t lose your peeler under the carrot skins when you’re ready to peel the potatoes, or your knife under the styrofoam the meat came on, or the measuring cup under the plastic bag you took the carrots out of…it all adds up pretty remarkably.
Most of RR’s meals take me about 45 minutes, and quite a few I can do in 30. That’s *with *a toddler underfoot.
Could be the walnuts or the sage. Both can be bitter–taste before you use. And Gorgonzola can be an acquired taste. Personally, I love it, but I understand why somebody may think it tastes like ass.