Review by Barb & Ron Kroll

Cookbook Title:

Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book - Her Biggest Ever Collection of All-New 30-Minute Meals Plus Kosher Meals, Meals for One, Veggie Dinners, Holiday Favorites, and Much More!
(Clarkson Potter) ISBN 978-0307383198 0307383199

Theme:

You will find Kosher recipes, vegetarian recipes and single serving recipes, that you can prepare in under 30 minutes in Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book. The 360-page cookbook also has recipes for appetizers, soups, sandwiches, pasta and slow-cooked meals for everyday and special occasions.

Sample Recipes:

BLTT: bacon, lettuce, tomato jam and tuna steak sandwiches. Baba ganoush hummus pasta. Green onion halibut with BBQ bacon tomato sauce and honey mustard polenta. Beet risotto. Grilled vegetable muffaletta. Strip steaks with green olive chimichurri and criolla salsa, roasted potato wedges and hearts of palm salad. Seared salmon with potato chorizo ragu. Basil cream sauce with pasta. Very easy beef brisket. Sweet baked brie. Baby pears and figs with gorgonzola. Garlic thyme roasted beef tenderloin with horseradish sauce.

Notable Elements:

Rachael Ray includes recipes with single servings for one-person meals (e.g., surf 'n' turf for one, single guy or gal shepherd's pie and wild mushroom spaghetti).

A Holiday section includes recipes for Mother's Day, a St. Patrick's Day menu, a Passover Feast, Octoberfest recipes, Thanksgiving and holiday menus.

A Kosher Meals chapter features recipes for paprika chicken schnitzel, salmon burgers with dill mustard and grilled tuna salad.

Rachael Ray's family recipes, from her mother and mother-in-law, include recipes for baked ziti, shrimp with garlic and beef and burgundy stew.

Vegetarian recipes, like grilled vegetable chili, roasted cauliflower curry and mushroom ragout, are so good that you won't notice that they contain no meat.

Tone / Style:

In her upbeat, entertaining, simple and it's-easy-to-do-it manner, Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book addresses the need for meals that can be made quickly and simply, for a variety of occasions.

Each chapter and recipe begins with an introduction that describes flavors and cooking tips (e.g., Stuff deviled eggs by piping the filling from a plastic bag with the corner snipped off). Main ingredients for each recipe are in bold type to make them easier to read. The Index for the 200 recipes is organized by ingredient, so it is easy to find a recipe that uses specific ingredients.

Some recipes contain substitutions. For example, Rachael Ray encourages vegetarian cooks to adapt dishes by substituting vegetable stock for chicken stock.

Other recipes contain variations, like the ranch dip that can be varied by adding avocado, salsa, BBQ sauce or smoked salmon. Rachael Ray includes culinary advice, such as the differences between Mexican chorizo and Spanish chorizo. (Mexican chorizo is raw and can be removed from its casing and crumbled before cooking. Spanish chorizo is dry cured. You can slice and eat it without cooking, or fry it to remove some of the fat.)

Visuals:

Full-page color photos by Tina Rupp, illustrating some of the finished dishes, are so appetizing that you want to eat them.

Contents:

• Introduction
• 30-minute meals
  • Soups and sammies
  • Pasta
  • Chicken
  • Beef, lamb and pork
  • Fish
  • B.L.D. (breakfast, lunch or dinner winners)
• Entree burgers
• Vegetarian meals
• Kosher meals
• Meals for one
• A little more than 30 minutes... but worth it
• From my family to yours
• Starters and snacks
• Holiday menus
• Index

Author:

Rachael Ray

Claim to fame:

Rachael Ray is the author of 14 other cookbooks and the hostess of three cooking shows.

 
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More Rachael Ray cookbooks:

Rachael Ray's Book of 10

Yum-o! The Family Cookbook

Just in Time!

2, 4, 6, 8 Great Meals for Couples or Crowds

Rachael Ray Cooking Lessons with Photos