Veggie Meals: Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals

Having read several of Rachael Ray's cookbooks, I am always struck that she is usually more generous with providing meat or poultry-based choices than vegetarian ones. That made me curious about seeing this book. What would her 30-minute vegetarian choices look like? I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the dishes don't include eggplant, which I'm not fond of. And many of the dishes call for artichokes, asparagus, beans, mushrooms, peas, peppers, tomatoes, and spinach which I like very much. She also makes generous use of standard Italian cheeses, all of which I like. The book is organized into six sections: Menus Soups Salads Risotto, Pasta, and Italian Vegetable Entrees Make Your Own Asian Take-Out Snack Suppers: Stuffed Potatoes; Sandwiches; Dips; and Spreads The menu section is quite brief with four three-course menus and six two-course menus. The soup section is one of the best parts. Every soup looked great, and many contained helpful time-saving directions. Here's a list of the more intriguing ones to me: Chili; red beans and rice soup; three bean soup; black bean soup; pumpkin and black bean soup; Southwestern corn and pepper pot soup; escarole and white bean soup; chick pea and cannellini minestrone; and gazpacho. The salads section is also a treat. She does a good job of upgrading from a standard salad without making a lot of extra work. Here are some of the more intriguing choices: Asparagus salad; white bean salad; tabouleh salad; anti-pasta salad with bagna cauda dressing; Greek vegetable salad-stuffed pitas; baby spinach salad with pears and walnuts; spinach salad with blue cheese and scallions; and couscous salad with scallions and ginger. The risotto options seem perfectly good. I wonder how well they will taste without meat and poultry-based stock. I suspect they will need more spices to upgrade the flavor in the absence of those ingredients. The pasta section starts with some good pesto recipes for quick results. For the most part the other pastas didn't excite me. The Asian take-out section has only seven recipes in it and seems thin for someone who is willing to eat tofu . . . which isn't included in the cookbook as an ingredient. In snack suppers, I liked the recipes for spinach calzones, bean burritos, quesadillas, spinach artichoke dip, white bean dip, red pepper and sun-dried tomato spread, wild mushroom spread, spicy hummus, and her four pit-zas. I haven't gone looking for vegetarian cookbooks lately, but I suspect that there are ones with many more recipes, more variety, and more complex flavors. And I assume that they all take a lot longer to prepare. But for what I'm looking for, Veggie Meals provides more than what I need.

A lot of cookbooks falsely advertise that they contain 15 or 30 minute recipes, but the two recipes I have tried so far from this book (I just got it last week) both took 30 minutes as claimed. Both recipes were surprisingly good and flavorful-- often vegetarian recipes (Moosewood for example) have less flavor and take more time than I would like. I have a lot of vegetarian cookbooks and so far this one seems a lot more appealing to non-vegetarians than the others-- the meals don't taste or look like "hippie food" (which incidentally I love, but my husband does not!).

This book was a gift to me~truly. You don't have to see her show to know that she has such a vibrant, earthy style~the book displays that. The recipes are so good and the simple book format is refreshing. So many cookbooks spend too much time on "pretty" pictures that they omit good recipes like those contained in this book. Special cookbooks in my kitchen find a special place where they can be seen and are accessible. I use this book almost everyday! The pasta recipes are authentic and the sauces can be made ahead of time and then used with any of the pastas. It took me one day of making a dish from this book to put it on my favorites list~we eat it once a week or more (spinach pesto and penne pasta)! The ingredients marry together and create an incredible aroma. Even our choosy two year old loves all of her sauces and pastas.I take special care of this book~and I take it on vacation to share the recipes with others. You will not be disappointed!

Rachel Ray's book, Veggie Meals turned out to be a big find...I no longer panic when my one veggie sibling or my two veggie friends come by for lunch or dinner. They enjoyed the meals so much that a book for each was "the" Christmas present. I have also become a big fan of these recipes from the veggie snacks, Portobello parmigiano sandwich with roasted pepper salsa, YUM, to delicious full meals. Oh, did I mention the soups? THE SOUPS, YES! Little book, big reward, a great bargain. Thanks Rachel and give us More.

Got the latest version of the 30 min meal.... and even though I am NOT a vegetarian, I have found WONDERFUL recipes for my family and friends. Can't wait for the next book....THANKS RACHAEL.... keep 'em coming......I will surely buy them all.....Virginia L