This book was written before Rachael Ray was in everyone's living rooms at least twice a day and it has the best recipes out of any of her books. Her clam chowder recipe in this book is amazing and it's "real" clam chowder, not like her quick and easy cookie cutter recipes she makes on her daytime talk show.

I loved RR on the Food Network, I love her new TV show and I love her 30-min meals but her cookbooks are a major disappointment. I'm motivated (big-time) by photos of how the finished recipe will look and this cookbook has NO photos beyond the one on the cover. Boring. No more RR cookbooks for me.

Rachel's genius in top performance. I enjoy new tastes and regional cooking, but when it is cold or dreary, or when you are needing a good old friend, or the party is not just all about the food, this is my pick. The Swedish meatballs has become a personal and family favorite, and that recipe was quickly memorized. This is Rachel Ray at her best.

I come from the school of thaw it, zap it, and throw some fresh herbs and spices on top. That's how I usually create a meal in 5-10 minutes. Let's face it; I'm impatient when it comes to cooking.

But on certain days, I fondly recall comfort foods that just hit the spot and left me feeling warm all over . . . no matter what the weather was outside. The frozen foods you can buy normally don't convert well into comfort foods. I have a few simple recipes I've developed for myself, but these dishes don't have the complexity of flavors and appearance that would make them feel like REAL comfort foods.

Having been impressed with Ms. Ray's 30-Minute Meals, I decided to see what this book would provide. I was pleasantly surprised by several things:

1. Many of the dishes that I enjoy in restaurants but don't know how to make are included (such as Italian Wedding Soup, Portuguese Sausage and Greens Soup, Creole Chili, Smoky Chili, Everything Jambalaya, and Swedish Meatballs).

2. The complexity of the instructions is just right for my elementary skills. I find myself intimidated by cookbooks that assume I know what I'm doing in the kitchen.

3. Unlike 30-Minute Meals, not every dish features either garlic or garlic and anchovies.

4. There's a rich repertoire of spices, herbs, prepared sauces, alcoholic beverages, and mustards that nicely matches my preference for zest in my food.

5. The dishes are "spiced" up both in terms of ingredients and appearance. For example, she recommends putting sweet pickle relish in your burgers (along with a little onion, cayenne pepper sauce, and steak sauce) while you baste with ketchup and steak sauce. I never would have thought of sweet pickle relish as an ingredient . . . even though I love sweet pickle relish on burgers.

6. Seeing her imagination at work inspires me to toss in even more of my favorite flavors into various dishes. It's like getting your license to drive alone for the first time!

Unlike 30-Minute Meals, Ms. Ray sometimes also gives you an accompanying dish to complement the entree. I think that's a nice touch. After all, a whole meal needs to work together so that you enjoy each item more.

For those who haven't done the dishes before, I especially treasured her advice about what order to do things in. It would be easy for me to forget to start the rice first . . . which would destroy the 30 minute timetable. While I'm not sure that an amateur like me can do all of these dishes in 30 minutes, I felt pretty confident that 40 minutes would always be enough time.

Although I often cook only for myself, if I freeze the left-overs the extra time I spend on these healthy, good-tasting dishes, the extra time I spend won't add more than about five minutes in preparation time per meal. I think that's worth it to step up from the sameness and blandness of thawed, zapped food.

I'm not a RR fan, but I do like this book for basic, easy recipes that can be made pretty quickly. The photos are nice (although not being able to figure out which recipe is on the cover is annoying) and the typeface and layout are easy to read. A good basic book that would be a great gift for beginning cooks and people pressed for time.