Book Review: Great Meals in Minutes

Title: Great Meals in Minutes

Author: Time-Life Books staff

Date: 1985

Publisher: Time-Life Books

ISBN: 0-316-58065-9

Length: 279 pages, with index

Illustrations: many full-color, full-page photographs

Quote: “For the busy person—novice cook and gourmet alike—who enjoys serving meals that are different, tasty, and nutritious, but do not take long hours to prepare.”

Unless we’re using “great” in the obsolete sense of “large,” I doubt that it’s possible to identify recipes for “great meals.” (These meals aren’t especially large; each is planned to serve four.) If a meal is going to be memorable or exceptional, the recipe is only a small part of its quality...

What readers can be told is what’s in the meals. Each contains proteins, carbs, and veg for four, although menu planners aren’t too frugal to offer two or three protein options on the same menu. Photos emphasize the luxurious sensuality of fresh, crisp, colorful vegetables, softened or even splashed with oil but not cooked limp or “smothered” in anything—vegetables children would want to taste.

Menus are organized according to the kind of meat featured in the meatiest dish, with vegetable and fruit recipes mixed in. The beef section, which sprawls from pages 27 to 65, includes a quite appealing tofu recipe. Vivid salads and savory pilafs are scattered throughout. Several meals are dairy-free, several are wheat-free, and there are short sections of vegetarian and vegan meals. There are also menus with vegetables as the main dish and meat as a side dish, a nice idea for those who aren’t ready to go vegetarian but would like to reduce animal fat in their diets.

This is a book for people who need a little encouragement to start cooking meals that are cheaper, healthier, at last as attractive, and not much more time-consuming than what they’ve been going to restaurants for. Anyone who can assemble peanut butter sandwiches, trim a carrot, and peel an orange can convince kids that “even my useless teenaged sister cooks better than those cafeteria people,” but those who can find good-quality vegetables and cook them as suggested by this book may live to hear, “My Dad cooks better dinners than Les Posh’s.”