Mexican Everyday

I go thru all my cookbooks making a list of page numbers and recipe names of everything I want to try. I circle the page number of recipes I really want to try. About 20 recipes into this book I stopped circling page numbers because I realized I had been circling ALL of them. Everything in this book sounds delicious and fresh and wonderful! I am thoroughly enjoying it, it is one of my favorite cookbooks!

I am a huge fan of Rick Bayless, but with two children aged 3 and under in my house, it is difficult for me to find the time to make some of his more elaborate recipes. With "Mexican Everyday", however, Bayless has provided the solution for cooks like me. It is indeed possible to get authentic Mexican meals on the table in under an hour. These meals are indeed fast to prepare and very tasty. The three I have made so far (Green Chile Chicken Soft Tacos, Guajillo-Spiced Pork and Potatoes, and Red Chile Chicken and Rice with Black Beans) have been hits. They do require some specialized ingredients but most of them were found in my local grocery store. This cookbook is going to become one that I return to frequently and I highly recommend it.

I like the trend in cookbooks towards simple, quick meals. How many of us have the time to take hours to prepare a meal outside of the holidays? Mexican cooking can be intimidating but Rick Bayless takes the complication out of it with this great book of simple yet delicious recipes. While the recipes are designed to be prepared in 30 minutes, I think the average home cook will be looking at 15 - 30 minutes longer, depdending on thier skill and quickness. Still, even 45 minutes isn't bad for some of these recipes. Rick has essentially dumbed down the recipes to make the preperation with more common ingredients, easily found in your pantry or grocery store. While the recipes may be scaled down and simplified, there certainly seems to be no effect on the taste. His tips for cutting prep time are not only vital to the recipes in this book, but to your home cooking in general. The book is laid out by section in the usual manner: Salads, side dishes, soups, main dishes, desserts, etc...I'm still not all that experimental so the section on Tacos, enchiladas, tostadas, was my favorite and my family and I really enjoyed the varitions on these more common dishes such as the green chile chicken tacos, as well as the grill prepared recipes as we grill a lot. The Chicken Tortilla soup with Avacado was another winner. Rick proves that Mexican need not be intimidating and time consuming. This is a book that I am happy to have in my collection!

`Mexican Everyday' by quadruple threat celebrity chef Rick Bayless is a must-buy for all dedicated foodies, lovers of Mexican food, fans of fast recipes, dieters (more on this later) and the cookbook collectors among us. Before I opened this book, I respected Bayless for being an accomplished home-grown American chef in Chicago, a leading expert and writer on authentic Mexican cooking, a respected TV chef educator on PBS in the tradition of St. Julia rather than on the commercial Food Network and, lastly, the author of a truly great `cook with kids' book, `Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures'. About the only thing Rick has not accomplished is to beat Bobby Flay on `Iron Chef America', although he did loose by only one point. Just as I did when I opened Jacques Pepin's `Fast Food My Way', I expected to find a `sell-out' book in one way or another. My worst fear was that this was just copied from recipes in his other books. At best, I feared it was simply a cash-in on Rachael Ray's popular '30 Minute Meal' formula. I am here to report that it is none of these, but a culinary and intellectual revelation surpassed by few other true cookbooks. Bayless' success in this book is grounded in his total mastery of his subject. He knows things so well; there is no hint of any misstatement, certainly none that I can detect in the world of chemistry or technique. I will simply assume his pronouncements on authenticity are authoritative. This great facility with his material even overcomes Bayless' former clumsiness with writing. He seems to have found his voice or a better copy editor. The introduction is a total surprise to the reader when Bayless launches into a discussion of his weight problem, and how he began dealing it with yoga, weight training, and portion control. None of these reflections make Bayless a weight watchers expert, but the things he personally learned on his journey to loosing excess weight is a great lesson and inspiration for anyone with a weight problem. But what does all this have to do with fast Mexican food. The starting point is Bayless' statement that many classic Mexican dishes have a lot of `extras' loaded on top of its basics. This is the first time I have ever heard this statement and I must say that my knowledge of Italian and French cooking indicates that the same is NOT necessarily true of these European cuisines. I do suspect that it may be true of Thai cooking, but that's just a hypothesis at the moment. So, Bayless' first step at slimming down both himself and cooking times was to remove much of the traditional frills such as moles and red chile sauces. He then gives a masterfully concise list of things to pare down recipes and speed up prep times by citing which techniques can be speeded up or simplified with things such as the rice cooker, microwave oven, food processor, and blender. In spite of this, Bayless also states that in a pinch, you can do everything in this book with a really basic set of tools.

Having most of Bayless' cookbook offerings to date and used them extensively, this purchase was a non-brainer. It lives up to the high expectations that this renowned chef has for Mexican cuisine, but here with the added nicety of for everyday, health conscience eating. He goes through his dietary advice at the beginning which includes portion control, yoga, etc. What is catchy as well is his leaning in this recipe collection for what can be prepared quickly and yet with robust taste and nutritional and easy-to-find ingredients, especially via Mexican staple supplier or via internet. This Norton published volume has gorgeous full-color photos, with absolutely great pictures of various ingredients, techniques and finished dishes. Bayless also jazzes each recipe up with what he refers to as "riffs." This are wonderful options, e.g. Grilled Fish in Tangy Yucatecan Achiote he suggests one can substitute pork or chicken and vegetable substitutions as well for the green beans. There are some great sidebars as well, e.g. five page tips for quick grilling ten great foods. This is a winner with the likes already enjoyed of: Lime-Cilantro Dressing, perfect with Jicama Salad with Watercress; Avocado-Mango Salad with Fresh or Blue Cheese, Bacon and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds; Seafood Salad Tacos with Tomato, Radish and Habanero; Seared Salmon (using Masa) with Spinach and Creamy Roasted Peppers; Skillet Fruit Crisp; Fresh Lime Ice with Berries. This can easily become a "go-to" volume within your collection also when you want some really great Mexican meals with all the flavor and minimal effort/ingredients.