5: 30 Challenge: 5 Ingredients, 30 Minutes, Dinner on the Table

Many cookbooks claim to contain fast recipes -- think Rachel Ray -- but have endless (often expensive) ingredients to track down and then require four arms to do all the chopping and stirring and still finish in 30 stressful minutes. Other cookbooks have only a few ingredients per recipe but take hours to cook. I found it very hard to find a cookbook that provided good recipes that are truly fast, easy to prepare and require only a few ingredients. The 5:30 challenge delivers on all points with recipes with surprisingly sophisticated tastes. I've liked all the recipes I've made, and my wife all but one (disagreeing on the chili). If you don't want to spend a lot of time shopping and cooking after work, but want something you could serve to guests, this book is for you.

Minimal ingredients, quick & easy to follow recipes! My husband has tried fixing several of the recipes too. This is a great book if you (like most of us) don't want to spend your whole night in the kitchen, but you want dinner to taste like you did!

At last a quick-recipe cookbook that offers healthy meals that still taste good! Several of the recipes are now part of my regular stable of dinner ideas because they use fresh vegetables and a minimum of cans. Even better, the recipes are so simple that I can keep the grocery list in my head. No more elaborate shopping lists. I love the variety of ideas -- a friend and I actually hosted a party using only recipes from the cookbook and it was a fabulous success. Nobody would have ever guessed it came from a quick and easy cookbook.

Finally, a cookbook that really does make my life easier instead of more complicated! These recipes make me look like a gourmet cook when really I have just "whipped it up" in less than 30 minutes with only 5 things to throw together. I was so impressed with this book that I ordered 2 cases and gave them away to my friends and family for Christmas. It was a hit!