Cookbook review: Beating the Lunch Box Blues by J.M. Hirsch

Tired of the same old peanut butter sandwiches in your lunch box? Want something healthier for your kids than those processed lunch kits? J.M. Hirsch felt the same way and decided to do something about it. He challenged himself to make lunch more interesting for himself and his family. As a result, he began a blog called Lunch Box Blues where he chronicled the school lunches he created for his son. Eventually his idea took off and thus Beating the Lunch Box Blues was born.

Beating the Lunch Box Blues is not so much a cookbook as a place to find inspiration. It's a flip book of sorts. Look through the pictures and discover how you can transform leftovers or find which convenience foods will actually make for a healthy, satisfying lunch (hummus, anyone?).  Every page contains full color photographs of a  new and creative way to map out a delicious lunch every day. 

Now to be clear, Hirsch is not an advocate for the Pinteresting of lunch here. In the very first paragraph he declares, "if you're one of those people who somehow finds the time to craft sandwiches into cutesy animals, or carve cheese into flowers and hearts... Congratulations! And good luck with your therapy. Now go away." Beating the Lunch Box Blues is anything but cutesy. It's practical and takes the drudgery out of packing your family's lunches.

But just in case anyone reading this review is saying to themselves, "But I like my cookbooks to actually have cooking in them," do not fear! Hirsch includes 30 dinner recipes that can easily be transformed into delicious lunches the next day.

Some of my favorite suggestions from the book are:

• Using frozen items such as puff pastry or phyllo cups to create different vessels for leftovers (my personal favorite use of puff pastry was to create pinwheels with ham and cheese)
• A honey brie sandwich: sourdough bread, a schmear of brie, and a crunchy, dripping hunk of honeycomb
• A mac and cheese grilled cheese
• Add pesto to grilled cheese
• Make extra pasta for dinner and use the extra for pasta salad the next day
• Place hunks of feta on pita bread and drizzle with honey
• Since cut apples brown when exposed to air, cut an apple in half, core it, spread peanut butter over the cut side and then dunk in grape nuts or granola. 

An example of a page from Beating the Lunch Box Blues

Beating the Lunch Box Blues is the first book to be published under the new Rachael Ray Books imprint and I'd say it's a slam dunk. I look forward to seeing what more Ray has in store for her readers and fans.


Beating the Lunch Box Blues by J.M. Hirsch
Published: September 3, 2013
Publisher: Rachael Ray Books
Pages: 208
Genre: Cookery
Audience: Adults
Disclosure: Library Copy

My Year in Meals by Rachael Ray/My Year in Cocktails by John Cusimano

Rachael Ray's latest cookbook effort is a two-fer. She teamed up with her husband to make My Year in Meals and My Year in Cocktails.

Both Ray and Cusimano chronicled all the meals and cocktails they made for an entire year and photographed the dishes with their own cameras without the help of a professional photographer and food stylist. Given that Ray has published so many cookbooks, I have to tip my hat to her for trying something new and different, but I'm not entirely sure this effort was a success, in my opinion anyway. When I look through a cookbook, I want the pages to be sleek and minimalist so as to let the food speak for itself. I found the pages of this cookbook to be much too busy and difficult to follow, with many different photos, dates, recipes, and fonts on each page. I didn't feel inspired to cook when thumbing through the pages of this book; I felt overwhelmed.

If there is a redeeming quality to this book, however, it's actually the My Year in Cocktails section. The pages in this section of the book have much less "stuff" and so the drinks can speak for themselves. And I have to say, I am quite impressed with the breadth of Cusimano's talent for mixology. All of the drinks in this section were creative and the pictures made me more thirsty for John's drinks than hungry for Rachael's food. If this book has a saving grace, I think that it was the fact that Rachael teamed up with her husband.


My Year in Meals/My Year in Cocktails by Rachael Ray and John Cusimano
Published: November 13, 2012
Publisher: Atria Books
Pages: 384
Genre: Cookery
Audience: Adults
Disclosure: My own book purchase

Yes, I'm a Foodie and I Love Rachael Ray

I consider myself a foodie, but I'm not one of those food snobs who looks down on Rachael Ray, declaring that her methods and recipes are against everything that is good and holy about food. People like that really bug me. (Yes, as much as I love Anthony Boudrain, I get very irritated when he bashes Rachael). You know why? Because Rachael Ray was able to do something that so many people before her were never able to do: she got people back in the kitchen and made them realize that cooking a lovingly-prepared meal for your family wasn't rocket science. As she's said before: if she can do it, anyone can do it. And the thing that really irks me about Rachael Ray haters, is that they don't give her credit for using REAL FOOD in her recipes. She gets a majority of her ingredients from the perimeter of the grocery store (produce, meat, dairy) where most nutritionists tell you to spend most of your time, and often steers clear of the processed crap in the center of the store. So her methods use shortcuts in the cooking process itself, but not in the quality of ingredients that some other cooking personalities do (coughcoughSandraLeecoughcough).

You can call her annoying (because she is sometimes). You can complain that she's not a trained chef (she's addressed this many times and agrees with those people). But you cannot say that her food is not perfect for the hardworking Americans out there who come home exhausted from work and would rather give their family a wholesome, home-cooked meal than order takeout. Because you know what? That's her audience. Would you rather those people stuff greasy pizza, Chinese pumped full of MSG, and McDonald's in their faces because that's what they'd be doing if they hadn't come across one or more of her shows and realized how easy cooking really can be.

To go along with my defense of Rachael Ray, I made the most delicious brunch this morning with her help: French Onion Croque Madames. So instead of ham, there were caramelized onions on top. That's what I love about her cooking: she takes a method for something and gives you the tools to find ways to change it up. This was probably one of the best meals I've made in a long time, that includes breakfast, lunch OR dinner.





The very best part of this meal is when you get to the liquid, golden yolk, and you get a bite of the runny yolk, the sweet onion, the salty cheese, the creamy bechamel, and the crunchy Italian bread. Oh heaven! It's an explosion of flavors and textures in your mouth. This will certainly NOT be the last time I make this dish.


And an added bonus to making this meal was that I had some extra bechamel leftover so now I have dinner too: mac and cheese with cannellini bean puree.


I was planning on using the cannellini beans for something else but I pureed them instead because I tried them from dry beans by soaking them overnight and then boiling them, but they fell apart and turned to mush. So rather than throw them away, I decided I'd puree them and add them to my mac and cheese for a little extra fiber.

This idea came to me because I've been reading Jessica Seinfeld's cookbooks recently and her recipes involve "hiding" vegetables by using purees so her kids won't know they're eating healthy. Even though I don't hate vegetables nor do I have children, I like this puree idea just to boost the nutrition of otherwise non-nutritious meals. And even though I added about a cup of the bean puree to my bechamel sauce, the bean flavor did not come through the creamy cheese sauce.

So this was quite an eventful morning of cooking for me: I made a yummy brunch, pureed some beans that I might have otherwise discarded, prepared dinner in advance, and told y'all to step off the Rachael Ray hating. :o)

Martha, Why You Gotta Be Such a Hater?

Martha Stewart has just given me one more reason to never aspire to be like her. Martha recently appeared on the Rachael Ray Show all nicey-nicey, claiming there was no feud between the two domestic divas. Then, she appears on Nightline this week, slamming Rachael for not being "good enough" for her, saying she's an entertainer and not a chef.

Martha you witch, Rachael is constantly telling everyone and even said to YOUR FACE that she has never claimed to be a chef. She helps families make practical meals using wholesome ingredients.

I know that not everyone is a fan of Rachael's but you have got to give her props for helping so many Americans get back in the kitchen and make meals using quality ingredients (e.g. making your own cream sauce rather than slathering something in Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup). She makes cooking easy and ACCESSIBLE for everyone. Martha Stewart makes absolutely nothing accessible. Her style is uppity, snobbish perfection that no working mother has the time or energy to ever attain.

So suck all the botox out of your face Martha and swallow that pill because you're just bitter that Rachael is now more popular than you.