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Expert's cookbook solves parents' weeknight dinner woes

By MARY BETH FALLER • The Arizona Republic • August 12, 2009

Scottsdale, Ariz., resident and cookbook author Robin Miller prepares Spanish Sausage and Vegetable Kebabs, which take about 21 minutes to prepare and cook. The recipe is featured in her cookbook "Robin Rescues Dinner." (GANNETT)

Sometimes, when she's standing on the sidelines of her son's soccer practice at around 5:30 p.m., Robin Miller will overhear other parents discussing how they don't know what they'll do for dinner that night.
“Well, it's too late now! I know for a fact they'll end up going through the drive-through or making macaroni and cheese,” says Miller, who lives with her husband and two sons in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Miller, star of the Food Network show “Quick-Fix Meals With Robin Miller,” has just released a new cookbook aimed at the back-to-school cooking crowd: “Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table” (Clarkson Potter, 2009, $19.99 paperback).
“I want to sit down and do homework with Kyle, and if I'm in the kitchen chopping onions and carrots, I'm not doing homework with my child,” Miller says about keeping the recipes quick.
Miller knows the deal. Her sons play soccer and baseball, and she's at a game or a practice nearly every weekday. Her goal isn't just to offer up meals that are quick to make when you stumble in the door after 6 p.m. She shows how, with a little preparation, all you have to do is reheat and serve dinner.
“We have a new term,” Miller says of her kids. “When they're hungry, they're angry, so we call it ‘hangry.' ”
The book is divided into 52 weeks, with three meals for each week, and a seasonal focus. Miller believes every family deserves a little takeout and spontaneity during the week. The beginning of each chapter describes how the family cook can save time by preparing some of the ingredients ahead -- cooking the chicken, boiling the pasta, chopping vegetables, etc.
Many of the dishes are ready in less than 25 minutes, which just about hits the target. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the main meal preparer spent an average of 31 minutes on prepping, cooking and cleaning up per day in 2008. That's more than the 28 minutes spent in 2003 -- an indicator that people are starting the realize the benefits of cooking and eating at home. A 2008 report by the American Dietetic Association found that adolescents who ate dinner with their families at home ate more healthfully when they became adults.

“I want to sit down and do homework with Kyle, and if I'm in the kitchen chopping onions and carrots, I'm not doing homework with my child,” Miller says about keeping the recipes quick.

Miller travels frequently for her job and has been able to visit some of the most exciting restaurants in the country.
“I've had all of these amazing restaurant meals that are so creative and so full of flavor and pulling from different ethnicities and doing things with food that you'd never think would work,” she says. “I've tried to bring those things to my home kitchen and to this cookbook.”
The result is dishes that sound exotic -- like clams with fennel-lemon broth over rice or peanut-crusted chicken with apple-Gorgonzola relish. Yet both recipes have only nine ingredients, with half from the pantry.
The book also includes several super-quick ideas, including “17 Pantry Pastas” (such as chili cheese rigatoni) and “20 Fast Meals from a Rotisserie Chicken” (chicken and rice frittata).
“I love change,” Miller says. “If I have something really Mexican, the next day I want something with peanut and soy -- like Thai.”