Rocco's Five Minute Flavor: Fabulous Meals with 5 Ingredients in 5 Minutes
InRocco's 5 Minute Mealscelebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, ex-restaurant owner and one-time reality-show star, offers 190-plus recipes "made with 5 ingredients cooked in 5 minutes at no more than 5 dollars a serving."  The recipe range covers all courses from appetizers to desserts, and includes fondues (which can be prepared speedily) paninni, pasta, and vegetarian dishes. Typical recipes include Warm Artichoke and Parmigiano Dip, Chicken and Cauliflower Stir-Fry, Salmon with Shiitake Mushrooms in Ginger-Soy Broth, and Apricot and Dried Cherry Pound Cake.A good deal, right? But read the "fine print" and you'll discover that the five-minute rule doesn't include prep time, which can balloon when, for example, you're required to shell a pound of shrimp or slice zucchini into cups of half-moons. DiSpirito's five ingredient constraint is also fudged by his not counting basic items like salt, flour, and butter in ingredient tallies.  Also, the dishes require dozens of sometimes hard-to-find convenience items like frozen pigs in a blanket, hot dog onions, precut and precooked potatoes, soup mixes, gelatin snacks, and even rotisserie chickens. These may speed the "cooking" process but can do nothing to make DiSpirito's "five-minute" dishes taste homemade.  Though estimated costs are given per recipe, and all fall below the five-dollar-per-serving ceiling, a truer economy would involve buying and preparing fresh items, which, besides yielding superior results, cost relatively less, and won't leave the cook with, for example, leftover bottled buffalo-wing sauce or prepared hummus.Even so, time-pressed cooks will undoubtedly jump at DiSpiritio's strategies, if even for occasional cooking, and many will find the "high-concept" recipes fun to make. Die-hard fans will also appreciate the many, many photos of the star chef in action--shopping, cooking, or just posing for the camera.--Arthur Boehm