Rachael Ray Holiday Cooking Recipe Tips, Vegetable Soup, Potato Latkes, and Roast

The Holidays can be the most stressful time of the year for families.

Rachael Ray on Dr. Oz Show

You have to consider the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping, making travel plans, dealing with winter weather, and so much more.  The last thing you need to be stressing about is making that huge Christmas feast for your family.  Today, Dr. Oz had on cooking diva Rachael Ray to teach us how to make a stress free, no fuss Holiday feast for your entire family!

Rachael Ray is famous for her “no fuss”, “keep it simple” style of cooking.  During the Holidays it may seem like an impossible task to keep it simple, but Rachael Ray came on to the Dr. Oz Show to teach you how.

Rachael’s Simple Holiday Secrets

Dr. Oz asked Rachael Ray what she thinks the reason that cooking is stressful around the Holidays. Rachael thinks that people set themselves up for failure.  People see pictures of gourmet meals in magazines and recipe books and try to replicate those images.  Rachael says that you should only make the meals that you have made before and have experience cooking.

Rachael recommends making the meal ahead of the time so you can spend some time with your family rather than running around the kitchen in a frantic manner.

Rachael Ray’s Tips On Vegetables – If you have problems with cooking vegetables and obtaining the right consistency, Rachael Ray says the best thing you can do is to roast your vegetables.  Roasting your vegetables is the best way to maintain your vegetables flavor and to keep it’s texture.

If you happen to overcook your vegetables you can still put them to good use.  Rachael Ray likes to make soups with vegetables and nobody will be the wiser that you accidentally overcooked your veggies.  She said that if you overcook broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, or asparagus try

• Add overcooked veggies in a food processor.
• For flavor try adding some sea salt.
• Add chicken or vegetable stock and warm the stock over medium heat
• Add thickened milk mixture by adding some regular cheese to the stock
• Pour some stock into the food processor and puree. Add just enough of the cheese sauce to make it a soup.

Rachael Ray’s Tips On Potato Latkes

Another Holiday cooking disaster that Rachael Ray had to save was “Potato Latkes” (or potato pancakes).  This is Rachael Rays potato latkes (pancakes) recipe :

• 1/3 Cup light olive oil
• 3 Medium Idaho potatoes
• one onion (small)
• 1 parsnip
• 1 egg
• 1 Tablespoon flat leave parsly
• 1 tablespoon chives
• 1 Tablespoon Dill
• 2 Tablespoons matzo meal
• Salt and pepper

To make a good potato pancake you need to get all of the liquid out of the potato.

• What you need to do is grate the potato into a colander, add sea salt and drain the excess water.
• Mix the grated potato with the herbs and grated onion.  Rachael Ray recommends grating the onion directly over the potato latkes so the juices fall into the mixture. She says the onions is what will be giving the potato latkes much of the flavor.
• Add the two tablespoons of matzo meal which helps with combining all the ingredients together.
• Grate the parsnips into the mixture. Dr. Oz said that parsnips are very healthy. High in vitamin C, potassium, and high in fiber.
• You then drop the mixture into a thin layer of a healthy oil such as vegetable, or canola oil.  Drop into thin small mounds and cook until they become crispy and then turn them over.

Rachael Ray “Cooking A Roast Tips”

Rachael Ray says that when you are cooking for a Holiday Meal, the best meats are the ones that can be slow cooked over several hours.  When you are making a roast, Rachael Ray recommends adding some moisture (vegetable stock) to the bottom of the roasting pan.  She gave an example that when you are roasting a ham to never heat the ham above 325 degrees.

Rachael Rays Tips If You Overcooked Your Roast

• If you overcooked a beef roast, Rachael recommends slicing the beef and then heat up a batch of beef broth.
• Do not serve the roast whole.  After you have sliced up the roast, let it lay in the heated broth in a pan.

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