The book jack­et promis­es that each of the 160 recipes can be pre­pared in fif­teen min­utes. That may be true for some, but judg­ing by the ingre­di­ent list for a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of these dish­es, it would take me fif­teen min­utes just to hunt down all the raw mate­ri­als in my kitchen. That doesn’t count the shop­ping time because some ingre­di­ents, like ​“pre­pared peeled, cubed but­ter­nut squash” for the But­ter­nut Squash Soup, aren’t exact­ly sta­ple items. But even if you hap­pen to have this on hand, the squash, along with the minced onion, fresh grat­ed gin­ger, coconut milk, and six oth­er ingre­di­ents still must be sim­mered for 30 to 40 min­utes, then mashed and cooked again for anoth­er 10 min­utes before the soup is ready to ladle. Where’s that 15-minute part? 

So if you don’t mind the bait-and-switch, you’ll prob­a­bly appre­ci­ate the nice mix of recipes in this pho­to-rich hard­cov­er, with recipes rang­ing from the tra­di­tion­al to the exot­ic. Some of the sim­plest ones are found in the fish chap­ter, like Crispy Rain­bow Trout Filets, which calls for a few spice sprin­klings before pop­ping into the broil­er for five minutes.

Author Jamie Geller of Mon­sey, N.Y., hosts ​“Sim­ply Kosher,” a new cook­ing series by the Ortho­dox Union web­site. She is also a free­lance pro­duc­er for HBO and the Food Net­work and a nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed food and lifestyle columnist. 

Recipe: Suf­gan­iot (Jel­ly Doughnuts)

Prep Time: 8 min­utes
Cook Time: 10 min­utes
Rest Time: 20 min­utes
Yield: 14 doughnuts

2 1/2 cups self-ris­ing flour
2 (8‑ounce) car­tons vanil­la low-fat yogurt
2 table­spoons vanil­la sug­ar
2 eggs
6 cups canola oil
3/4 cup con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar
1 cup seed­less straw­ber­ry jelly

1. In a large bowl, place flour, yogurt, vanil­la sug­ar and eggs.

2. Knead until all ingre­di­ents are com­bined and a sticky, doughy bat­ter is formed. Cov­er with a kitchen tow­el and let it rest for 15 to 20 min­utes.

3. Heat 6 cups canola oil in a 6‑quart stock­pot, cov­ered, over medi­um heat.

4. When dough is ready, uncov­er oil and raise heat to high.

5. Scoop out a table­spoon­ful of bat­ter and drop in oil. Don’t make the dough­nuts too big, so they can cook through.

6. You should be able to fry about 7 dough­nuts at a time. Using a slot­ted spoon, turn dough­nuts when halfway browned, about 30 sec­onds to 1 minute. Fry for anoth­er 2 to 3 min­utes or until entire dough­nut is deep gold­en brown and cooked through.

7. Remove dough­nuts and let cool on paper tow­el-lined plates. Repeat pre­vi­ous two steps with remain­ing bat­ter.

8. Fill a squeeze bot­tle with jel­ly and inject a lit­tle into each dough­nut.

9. Roll each dough­nut in con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar. Or shake 3 dough­nuts at a time in a paper bag filled with con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar.

Quick & Kosher: Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Noth­ing by Jamie Geller (Feld­heim Pub­lish­ers; 2007; Paper­back $34.99)