Cakes + puds
Little warm Bramley apple pies or ‘chaussons aux pommes’
Rum punch roast pears, figs & peaches with toasted hazelnuts & vanilla crème fraîche
Neat-and-tidy Eton mess with blackberries & stem ginger whipped cream
Homemade meringues
Chocolate mousse with raspberries
Strawberry & cream mini cakes with chocolate drizzle strawberries
Pear, almond & amaretto tart with stem ginger mascarpone cream
Doorstop vanilla cheesecake
Dulce & banana cake
Simply coffee, vanilla & walnut cake
Lemon & lime poppy seed drizzle cake
Let them eat cake, cake
Crouching tiger, hidden zebra cake
Bread + pastry
Aussie olive damper bread (soda bread’s antipodean cousin)
Crackle-top bread
Twister bread
Net bread (roti jala)
Puff pastry
Sweet rich brown sugar pastry
Sweet shortcrust pastry
Tasty treats
Little jammy tarts
Peanut butter squares
Vanilla hazelnut & brown sugar shortbread
Blueberry & oat muffins
Maple, pecan & cranberry granola
Port-preserved cherries with cinnamon & orange
White chocolate-dipped cherries
White chocolate lollipops with dried cranberries
Shameless shortcut cookies-and-cream lollipops
Homemade vanilla custard (crème anglaise)
Mango chutney
Salted caramel toffee sauce
Zesty apple sauce with cinnamon & ginger
Homemade vanilla extract
List of Recipes
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Staring at the blank page with my deadline looming, no words seemed to be coming. A relaxed, unpressurised atmosphere is usually when a flurry of inspiration hits, but it wasn’t until I was on a plane ride back from sunny, siliconed Los Angeles with a glass of Californian Chardonnay on my tiny table that the words began to flow.
I thought back to my first book, Baking Made Easy, a self-explanatory title packed with recipes that, in my own words, covered ‘anything cooked in the oven’. The broad definition allowed me artistic licence to develop meals and dishes both sweet and savoury. Exotic tarts and traditional cakes featured alongside night-time nibbles and Parisian patisserie. With my next book and series, Home Cooking Made Easy, came food with a more homely note: comforting casseroles and lasagnes, beauteous breads and simple puddings and desserts.
It felt, for the meantime anyway, that I’d had a significant part of my cooking repertoire covered and that this time I wanted to try something a little bit different, something that would hopefully prove even more useful for the (sadly) ever-decreasing time in which we have to prepare and cook food. I don’t know how often I have come home from a day whizzing around like the Energizer Bunny on the rampage to a family awaiting some culinary delight. I also don’t know how many times I have hung my head in shame and uttered the words, ‘Oh. Yes. Dinner,’ and then made the short trip to the local supermarket to try to buy from the near-empty shelves and then cobble something together for dinner.
I am not at all embarrassed to say that on many occasions I have returned home to the waiting party laden with food that just needs a simple peeling back of the plastic and a slight turn of the oven dial, usually to 180°C. These ready-meals serve a purpose and I am thankful that they exist, but I wondered what if a book existed that was jam-packed full of dishes that were quick, simple, nutritious and above all super-tasty? I wrote this book for the many, many people out there who, like me and my family, face the same daily dilemma of ‘What on earth is for dinner?’
Thanks to the brilliant medium of Twitter, countless readers have told me that the important thing for the evening meal is that it is easy and quick to cook, using ingredients that don’t require a space shuttle flight to the outer reaches of the solar system to source. The main ingredients people seem to favour are chicken (breasts, not so much the thigh or the leg), lamb chops, pork chops, minced beef or lamb, and fish. So I’ve included an enormous range of dishes featuring these, along with other tasty fare such as duck and vegetarian grub. I don’t know if it is the Brit in me, but with my meal I like to eat some kind of a veg and/or a carb, but not any ordinary side dish – something a bit different that will leave (even with the quickest of meals) a lasting sensory memory on my tongue and in my mind.
Dishes such as the Italian Cacciatore get a gentle lift with the help of the mildly spiced harissa, a red chilli paste from North Africa. A simple Salmon en Croute is transformed by the use of papery filo in which to envelop it, and the accompanying potatoes are gently crushed with a pesto made from basil and curly kale. A Lamb Biryani, cooked in one pot and ready to eat in 25 minutes, is delicately spiced with the very-easy-to-find garam masala, cumin and chilli powder.
My current favourite are Lemoncello Jello Shots — lemon wedges scraped clean of their flesh and filled with a citrusy alcoholic (or not, if you so choose) jelly — that are so simple to make and yet so attention-getting when served, and of course super-yumbelicious to eat.
The goal of this book was to create something people would revisit time and time again. A cookbook that would be on that kitchen counter several times a week, for busy people who love good food and want to make something quick and easy, with tasty and accessible ingredients, to impress family and friends. And I wanted to provide an entire meal: main dish and side. So often when you know what you want to cook, it is challenging to figure out what to have with it. With this book, I have served up dishes with an accompaniment or two, making mealtimes much easier to plan. I also tried to make it as simple as possible so that everything is served up together, with a time plan for each recipe so you can sail through the instructions and end up with a delicious dish in super-fast time. I have put my heart and soul into this book and hope it helps you to serve up fast, fresh and delicious meals every day.
Lorraine
A few handy tips on the recipes
+ All preparation and cooking times are an estimate so check and taste things as they cook.
+ Always wash rice thoroughly before use.
+ I find it best to have all the ingredients and equipment out ready before you start cooking, so everything is easy to get when you need it.
+ These recipes have all been tested a minimum of four times, and they have been written so that everything is ready at the same time. So if you follow the method to the letter you will have quick and tasty meals ready in flash.
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