A Modern Way to Cook: Over 150 quick, smart and flavour-packed recipes for every day

At the same time that we are being busier than ever, there is also a movement towards balancing things out. There’s a desire to treat our bodies well and to look after ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. And an awful lot of this centres around the food we eat.

There has been a real shift in the way we look at food. More people are conscious of what they’re putting into their shopping baskets, more people are buying seasonally, and more people are cooking at home. For the first time in two generations, home cooking is firmly back in fashion and an ever-increasing number of people are actively choosing to eat a diet centred around vegetables on at least a few days a week.

Making vegetables the focus of our diet is widely considered to be the single most important thing we can do for our own health and for the health of the planet. Over the last couple of years, eating a plant-based diet has moved from the domain of brightly painted veggie cafés to proud centre stage.

I hope this book will show you how to do this in your home without too much fuss. It’s packed full of the food I like to eat and the food I like to cook. To my mind, it’s this straight-up everyday food that is so important for us to get right, and get enthused about. And it’s the recipes in this book that I hope will help you cook achievable amazing meals every night of the week.

This book is my notebook of recipes, over 150 of them, flavour-packed with layers of texture and goodness. I hope they will be able to revolutionise how you cook and eat in the same way they have in my home. It’s modern cooking, making the most of a rainbow of grains and vegetables and using flavour and texture to transform your dinners into quick and easy feasts.

They’re recipes I am really proud of. From super-clever and ridiculously quick fifteen-minute one-pot pasta, to a Buddha bowl curry feast that would be grand enough to grace any table, this is the food that makes me happy. The sort that drives my cooking, led by flavour, texture and a deep love and respect for food.

Eating well

I am passionate about eating food that makes me feel good, and while I’ll sometimes reach for a trashy chocolate bar or a stodgy pub roast (which is all part of being human and nothing to be ashamed of), I know that’s not the food that I feel good eating.

I want stand-out, delicious food that leaves me feeling energised, light, bright and satisfied. It’s this intersection between wellness and deliciousness that I strive for with every plate of food I make and eat. And with all the talk of health and wellness in the food industry, I think this sweet spot is becoming ever more important. Wellness doesn’t come at the expense of deliciousness.

I welcome with open arms the new breadth of information and attention around eating well, and I am so thrilled that we are all putting more focus on what we put into our bodies and on the connection between the food we eat and how vibrantly we live.

But I also think it’s important to remember that we are all individuals, each with our own completely separate nutritional needs. I can tell you what works for my body, but I honestly can’t tell you exactly what’s going to work for yours. Nor in my opinion can any chef or, really, any nutritionist. While nutritionists can absolutely be a guide, it is you who have to do the work. You need to have a relationship with your body and a responsibility to listen to it and how it reacts to certain foods. If you feel tired and bloated after eating something, make a change next time – eat a smaller portion, or try a different way of cooking, or another ingredient.

There are lots of people out there ready to name superfoods that can help us lose weight, cure illness and make us more attractive and amazing. It sometimes feels to me as though all this sometimes over-the-top focus on nutrition and ‘clean eating’ has almost become the new, more acceptable way to be on a diet. And in a weird way, that isn’t promoting a healthy attitude to food at all.

It’s important to make a commitment to eating well, but it’s also important to be realistic. Cooking goodness-packed meals every night is going to have a huge impact on your health, and simply getting more vegetables into your diet is a great first step. You can worry about matcha and chia seeds later on.

To me, eating well is far more simple than it is often made out to be. Buy good ingredients, cook at home, make the majority of what you eat plants and vegetables, and listen and react to your body. I don’t think it’s much more complicated than that. Right now, too many sweeping generalisations are being made in the world of food. Foods like bread are being vilified, and chefs and nutritionists are making blanket statements about how certain staple, cheap and useful nutritious foods are unduly bad for our bodies. I think this is damaging, as it means our psychology around these foods changes. We attach guilt and a ‘forbidden’ label to food, increasing our anxiety around it and causing us to crave it even more.

My point here is this: let’s stop looking at food in its respective parts, and making some bad and some disproportionately good. Let’s get back to the whole picture, the whole food. Choosing a balanced way of eating and sticking as close to nature as we possibly can is the most realistic plan for eating long-term. Going to extremes is not a sustainable way of eating or living. What I am proposing here and with the recipes in this book is a sensible, flexible dietary strategy that we can incorporate into our lives successfully and joyfully, day-to-day, and over a lifetime.

The practice of quick, calm cooking

At home, I cook under the same constraints as anyone else. Even though I have a food background, when I come home from a day at work, feeling sometimes jaded with food, the last thing I want to do is spend hours at the stove. I am impatient, usually hungry, and I relish the art of cooking quickly. And that’s what I want to share with you in this book. The clever secrets that chefs and cooks use, quick ways of cooking, smart cheats and ways of working logically which have your dinner on the table in a friendly and achievable time. All of this can happen in a calm and well-choreographed manner that won’t leave your kitchen looking like a bombsite and having used every pan in the cupboard.

I know these recipes can come together in life-friendly times. I asked a kind band of brilliant friends, who aren’t cooks, to test and time them­selves, so I know they are achievable for everyone.

The recipes which take 15 minutes are quick supper recipes, delicious and simple, with just a few ingredients that come together in one pan without much chopping or fuss. The recipes that are ready in 20–30 minutes are a little more advanced, with more complex layers of flavour and texture and a few more ingredients, while those that take 40 minutes are real feasts, riots of flavour and colour that I would happily eat at any restaurant table.

In addition to these chapters, this books pivots around a chapter full of what I like to call investment cooking. It’s batch cooking that you can do once a week, or even once a month in some cases, which will mean you have a freezer or fridge full of nourishing, cheap, home-cooked beans, snacks, grains and treats. It’s this cooking that is the backbone of how I cook these days – a little time one day a week yields enough chickpeas for a week’s worth of stews and hummus, and they taste so much better. I find this type of cooking so satisfying, knowing for example that I have a homemade sweet treat to snack on when I hit a low at 4 p.m. rather than reaching for a biscuit.

There is also a chapter on my quick desserts and sweet treats, such as a 10-minute frying-pan crumble, as well as some really easy breakfasts that will make great starts to the day – interesting flavours that come together quickly and make the most of my favourite meal.

This way of cooking is all about simplifying the process, and to some of you that might sound really obvious. More often than not, when I ask people why a recipe hasn’t worked, they reply that they burnt the onions while they were digging out the coriander seeds from the back of the cupboard, or something along these lines. The only way to cook speedy dinners and stay calm is to be organised upfront. I am sure all my friends will read this and laugh, as I have a reputation for being less than well-organised, but in the kitchen I am like a general. The kitchen is my realm and I know that the only way I can cook speedily is to be ordered, organised and calm, and work through the flow of jobs.

I think of cooking in this way as a practice. It’s organised, calm and has a flow. It’s not speedy, hectic, cheffy stuff. It’s just about getting things right, so that you can enjoy every brilliant moment of the alchemy that happens as you turn a pile of ingredients into an incredible offering for you and your family.

So your kitchen needs to be ready to cook in this way. By this, I don’t mean you have to buy loads of expensive equipment. You just need to have an artillery of simple equipment which is accessible (see here (#ubd805ca6-92e5-4ec0-bdf0-d45fd3552552)–here (#ulink_78ddf425-75ea-5b52-9275-54853832636d)).

I find it really useful to have my ingredients organised too, so that I can find them easily and so that getting ready to cook doesn’t mean half an hour emptying out the entire spice cupboard. I use little glass jars for my spices and keep them on a shelf within reach of the cooker, which makes things a lot simpler.

You’ll also need a bit of space to cook in. My kitchen counters, like most other people’s, can get cluttered, so before I settle down to cook something, I make sure I clear enough space to comfortably cook in. There are a few bits of equipment that can really help speed things up. You’ll be fine if you just have the basics, but if you are, for instance, a particularly slow chopper, a food processor will be a great addition to your kitchen. Equally, if you find things keep sticking or burning, maybe it’s time for some new pans. All this equipment is a massive investment in cooking from scratch, and that’s the best decision we can make for our happiness and our bodies.

When you are ready to cook, start by reading the recipe from top to bottom so that you know what happens when, and how things need to be chopped and cooked. Then put all the equipment you are going to need close by, and get all your ingredients together near your chopping board so that you have everything to hand before you start chopping. These steps are the key to quick, calm cooking and they may sound glaringly obvious, but I have to remind myself to do them every time I cook.

Other clever chef’s tricks that make my cooking more speedy are having a mixing bowl on the work surface for peelings and trimmings, so you don’t have to keep running back and forth to the bin, as well as making sure as much as possible that the area you are working in is close to the stove, so you can do a few jobs at once.

I’m going to ask you to cook on a high heat, but don’t be afraid of it. Just keep checking. I am also going to ask you to preheat your pans to get some serious heat on things that need it, and to speed things up with your kettle. It’s my best friend in the kitchen, and working with boiling water rather than cold from the tap makes everything that bit quicker.

This might all sound somewhat hectic, but I believe that making these changes in your kitchen will actually have the opposite effect. You will learn to cook in a way that is calm and choreographed, moving quickly but smoothly through recipes.

And that’s what cooking is for me – food that is flavour-packed, nourishing and not too fussy, that can be on your table in a life-friendly time and manner. It’s about using the time you have, however short, to make the tastiest and most delicious dinners possible, and, in making the most of your time, the incredible ingredients that are in season and the foods that make you feel good, you can live vibrantly and eat well.

annajones.co.uk (http://annajones.co.uk) @we_are_food

Equipment for quick cooking

There are a few pieces of equipment I rely on in the kitchen. They range from really cheap to a bit more expensive, but once you have invested in a few of them you’ll be able to make anything in a life-friendly time.

SPEED AND JULIENNE PEELERS My speed peeler has to be the most used gadget in my kitchen and the cheapest. I use it for peeling and for making vegetable ribbons for salads and noodles. I also use a julienne peeler to make noodles from vegetables such as courgettes, it does the job of the currently popular spiraliser but costs about £2 and takes up much less kitchen space. My favourites are the all-metal ones from Lakeland.

GOOD FRYING PANS A good frying pan will last a lifetime. I have a good non-stick pan in two sizes, 22cm and 26cm, as well as a heavy cast-iron frying pan and a griddle pan. My favourites are GreenPan (who use a non-toxic ceramic coating) and De Buyer.

A LARGE SAUCEPAN/STOCKPOT I make a vat of soup, stock or a big pan of chickpeas every week and a large pot makes things much easier. It need not be expensive but it will allow you to cook batches big enough to last a week or fill the freezer. A heavy-bottom cast-iron pan would be my choice, from Le Creuset, but any sturdy large pan will do.

STACKABLE GLASS JARS One of the things that makes a huge difference in my kitchen is having everything accessible and easy to find. I stack all my spices in small glass jars on a shelf next to my cooker, which means they are always at hand. I also keep my dry ingredients in large jars for easy access.

GRATERS – BOX GRATER AND FINE MICROPLANE I use these every day. A good sturdy box grater should set you back between £5 and £10 and is great for grating cheese and vegetables. Microplanes are more cheffy graters and a bit more expensive but one will last a lifetime and they are invaluable for zesting citrus and finely grating garlic, chilli, ginger or any hard cheese.

GOOD KNIVES AND A GOOD KNIFE SHARPENER The main barrier to cooking quickly is being a slow chopper – how good you are at chopping is directly related to how good and sharp your knives are. I use four main knives in the kitchen: a small chef’s knife (about 12cm), a small serrated paring knife (for tomatoes and fruit), a larger chef’s knife (about 21cm) for sturdy vegetables such as pumpkin or squash and a good serrated bread knife. I also have a sharpening stone to keep them nice and sharp. My favourite knives are Kin knives which aren’t the cheapest but, equally, you can find knives that are much more expensive. They stay nice and sharp and last a lifetime. I like Opinel for small serrated paring knives, which are very affordable.

HIGH-SPEED BLENDER I use my blender every day for smoothies, soups, nut butters and hummus. The king of blenders is the Vitamix, which has a super high-speed motor and will make nuts into butter in a matter of seconds. They are very expensive though, so I am not going to suggest you all run out and buy one, but they are a great investment if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Alternatively, most electrical brands make good sturdy blenders at varying prices – go for the best you can afford.

FOOD PROCESSOR It may seem overkill to have a food processor and a blender but they really do different jobs. A blender will liquidise things whereas a food processor will chop and crush things and, if you buy one with some attachments, they can grate and slice too, as well as mixing up icings and cake batters. If I can encourage you to buy one thing for your kitchen it would be a food processor. I have had my Magimix for the last 12 years and it’s still going strong. Magimix are great as they have a good range of attachments and are really sturdy, but other brands such as KitchenAid make good ones too. Again you get what you pay for here; I would suggest investing as much as you can afford.

HAND BLENDER If you can’t get your hands on a blender or a food processor, or your kitchen is too small for big pieces of equipment, then a decent hand blender will stand in for most things. You will need a bit more elbow grease and probably patience but it will do the job. I use my hand blender for making dressings and quick pestos and for blending soups, and I find it really useful. Hand blenders come pretty cheap and I use a basic £10 one which has been with me for years.

KITCHEN SCISSORS A good sharp pair of kitchen scissors are always at hand in my kitchen for opening packets and doing little jobs. If you aren’t the fastest at chopping with a knife, then chopping small things like herbs or spring onions can be done pretty quickly with a pair of scissors.

A few notes on ingredients

COCONUT OIL I use coconut oil, which has a mild flavour and a higher smoking point than many other oils, so less nutrients are damaged when it’s heated. I recommend coconut oil in many of the recipes in this book. If it’s not for you though, you can generally use a plain olive oil in its place.

EXTRA VIRGIN GHEE I use ghee (clarified butter) in place of butter. It’s basically butter without the whey and full of nutrients such as vitamins A, D, E and K. It has a high smoking point, keeps for months and tastes amazing.

OLIVE OIL I keep two types in my kitchen. One plain for gentle frying and a flavour-packed extra virgin for dressing and finishing – this NEVER sees the heat as it has a low smoking point and creates harmful free radicals if heated too high.

EGGS The eggs I use throughout the recipes are medium eggs and I always use free range and organic eggs. If you are vegan in most of the baking in this book eggs can be replaced with 1 tablespoon of chia seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons of water, it should be set aside until it forms a gel.

SALT I use British flaked sea salt – my favourite is Halen Môn from Anglesey which has a Protected Designation of Origin status so you know it’s water from Wales (not imported salt re-diluted).