Cooking for real life is not about fiddly menus & impossible-to-find ingredients. It is about getting something delicious on the table having fun & feeding the people you love. It is also about recognising that different situations in life call for different kinds of cooking. Although sometimes you may have hours to while away by a steaming pot sometimes you really need a fast turnaround. Joanna Weinberg has an inventive generous approach to cooking that is realistic as well as delicious. She shows how a well-stocked cupboard freezer & fridge can make all the difference transforming a quick family meal into an impromptu gathering without either stress or the need to rush out to the shops. Her recipes offer new flavour combinations using familiar ingredients & they include dishes like smoky butternut soup; pasta with ricotta aubergine & pine nuts; twice-baked cottage pie; slow-roast shoulder of lamb; & molten chocolate puds. There are suggestions for when you are in a hurry for when you feel like making an impression & for those times when you are tired out & just want to curl up with something comforting. This kind of cooking is adaptable & personal it shows that with a pinch of this & a dash of that we can all eat well all of the time
- regardless of what life throws at us.