The kitchen shortlist
These aren't recipe-of-the-week picks. Every dish here has been cooked enough times to know it's genuinely reliable — in a busy kitchen, with real kids, on real weeknights.
The only chicken recipe my kids ask for by name.
Bone-in, skin-on thighs are the secret — they stay juicy no matter how distracted you get. Lemon, garlic, rosemary, done. One pan means one thing to wash. I've made this at least fifty times and it has never once let me down.
The cookies I get asked to bring to every gathering. The bar is never empty.
Browning the butter takes four minutes and makes the difference between good cookies and life-changing cookies. Slightly underbake them — they finish on the tray. I've tested every ratio and this is the one. Make a double batch because you'll want to freeze some.
Brunch that actually impresses people without requiring a morning of effort.
Spinach, courgette, and feta instead of the classic tomato base. The eggs poach right in the sauce and you serve it straight from the pan. Looks stunning, tastes better than it looks. I make this for guests and it always prompts the recipe question.
Cheap, filling, freezes beautifully. The lunch that solves Monday.
Red lentils, tinned tomatoes, cumin, smoked paprika. This takes twenty minutes and costs almost nothing. I make a pot every Sunday and it sees us through most of the week. The kind of recipe that sounds boring until you actually eat it.
Twenty minutes, six ingredients, tastes like you know what you're doing.
White miso stirred into browned butter with pasta water — it's umami-forward in a way that feels restaurant-grade for a Tuesday night. My partner didn't believe me when I said it took twenty minutes. Now he makes it himself, which is the highest form of endorsement.
The tahini makes it — nutty, not sweet-heavy, somehow more interesting than every other banana bread.
You need very ripe bananas (truly black) and good-quality tahini. The texture is dense and moist without being gluey. Slice it thick. My eldest won't eat banana bread anywhere else now, which is simultaneously gratifying and inconvenient.
Roast the tomatoes and the flavour does all the work. Worth every minute of the oven time.
Cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil — roasted low and slow until concentrated. Blitz it, freeze it in portions, use it for pasta, pizza, shakshuka. This is the sauce that makes everything else better. You'll be annoyed you didn't start making it sooner.
Three ingredients. No ice cream machine. Actually works.
Condensed milk, double cream, mango purée. Fold, freeze, done. The texture isn't quite the real thing but it's ninety percent of the way there at a fraction of the effort. The mango flavour is properly tropical — use ripe Alphonso if you can find them.