"A Lazy Cook's Summer" is designed to give inspiration to people who enjoy cooking but feel they don't have time any more, and to give ideas and encouragement to those who fear complicated recipes and lack the confidence to have a go. You will find my recipes are quick and easy to prepare whilst being creative and original resulting in a delicious home-cooked meal wither presented simply or dressed up for entertaining. I recognise that summer can be much more demanding on time and energy than any other season. For one thing, it is all too easy to get carried away by the sight of a stall laden with tempting produce forgetting that, unlike winter fruits and vegetables which can be stored for several weeks, most summer ingredients have a short shelf-life and often need to be cooked or eaten the day they are purchased. On the other hand many summer ingredients require little or no cooking at all. "My Lazy Cook" summer recipes reflect my mood. They keep everything simple, mixing and matching colours and textures; taking a handful of everyday ingredients and transforming them into a meal which is flavoursome and good, and it all happens in so short a time.
Presentation as always is important and most of my recipes can be simply presented for everyday meals, or 'dressed up' for a special celebration. Planning is important too even if it involves little more than making a shopping list and I hope you will find my Recommended Store-cupboard a help. The right tool for the right job is as important for cooking as for any craft and the items under Recommended Utensils might help you to avoid cluttering up the cupboards. If you are becoming increasingly concerned about the ingredients you buy, how they are grown; from where they come, you might like to venture into a little gardening even if it extends no further than your kitchen windowsill or balcony patio. My chapter headed 'A Lazy Cook's Garden' might give the encouragement you need to have a go. Above all, relax, delight your family and friends this summer with "Lazy Cook" recipes. All too soon the flowers will lose their splendour and the leaves will begin to fall. Time to put the garden to bed, to move back indoors and look forward to the temptations the autumn has on offer - jacket potatoes, hot soups and Sunday roasts - enjoy them all.
Extracts are taken from - "A Lazy Cook's Summer": In summer my enthusiasm for fresh summer flavours takes me out of the kitchen and into the garden. Despite the variety and the quality of summer ingredients now available, for me, nothing compares with the flavour of produce picked from the garden and put straight into the pot. But, "small is beautiful" is my advice! Grow just a few of your favourite summer ingredients and buy the remainder from your favourite supplier. I was a late-comer to gardening and I am still very much an amateur but I enjoy it so much that I cannot imagine ever not wanting to garden. Gardening, like cooking, is never a chore to me, weeding gives me as much pleasure as digging the first early potatoes. Truth to tell, it is my love of gardening that has contributed to my becoming so "lazy" a cook! Often I will go into the garden for "a little potter" only to hear the church clock chime five and remember we have friends coming to supper and nothing is prepared! I think of the garden as an extension to the house and I have divided ours into a number of sitting areas, like rooms in the house.
With ever increasing demands on my time, I have also attempted to make it more labour saving and I am forever designing "another" paved area! In addition to plants and shrubs, of greater importance to me are the small greenhouse and the two small beds in which I grow herbs, salads and just a few vegetables. These I know will not only add refreshing flavour, colour and texture to my summer recipes, but such ingredients will enable me to transform a very simple meal into something special at the snip of the scissors or the washing of a few leaves. Early potatoes and runner beans occupy one of the beds, and in the second I grow several varieties of 'cut and come again' lettuce - they grow so tall that by the end of the season I have to stake them! Other salad ingredients, herbs, and a few vegetables also share this bed. Dotted amongst the flower beds and shrubs rest the perennial herbs - sage, fennel, chives, lemon balm, rosemary and margaram. In addition, there are nasturtiums (for their leaves and flowers), and, wild strawberries - those precious little jewels which enhance the flavour and presentation of my recipes sweet and savoury.
All of these play an important part in my summer cooking but before listing them and a few hints on growing and using them in cooking, here's an important tip - help everything you plant grow bigger and better by keeping a compost heap. All uncooked vegetation can be composted down to make your very own feed. Herbs - Herbs will add colour and fragrance to a garden. Many varieties make excellent ground cover and will deter some pests. Choose seed packets which state 'for modern gardeners', or 'for go-ahead gardeners'. To save space sow the seeds in small pots (roughly 8-10cms (3"-4") and as they grow they can be pricked out into larger trays for growing on into seedlings and transplanting into pots or into the soil. Read and follow the growers instructions and advice on the reverse of the packet. A few herb leaves are best served whole or torn, but the flavour of most herbs develops as they are chopped.
