Ready When You Are: A Compendium of Comforting One-Dish Meals

Pressed for time but still searching for comfort from your kitchen? Ready When You Are offers more than 200 recipes for dishes that are easy on the cook and a joy for eaters.

Drawing on her many years of cooking for friends and family, Martha Rose Shulman shares her favorite recipes for simple yet sophisticated, hearty but not heavy one-dish meals. Most can be made hours or even days in advance and, because they are cooked and brought to the table in the same dish, serving, cleanup, and storing leftovers is no trouble at all.

Based on traditional home cooking from around the world, this is comfort food at its best—Tuscan White Beans with Sage and Sausage, Chicken Pot Pie, Vietnamese Beef and Noodle Soup, savory gratins and ragouts, creamy risottos, and “The Easiest Chocolate Mousse in the World.” Many of the most flavorful and satisfying dishes in the book are vegetarian, including Turkish Summer Vegetable Stew and Zucchini, Potato, and Artichoke Moussaka. Each of the recipes includes information about how long leftovers will keep, along with ideas and companion recipes for transforming them into something new. Yesterday’s bouillabaisse, for example, becomes today’s pilaf, while diced beef from a pot-au-feu forms the base for a delicious salad for the next day’s lunch.

Whether you’re cooking a hearty family meal, planning a dinner party, or making a simple after-work supper, Ready When You Are is filled with exceptional, undemanding recipes and strategies for getting the most satisfaction from your time in the kitchen.