“Orzo Minestrone” from “Dinner in One”

Autumn: The best of all the seasons.

If you catch the weather right, it’s neither too hot nor too cold. The trees are ablaze with colours. Sweaters can be worn every single day. And soup goes back into regular rotation for dinner.

Which brings us to Orzo Minestrone. I chose this purely because I had many of the ingredients on hand already (corn on the cob– I’m looking at you) and I knew it would be delicious for lunch the next day. Like all the best vegetarian dishes, this one required a fair amount of prepping and chopping of vegetables. That wasn’t a problem, though, as I just put on the News at Six on BBC’s Radio Four. I mean, there wasn’t much news to discuss, but they managed to fill the 30 minutes nonetheless.

This was a fairly standard minestrone, but delicious just the same. I felt more virtuous with each bite, given the amount of vegetables in it. The one twist is that you toss cherry tomatoes with pesto before adding them to the soup, which gave the dish a nice undercurrent of basil.

Another winner– both the season and the dinner.

“Roasted Tuna with Brown Butter Corn, Tomatoes and Chile” from “Dinner in One”

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: One of the best things about our Empty Nest is the ability to buy really expensive ingredients, knowing that you only need it for two people, not four.

Enter Tuna Steaks (above).

We are lucky enough to live close to a brilliant fishmonger– Ellis & Jones— and we like to make full use of them. This sushi-grade tuna was such a beautiful shade of bright pink that it could have walked down the runway in the Valentino fashion show.

You will not be surprised to hear that it was delicious. We’re also at the tail end of the fresh corn and tomato season, so I could get a few ears of corn, along with some beautiful cherry tomatoes. I also had some spinach in the refrigerator, so I took the option to stir it through the brown butter at the end, which was a great addition.

I keep waiting to have a dud of a recipe out of this cookbook, but it hasn’t happened yet.

“Crispy Chicken Thighs with Puttanesca Green Beans” from “Dinner in One”

This is another genius recipe from Melissa Clark.

I know the title says “green beans” but anyone who’s looked at the photo can see that there’s also tenderstem broccoli in there. Don’t worry! Melissa said they can stand in for the green beans, so I went half-and-half. The broccoli was about two days away from being unusable, so I was pleased that I could eat it just in time.

The genius thing about this recipe is that after you crisp up the chicken, you cook the greens, shallots, capers and olives together, then put the chicken back on top and roast it for a further 20 minutes. What happens is all the lovely chicken juices cook out over the greens and olives, which makes a huge flavour bomb when it’s all done.

Also, as I’m now beginning to appreciate, as this is one container cooking– the clue is in the name– clean up is a doddle, and who doesn’t love that?

We definitely will be eating this again. Delicious and easy– all the best things.

If you’d like to try this yourself, Epicurious has the recipe available, which you’ll find when you click through here.

“Spicy Stir-Fried Pork with Green Beans and Tomatoes” from “Dinner in One”

I finished working late and my husband was hungry for dinner. (One of the perils of having an Empty Nest is getting dinner on the table at a reasonable time feels less urgent.)

“Don’t worry!” I said. “Melissa said this recipe can be cooked in 20 minutes!”

“I’m skeptical, but okay,” he said.

With all the braggadocio of a person who really ought to know better, I replied, “Time me!”

Reader, it did not take 20 minutes. It took 30, which is still pretty quick for a weeknight meal, but would be torture if you were hungry for dinner. He was nice about it, but still, overconfidence over something you’ve never done is almost always a bad idea.

It was, however, delicious. I think I might have been slightly quicker if I had prepped all the vegetables and other spices beforehand, like I do with most stir fries. I will do that the next time.

If you’d like to try this yourself, click here to read the recipe at The New York Times, where it is behind its paywall.

“Saag Paneer” from “Dinner in One”

Saag Paneer is one of my favourite Indian dishes, because it combines two of my most favourite foods: creamed spinach and paneer cheese. The first time I browsed through this cookbook, I knew I make it as soon as I could and I was fairly sure I would love it.

I was right on both counts.

Although I’ve ordered this dish countless times, this is the first time I’ve made it myself. This recipe was very straightforward and much less daunting than I thought it would be (Melissa Clark, as always, delivering the goods). The one key step that took a bit of time was chopping all of the spinach, but I did it in batches in the food processor, and once I got into a rhythm of doing it, it was fine.

I’m thrilled, though not surprised, to report that the leftovers I had for lunch were also delicious. There really is nothing nicer than realising at 11 a.m. that you’ve got quality leftovers for lunch that day. I think it’s a real working from home perk.

Yum. Thanks, Melissa.

Cookbook of the Month, October 2022: “Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals” by Melissa Clark

Maureen: One-pan meals are all the rage these days. It’s easy to see why. Life is so much better when you don’t have four bowls, three pots and assorted utensils to wash up after you’ve worked hard to make a delicious dinner. One and done has always been one of my preferred methods. This is why I love a sheet pan dinner so much.

Now we could have taken the easy (and half-price) way out and tested Jamie Oliver’s new offering, “One: Simple One Pan Wonders,” but we didn’t. We know he’s St. Jamie Oliver and he’s a national treasure, etc., etc. but it’s been years since we were impressed by a cookbook by his, and we didn’t want to be disappointed again. So we turned our eyes west to the Americans and Melissa Clark from The New York Times food desk.

We’ve done two of her cookbooks before– “Dinner in an Instant”, which we liked in 2018, and “Dinner: Changing the Game,” which we adored in 2017. We also had planned to do “Dinner in French” in April 2020, but alas, a global plague waylaid our plans. (Ah, remember April 2020? The long queues at the supermarkets and food stores. People hoarding toilet roll. The government rules that said we couldn’t spend more than an hour outside our house each day. No. I do not feel nostalgic for those times at all.)

We are very much looking forward to returning to the capable hands of Melissa Clark and a month of easy clean ups. Let’s go.

Our Verdict: Dinner in an Instant

Maureen: I was really happy to find another cookbook for my pressure cooker since the instructions are in French. What did you think of this cookbook, since you have an instant pot?

Kirstin: I thought it was good, but I thought some of the recipes could have been better written. The yogurt recipe, for example, was a complete disaster the first time, but now I am victorious.

Maureen: But only after you had to do additional research on the Internet.

Kirstin: Yes, I found a new recipe for yogurt with much better instructions and then it worked great. I’ve made it once a week since.

Maureen: I feel like this was a little bit rushed and maybe the the recipes weren’t as thoroughly tested as in her last book.

Kirstin: I totally agree.

Maureen: And as I said on our Facebook page, it wouldn’t have killed her to just have a page explaining how an instant pot is different from a pressure cooker, but how you could adapt the recipes to use with your pressure cooker. Instead, she just insults pressure cookers in the introduction, which was unnecessary. I mean, some people, like me, still use them and like them.

Kirstin: I’m glad I bought the Instant Pot. The salmon I made is now our new favourite fish recipe. I make it every week. Would I be using my Instant Pot in the summer? Probably not, unless it’s for yogurt. Will I be using it next winter? Absolutely.

Maureen: So you’re pleased you purchased an Instant Pot?

Kirstin: Yes.

Maureen: Are you enjoying your ride on the wave of the zeitgeist?

Kirstin: I am. It’s been a revelation.

Maureen: I am pleased that I used my pressure cooker more. So all in all, it’s been a mostly successful month.

“Dinner in an Instant”
Overall Grade (A- F): B (Kirstin)  B (Maureen)
Best recipes: Kirstin: Vietnamese Caramel Salmon. Maureen: Garlicky Cuban Pork.
Grade for Photography (A-F):  B.
Any disasters? Kirstin: Yogurt, but I fixed it. Maureen: Macaroni and cheese. What a disaster. Never again.
Bookshelf or Charity Shop Donation? Kirstin: High-rotation Bookshelf. There’s still more I want to investigate. Maureen: Low-rotation bookshelf. There’s some good stuff in there, but I can’t see any of it getting into the regular rotation.                                                             Would You Give This Book to a Friend?: Yes, if they had an instant cooker or a pressure cooker. I suspect it’s one of the better books on the subject.

“Indian Butter Shrimp” from “Dinner in an Instant”

One of the places where pressure cookers, and by extension, instant pots, excel is when making curries. Pressure cookers are apparently standard kitchen kit in Indian kitchens, because it enables you to make a curry much faster.

Even the New Yorker(!), of all publications, earlier this month published a profile of Urvashi Pitre, the “Butter-Chicken Lady”, who found her fame and fortune by originally posting a recipe for butter chicken on a Facebook group for Instant Pot fans. The article went on to be the most popular ever in the group, which led to her getting a publishing deal. Her cookbook, “Indian Instant Pot Cookbook,” published in September 2017, has already sold more than 100,000 copies. You can read the New Yorker profile here.

But still I approached this recipe with some trepidation. You see, it’s not that our family doesn’t love curry. We absolutely do. The problem was that we had our fair share of curry in 2017, what with Tim working in India for three months in the autumn, and the rest of us visiting him there for two weeks in October. We all returned home vowing to not eat another curry for a fair few months.

I shouldn’t have worried about making this. The delicious curry sauce overrode any qualms we may have had about eating curry again. The dish may have been boosted by the couldn’t-be-more-legit garam masala spice that Tim bought at an Indian supermarket and brought back for us. Also, since we were eating prawns/shrimp rather than chicken, this was a super-fast dish to make. Not Jamie Oliver 15 minutes fast, mind you, but still pretty quick.

Needless to say, our family is back on curries again. Next up? Butter chicken, from the Butter-Chicken Lady herself. (The New Yorker helpfully included the recipe at the end of the article. Check it out here.)

“Korean chile-braised brisket” from ” Dinner in an Instant”

Kirstin: 2018 is the year of Korean food, or so I’ve been told by all the food columnists at the end of 2017 (K-Beauty was all the rage in 2017 but that’s another story). So when I saw this recipe I knew it had to be mine. Thankfully I already had the Korean chile and gochujang in the cupboard. And I asked Tom to buy some kimchi to accompany the dish too.
It’s a very simple recipe and always yummy (we’ve had it 3 times already). The Korean flavours are perfect with the fall apart delicious beef. There’s a lot of liquid that is produced when you make this recipe and Melissa doesn’t mention how you should manage it. I would love to make it thicker in some way, but have yet to figure that out. That won’t stop me making it again though because it really is quite something special. YUM!

“Hummus*” from “Dinner in an Instant”

*Hummus is how the Americans spell it, and thus how it’s spelled in this cookbook, since Melissa Clark is a New Yorker. Here in England, you know the place where the ENGLISH language was CREATED, we spell it Houmous. So can decide your own preferred spelling. But obviously it should be spelled houmous.

One of the things that a pressure cooker and instant pot excel at is the preparation of dried beans. Where usually it would take an overnight soak and some cooking to get 500 grams of dried chickpeas ready to eat, with a pressure cooker/instant pot, it took only 50 minutes total.

Because my pressure cooker was an impulse buy in France– as you do– my instruction manual only came with French instructions, which meant I remained clueless about how to hydrate beans. I did try to do some Internet research to figure it out, but I was always reluctant to try given that I still have a small fear that my pressure cooker will one day explode in my kitchen. This is purely down to the fact that one of the anthems of my childhood was, “Be careful of the pressure cooker!” rather than any tangible fear that the pressure cooker I bought in the 21st century would explode.

So I made Melissa Clark’s hummus/houmous. The table was in agreement that while this recipe was good, we thought the one from “Jerusalem” was better. However, the lovely Ottolenghi’s recipe requires some serious forward planning and requires far more time. You have to soak the beans overnight and then cook them before you start blending it with the tahini and other ingredients.

This version doesn’t take nearly so long, so it’s nice to have options. But more importantly, now I know how to make dried chickpeas into edible ones in under an hour.