I’M NOT A LAZY COOK, really, but I am obsessed with being productive and efficient, which makes me pretty frugal with both my ingredients and my time. I don’t soak my beans, and I enjoy doing in two steps what’s usually done in five. I save the scraps of my vegetables to make soup to avoid going shopping, and one of my favourite snacks on planet Earth is the softened, chicken fat-soaked celery leftover in the pot from making broth, because why waste perfectly good celery? Both as a cook and an eater, I’m turned off by needless complications, and as particular and fussy as I can be, my food remains quite the opposite.

I feel both proud of and nervous to admit that this book could potentially be described as . . . adult. Mature, even. There’s a quiet confidence in recipes that have so few ingredients, take so little time and yet promise so much. What the recipes here lack in bells and whistles, they make up for in soul and unimpeachable deliciousness. Some are old classics I’ve reinterpreted (I add garlic to my carbonara and there’s no cheese in my Caesar dressing), some are recipes that are classic to me, some aren’t classic at all (yet!) and all are easy to make with the help of a well-stocked pantry. Throughout, the complexity of the recipes stays low and the ingredient lists are minimal, all the while encouraging you to go off script, to adapt and make them your own. An extended love letter to simplicity, this book is about finding joy and satisfaction in the tiny miracles of cooking – all of the deliciousness that comes from making something from nothing.