Collections, with notes.
Short lists picked by hand from the library, with a sentence on each recipe about what it really asks of you. Sorted the way you would actually choose: by effort, by heat, by how long the shopping list is.
Dinner from six ingredients or fewer
8 recipesEight real dinners whose whole ingredient list fits on the back of a receipt. No pantry raid, no specialty aisle.
Soup night, around the world
8 recipesFrom an egg drop soup that takes ten minutes to a Polish chicken soup that simmers for two hours. Sorted from fastest to slowest.
Curries, mild to fierce
8 recipesEight curries in rising order of heat, from a dal a child will eat to a Thai green curry that means it.
A Spanish table, start to finish
8 recipesTwo tapas, a tortilla, two rice dishes, croquetas and a crema catalana. Enough for a whole evening from one cuisine.
Thai and Vietnamese weeknights
8 recipesNoodles, fried rice, a grilled pork bowl and a sandwich. Eight Southeast Asian dinners that are mostly prep and then very fast cooking.
Breakfast worth getting up for
8 recipesTwo kinds of pancake, a shakshuka, a full English, a kedgeree and a hollandaise. Sorted from easiest to the one that needs a whisk and patie…