Take three ingredients, take one more if you want, and then — maybe — take just one more. It’s as simple as that. These very straightforward recipes can be made with minimum effort and ingredients, but the more things you add, the better they get. The only ingredient I’m going to assume you have already is salt and pepper, everything else gets added to the total. However, feel free to use these ideas as starting points for your own experimenting based on what you have to hand.
One of my happiest discoveries was that most ready-rolled supermarket puff pastry is serendipitously vegan. A package of this stashed in your freezer gives you the means to make your ingredients more exciting with a moment’s notice. A vegetable stew can be topped with a pastry lid, leftover roast vegetables can be folded into pockets to make mini pies.
Grab a couple of stone fruit, and you have the easiest of desserts ready to go. The fruit is sliced thinly, so it cooks quickly in the heat of the oven as the pastry puffs and grows golden around it. The finished result is simple yet elegant. Use any fruit you want — peaches, plums, or apricots would be lovely, or you could use thinly sliced apples or pears instead.
