When I started the vegan recipe blog Little Miss Meat-Free I never dreamed that within a year I would be teaching cooking classes, demonstrating at food festivals, working with a handful of well-known brands and writing for a national magazine. In between these projects, I continued to work full-time at a day job, hustling to ensure the bills were paid so I could carry on with my real passion. As you can imagine, this left me with very little time to cook and enjoy a meal for myself, even though my days were filled with producing elegant dishes, using the best ingredients, for other people to enjoy. I knew that when I got home, I wouldn’t want to spend the evening in the kitchen, and that I really didn’t have the time (or the inclination) to go shopping for lots of specialist ingredients.
I found that the meals I was cooking at home took fifteen minutes or less to prepare and cook and, as I’ve never been one to compromise when it comes to flavour, my meals needed to be quick, simple, balanced and delicious. I’d raid the fridge and cupboards, often taking inspiration from the dishes I had cooked earlier that day, but using quicker cooking techniques and ingredients that I had to hand.
The fifteen-minute meals I had created were so delicious I decided to post them on the blog and, to my surprise, these remain my most popular recipes, with lots of readers posting photos of their quick creations across social media. I also challenged friends and family to make my fifteen-minute recipes, rather than ordering takeaways, which led to my title 'Fast Food Queen', as I always had a recipe that was quicker, tastier and a lot cheaper than ordering a takeaway!
I love being in the kitchen and would encourage anyone to develop a passion for good food, however busy their lives. The idyllic dream of wanting to prepare a hearty family meal every evening compared with the reality of the time you actually have is often a struggle that is all too real. I believe that great food can be created in even short amounts of time, using fresh ingredients to create something delicious and balanced. I hope you enjoy the time you spend making these recipes as much as you enjoy eating them.
I’m so excited to share my collection of fifteen-minute recipes with you in this book.
Katy Beskow