The Rules for Real Meals

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

When I informed my friends and family that I would be writing a column on 30 Minute Meals, I felt compelled to preface the announcement with a "Just don't call me You-Know-Who." Not that there is anything wrong with the perky woman who first allowed the average television viewer to make an entire family dinner in the time it took to watch her show. In fact I thank her for giving home cooks permission to make dinner themselves, in the shortest amount of time possible. It is just that to hold myself to her standard of excitement and talent for clever catchphrases is mildly unrealistic and any attempt to mimic her would hardly be true to me.

Although I would not call myself perky per se, I am a bit crazy--about food! I love to eat and cook real food made simply and beautifully. And although lazy is a strong word (I prefer to think of it as liking to get things done in the most expeditious manner possible), at the end of a long day I do like to find the shortest way to turn the raw food in my pantry into a delicious meal to fill my hungry belly. In those feelings, I doubt that I stand alone.

With that in mind, I live by a set of rules. They are standards really, ones that I have developed for myself over the years that allow me to make good, real meals consistently no matter how much time I have to cook. As this is my inaugural column, all I ask is that you read THE RULES, take them to heart, and keep them in mind both when you read the column and when you take the few ideas shared here back to your kitchen to make your own good food, the only way we should ever cook, the REAL way.

Go Ahead, Save Some Time

Canned Tomatoes: Tomatoes are only at the peak of their blushing glory during late summer. Fresh tomatoes, although commercially grown and available year round, when used out of season generally taste mealy and bland to the point where you might as well not have included them in the recipe at all. So unless the recipe absolutely needs the fresh variety, canned tomatoes are a time-saving and flavorful alternative, usually resulting in a better finished product the majority of the year.

Canned Beans: Who really has the time to soak dried beans overnight and then cook them fully the next day before you use them in a recipe? If you do, congratulations, because you are a lucky person with a lot of time on your hands. Fortunately for the rest of us, canned beans are almost as tasty as the dried bunch and are ready to use the moment you manage to get the can open.

Frozen Vegetables: Like tomatoes, many vegetables have a short growing season. Although I almost always prefer using the fresh product, there are occasions when the fresh is just not as good and the frozen will take you far less time (think peas, pearl onions, corn, spinach).

When Cutting Corners Is Just Not Worth It

Cheese: I hear that there is a "cheese" out there in supermarkets that comes in a green can. Last time I checked, cheese can't be shaken out of holes nor does it come already formed in powders and shreds. Cheese ALWAYS tastes better when it comes from a block, grated, cubed and sliced to order. The amount of extra effort it takes to grate it yourself will be rewarded ten-fold in the improvement in the taste of the finished product.

Garlic: When you give a clove of garlic a little smash with the flat side of your kitchen knife, it should take less than 15 seconds to peel. The result is a clove so biting and fresh you will ban the pre-chopped version to the land of the unnecessary.

Wine: The basic rule is that if you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it. Thus anything labeled "Cooking Wine" should automatically be banned from the pantry.

Those are my rules, the Real Deal for Real Meals. And I'm sticking to 'em!

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
• 1/4 cup raisins, PLUS
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 12 ounces plain couscous
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 1/4 roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
• salt and pepper
• 6 salmon fillets (3 ounce size), skin-on, pin bones removed
• oil