Easy, Every Day Recipes — by Emma Galloway

“Dotted throughout Every Day, you’ll find my ‘anything’ recipes, with examples of how you can change things up to suit your tastes or what you might have on hand at different times of the year. My main goal is to create meals that are easy and totally do-able, every day of the week. I want people to feel confident in the kitchen and know that, by cooking at home, with simple real-food ingredients, they’re making one of the most powerful decisions we can make as humans: the decision of what goes into our bodies.” – Emma Galloway

— Words by Emma Galloway, Every Day

I grew up in a small coastal town in New Zealand, with parents who grew and cooked most of what we ate. Occasionally, we’d eat hot chips for dinner or, for a special occasion, we’d eat out at one of a handful of small restaurants but, 99.9% of the time, we ate at home. Even when I’ve lived in cities, I preferred to cook at home than eat out, which may sound weird for a chef, but that home-cooking foundation runs deep within my family. While no two days are ever the same, and I’m sure yours are different from mine, I think we can all agree that the foods we crave, every day, are those that are nourishing, beautiful, simple to make and absolutely delicious to eat. As a chef turned food writer and recipe developer, my life revolves around food – growing, cooking and eating food is ALWAYS on my mind, from dawn till dusk. I adore cooking but, like most people, I don’t have tons of spare time, so my everyday food is quick and easy, using readily available ingredients and simple techniques. Over the years I spent working as a chef and now as a mother of two, I’ve learned little tips and tricks to make cooking simpler through planning ahead, utilising leftovers and mastering basic recipes. It was with this in mind that the idea for this book began …

I’ve heard many cries for help over the years, from people struggling to create affordable, achievable and nourishing food for themselves and their families. I hear from people worried they can’t make a recipe because they don’t have one specific ingredient listed, one that could be easily swapped out for something they have on hand, if only they knew it was OK to do so.

As a young chef, I carried a couple of notebooks with me containing handwritten ‘basic’ recipes, to which I’d refer daily. At a local café, it was the morning shift’s job to make a big batch of sweet muffins every day. We didn’t use different muffin recipes each time; instead, we used the same base recipe, adding whatever seasonal or frozen fruits we happened to have on hand at any given day. This is how chefs have always cooked but, I’ve noticed, it’s not something home cooks always know how to do. I want to help change that, to empower you to be bold and cook with confidence. If you only have rosemary and peaches, but the recipe calls for thyme and apples, go with your gut and try it with rosemary and peaches instead! So long as you keep the base recipe the same, you can’t go wrong with simple seasonal changes. Dotted throughout my Every Day recipes, you’ll find my base or ‘anything’ recipes, with examples of how you can change things up to suit your tastes or what you might have on hand at different times of the year. I encourage you to use your intuition, look to what’s in season and available around you, and have a play.

Try the recipes — Every Day, Emma Galloway