Ready, Set, Cook - by Dawn Perry (Hardcover)

About the Book

Create meals in no time with more than 125 recipes from the former food director of Real Simple.

Book Synopsis

Create delicious meals in no time with more than 125 recipes the whole family will love from the former food director of Real Simple Dawn Perry.

Former food director of Real Simple Dawn Perry used to wake up at the crack of dawn to hit the farmers market and scour specialty food stores for peak-season vegetables and lesser-known spices. But as she started to have a family, she became less interested in spending her mornings and weekends food shopping and meal prepping than building couch forts and making play-doh spaghetti. If you're time-crunched for any reason--early meeting at the office or late night on the town--this book will help. Here, Dawn offers her very own playbook for getting good food on the table fast so you can spend more time doing what you love with your free time and energy.

In Ready, Set, Cook Dawn shares her secrets for creating delicious meals in no time. It starts with a well-stocked pantry. Dawn shows you what simple staples--some store-bought, others homemade--to keep in your cupboard, refrigerator, and freezer. She also provides more than 125 fool-proof recipes, ideas, and tricks for creating good food with what you have on hand. A can of tomatoes transforms into Dawn's 15-Minute Marinara, which then can be used as the base for her cheesy, creamy Freestyle Baked Pasta or as the beginning of her Cheater's Tomato Soup (and a Special Grilled Cheese) or spooned onto her Crispy Chicken Cutlets and topped with a slice of mozzarella.

Whether you're new to cooking and don't know where to start or you're a seasoned cook in need of a streamlined approach, this book is for you. No need to plan and shop ahead or dig through recipe boxes (virtual or otherwise), now you'll have great meals in minutes without breaking a sweat.

Review Quotes

"An outstanding guide to quick, appetizing meals through clever utilization of one's pantry...Perry's tutelage is a culinary windfall that will pay big dividends for busy home cooks." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (Starred Review)

"Having READY, SET, COOK in your kitchen is like having your best, most knowledgeable friend on a 24-7 personal hotline. Yes, Dawn Perry has cooked in fancy restaurant kitchens and created recipes for major food media brands, but her genius lies in knowing how to spin gold from the most basic ingredients to create unfussy, delicious, extremely satisfying dishes for her family. Perhaps most appealing? She also seems to have the most fun doing it." --JENNY ROSENSTRACH, New York Times bestselling author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians

"I wish I had Ready, Set, Cook when I was just becoming serious about cooking and needed a friend like Dawn Perry to tell me -- gently but assuredly, never dogmatically -- what to do, what not to do, and how to be the best cook I could be. Dawn knows what makes food look and taste great, but she also knows from experience how kids, schedules, moods, and a lack of ingredients often get in the way. So regardless of your family size, kitchen setup, or appetite for spending time at the stove, Ready, Set, Cook offers you myriad solutions and real talk. Dawn is charming, unpretentious, funny, and -- best of all -- skilled at combining a pro chef's knowledge with a busy home cook's need for speed and ease. Through the pages, she stands by your side and cheers you on." --CLAIRE SAFFITZ, New York Times bestselling author of Dessert Person

"I've had the privilege of working with Dawn and am so excited to learn more about her cooking philosophy in this wonderful book. If you're starting out, this is the ultimate guide to literally everything you want to and should be making. If you're already a pro, she teaches you how to be a more efficient cook." --ANTONI POROWSKI, television personality and home cook

"In Ready, Set, Cook, Dawn Perry speaks to just the type of simple, straight-to-pleasure cooking that, thankfully, is also easy to pull off no matter your skill level. Her advice reads like your best friend coming over to get your life in order, but in this case, it's to help you get prepared so you can always have an easy delicious dinner in less time than it takes to wait for delivery. Her recipes make the food work with your life and not the other way around." --BEN MIMS, cooking columnist for The Los Angeles Times

"In this gorgeous book simple prep yields complex flavor, something only a cook as talented as Dawn Perry can pull off. She replaces stress with strategy, serving up dinner-ready recipes you'll return to again and again." --ADEENA SUSSMAN, author of Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen

About the Author

Dawn Perry is a writer and cookbook author. Most recently, she served as the food director for Real Simple. She has also worked in the test kitchens of Everyday Food, Bon Appétit, and the meal kit delivery service Martha & Marley Spoon. Dawn is the author of Short Stack Editions' Cucumbers. Her recipes and writing have also been featured on Epicurious, Tasting Table, Food & Wine, and The New York Times, among other publications. She recently moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles where she lives with her husband and two kids.