I love to cook and eat, but I don’t like anything too involved, multi-step, or complicated. How about you?
Here are my reasons:
- life’s too short
- there are too many good TV shows to watch
- nobody likes to wait, especially not kids
- steps are bourgeois
- great results with minimal effort are the highest good
Protestant Work Ethic doesn’t live here. Blame it on growing up in the Soviet Union. How did that old Soviet joke go? “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” Anyhow, you get the idea.
For this reason, I make it my life’s unsung work to tweak and twist recipes that come my way until they are completely, ridiculously easy.
Instant gratification is where it’s at.
Below is the list of my go-to recipes for quick treats, the kind I occasionally indulge in once the kids are asleep and thus prevented from mind-altering sugar overdose.
1. Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies – packed to the max with semi-sweet chips, they offer a decadent molten-chocolate experience when eaten warm, and are still soft and pliable the following day.
2. 5-Minute Food-Processor Ice-Cream – something I make whenever the mercury shoots up. No ice-cream maker needed!
3. “Heart-of-Darkness” Molten Lava Cakes
4. No-Cook Vanilla Ice-Cream – No custard? No problem! Mix heavy cream with some sugar and vanilla (you can even do a mix of heavy cream and half-n-half) and freeze. Serve right away.
5. 5-Minute Chocolate Mousse with Two Ingredients. I know, right?
