24 notice recipes

"Easy, fast and delicious! I created this recipe so I could feed a crowd on a moments notice and still expect raves. Make the sauce a day ahead and the flavor even improves. This way you can spend time with your guests, not slaving in the kitchen."

If you run out of preserved lemons, or decide on just a few day's notice to cook a chicken, lamb, or fish dish with lemons and olives and need preserved lemons in a hurry, you can use this quick five-day method taught to me by a Moroccan diplomat's wife. Lemons preserved this way will not keep, but are perfectly acceptable in an emergency.

Smooth and creamy, fresh and clean. Canned tomatoes work equally as well as fresh.

A cold yet hot ice-lolly – not for the faint hearted if lots of chilli flakes are added! Popular pineapples are full of goodness as well as flavour, they are the only source of the plant compound bromelain. Bromelain is linked with improved immune function, prevention of cancer and digestive health. Pineapples contain Vitamin C, an antioxidant, folate and trace minerals. Be cool and get a hot chilli ice lolly.

Pace guacamole, the four-ingredient shortcut guac built on ripe avocados, Pace picante sauce, lemon juice, and salt. No dicing onions, tomato, or chiles, the picante does all that work.

Light lemony cheesecake made with nonfat cream cheese and condensed milk on a graham cracker base. A lower-fat cheesecake topped with fresh fruit that still feels indulgent.

Sun-dried tomato pasta sauce with no canned tomatoes. Dry-packed tomatoes rehydrate in boiling water, then split between a blended puree and chunky halves for real texture. Vegan, 20 minutes.

his is a concentrated, liquid coffee easily found in Ireland, but probably not in the States. I would dissolve 2 T of a good instant coffee in an equivalent amount of water, and use that.