There are some givens here, and it’s worth taking a moment to understand them. I’ve organized Kitchen Express by seasons, not because I think grilling in winter or braising in summer is “inappropriate,” but because I wanted to feature the right ingredients at the right time. To me, the organization is not dogmatic, but it is realistic, and it jibes with the current trend among savvy eaters to avoid, for example, Southern Hemisphere fruit in winter. As it happens, asparagus is best in spring, broccoli in fall and spring, corn in summer, and so on. You can cook what you want when you want it, of course, but I think that as you’re browsing in Kitchen Express, you’re best off starting with the season in which you find yourself; chances are you’ll find something appealing right there, one that not only uses the best ingredients available but suits your mood. (When all is said and done, grilling in winter works only occasionally for those of us who have real winters, and braising in summer usually requires a pretty hefty dose of air-conditioning.)

How fast are the recipes? In general the speed with which you execute them depends not on how fast you chop (almost everyone chops better and faster than I do, and I can do any of these in 20 minutes or so) but on how well you’re organized, and how well you multitask.

If you’re the kind of person who organizes everything ahead of time, then spends a while chopping and assembling the ingredients, then hovers over the stove and watches everything develop, stirring and turning carefully and lovingly, that’s great, but you should figure that these dishes will take you a little longer. These recipes were developed for the type of cook who gets the oil hot while chopping an onion, cooks the onion while peeling and chopping the carrot, adds the carrot and goes on to dice the meat, and so on—a kind of fast, steady, sequential cooking that is more grandmotherly and short-order than it is haute cuisine.

In fact, this is definitely not haute cuisine. It’s very good food, done quickly. The idea here is to provide quick, satisfying dishes—delicious dishes. Many are complete meals, but I’ve often suggested appropriate accompaniments and serving suggestions to fill them out when necessary. These, of course, are optional. Most often they feature quick-cooked or pre-bought ingredients: bread, steamed broccoli, couscous. This doesn’t mean that if you have time you can’t make brown rice, or your own bread, or a more complicated vegetable dish.

And if you have even less time, open a jar of high-quality pickles; steam a plate of vegetables in the microwave; broil some eggplant slices; shred some cabbage or lettuce and serve the meat or seafood on that (it will wilt and collect the flavorful juices); quickly stir-fry a single vegetable in the same pan you used to cook the main course; have sliced fruit on the side; use a fast-frozen vegetable like peas, rutabaga, or corn; make a quick raw-vegetable salad by grating or chopping whatever you’d like and dressing it in a little oil and vinegar. You get the idea.

By the same token, cooking methods are flexible, especially when it comes to grilling, broiling, or using a grill pan. Do what your equipment and the weather allow. In terms of equipment, I only assume that your kitchen is stocked with a food processor and probably a blender.

Generally, the quantities in the recipes here are designed for three or four people. But again, the specifications are loose enough so that it won’t take much to tweak them for fewer or more servings to make a meal more substantial, or plan ahead for leftovers. You can also combine the dishes in this book to make a larger dinner or pull together a buffet; check out some suggestions on backmatter.

How and when you use the dishes in Kitchen Express is equally flexible. Some foods become trans-seasonal simply by swapping out a key ingredient (see “Some Simple Substitutions”). Others transcend the seasons or may have multiple—or more specific—uses worth highlighting. For help finding recipes using a tool besides the seasonal chapters or the index, see “More Ways to Navigate Kitchen Express,” beginning on the frontmatter.