Chef and TV legend Dame Prue Leith brings us the cookbook you’ve always wanted – 80 delicious recipes, with accompanying kitchen shortcuts and hacks, for a lifetime of easy cooking. 

Every recipe in this book comes with a handy tip, plus you’ll find over 25 videos accessed by a QR code to help you learn a skill or get ahead.

Coined by Shirley Conran in her ’70s bestseller Superwoman, ‘Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom’ is a phrase that every time-poor cook can relate to. In this clever cookbook, you’ll find really good recipes without the fuss: recipes where a neat trick can save you time, recipes where the cheat versions taste just as good as the home-made, and recipes to help you avoid waste and save you money. How do you cook the perfect steak? What’s the best way to dice an avocado? And what about when it just all goes terribly wrong?

With recipes including Celeriac Rémoulade with Prosciutto, Rocket and Pine Nuts, Crispy Pork Belly, Buttermilk Chicken, Sushi for Scaredy-cats, Chocolate Almond Torte and Cherry Clafoutis, Prue’s handy hacks show you how a little bit of insight goes a long way.

Perfect for every home cook, the absolute beginner, or someone who has been doing it so long that cooking has somehow lost its attraction – Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom contains years of culinary know-how and inspirational meals, squashed into an accessible cookbook.

Recipes include:

• Chicory, Pear, Hazelnut and Goat’s Cheese Salad
• Gunpowder Steak with Coriander Chutney
• Tomato, Chilli and Fennel Sugo with Spaghetti
• Herbed Salmon Parcels
• Brown Sugar Meringue, Roasted Pear and Salted Caramel Sauce
• Passionfruit Yoghurt Cakes
• Baked Camembert and Olive Wheel

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Perfect Scrambled Eggs

SERVES 4

4 thick slices of bread

about 60g/2oz butter

Marmite (optional)

8 large eggs

100ml/31/2fl oz/scant ½ cup whole milk

a few good handfuls of rocket (arugula) leaves (optional)

salt and black pepper

I once had an argument about how to scramble eggs with the famous French chef Albert Roux. He claimed anything other than eggs gently and lovingly stirred in a double saucepan over simmering water for 20 minutes or so until you have a mixture as smooth as hollandaise sauce was sacrilege. So, I apologize to any like-minded perfectionists. My eggs are scrambled in seconds.

The trick is to yank them off the heat and tip them on to the toast while some of the mixture is still just liquid.

And the toast is important. I like it well toasted so there is a bit of crunch round the edge. Sourdough bread makes the best toast because it’s tough enough not to disintegrate under the wet scramble.

Neither the Marmite nor the rocket in this recipe is traditional and, of course, each is optional. But after hundreds of Sunday-night scrambles in front of the telly, I think this version is probably my favourite.

1. Toast the bread. Use about half the butter to butter the slices and spread them lightly with Marmite, if using. Put them on heated dinner plates. Keep warm.
2. Blitz the eggs and milk briefly together in a blender, or whisk them in a bowl until there are no streaks of egg white. Season with salt and pepper.
3. On a medium heat, melt the remaining butter in a large non-stick frying pan and pour in the eggs.
4. Using a spatula or fish slice, keep the mixture moving. Don’t stir wildly – just scrape the mixture from edge to middle as the eggs solidify. When they are almost all cooked, with only 20 per cent or so still runny, spoon the mixture on to the toast – by the time you are done, all the egg will be cooked, but still moist and shiny.
5. Drop a handful of rocket (arugula) on to each plate, if you like, and serve at once, perhaps with a little extra black pepper over the top.

Recipe published with permission from The Quarto Group.