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Many cookbooks are organized by ingredient — like pasta, chicken and veggies. Or by dish — mains, sides and desserts. But not the latest offering by Caroline Chambers. Her book is grouped by how long each recipe takes to cook.
“What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking” has sections for meals ready in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and an hour, complete with shortcut tips, slow cooker instructions, ingredient swaps and ways to bulk each dish up.
It was inspired by the daily grind: She found herself a new mother, working full time as did her husband, facing the nightly freakout about what to feed everyone.
“I think every single person is daunted by the idea of putting dinner on the table every single night for their family,” Chambers says from her home in Carmel Valley, California. “That’s why we text our friends like, ‘Hey, what are your kids loving lately? What’s something you’ve cooked lately that was really good?’”
If you have an hour, Chambers shows how you can make Salmon Crunch Bowls or Sheet Pan Sesame-Ginger Steak & Peppers. If all you have is about 15 minutes, there's a fish dish — any fish will do — with cherry tomatoes and saffron, or a skillet dish with ground pork, Brussels sprouts and peanut butter. Each is a complete meal, so no need to add a vegetable side from another part of the book.
Piggybacking off Chambers' popular Substack newsletter, the cookbook comes out just as summer melts into fall, schools restart and the dreaded 9-to-5s kicks back into place.
“All of a sudden, we’re having to get back in the routines. We’re not eating chicken nuggets at the pool anymore. We’re not eating hot dogs every single night. We are like, ‘OK, back to reality. Let’s cook a meal,'" she says.
Chambers is all about ease and flexibility. Take her Thai-inspired Coconut Curry Chicken Meatballs & Veggies — 45 minutes — that uses red curry paste and handmade meatballs. She encourages home chefs to grab Italian meatballs from the store if time is running low.
“Would a Thai cook ever use oregano? Hard pass. Would they ever use thyme? Nope, they sure wouldn’t. But those flavors can still play together really nicely and it’s going to make your night a lot easier,” Chambers says. “A little oregano in a meatball is not going to be as weird as you think it is when it’s thrown together with coconut milk.”
Her proteins include mussels, eggs, steak and scallops, and her flavors jump from North African harissa to Mexican fajitas, Asian bo ssam and Italian pesto. She thinks lentils are criminally disrespected and refried beans are the perfect thing to bind a “taco-dilla” — a cross between a taco and a quesadilla.
The 15-minute chapter offers several melty sandwiches, multiple uses for rotisserie chicken and instant ramen — cheap versions are fine, toss the flavor pouch — to which she adds tons of vegetables and pantry items like coconut milk, sesame oil, peanut butter and soy sauce.
“It doesn’t have to be fancy and it doesn’t have to be the coolest seaweed kelp noodles to taste really good and still be a nourishing meal,” she says.
Chambers, a North Carolina transplant, has enjoyed a varied career in food, opening her own catering company, Cucina Coronado, and becoming a professional recipe developer. Her first cookbook, “Just Married: A Cookbook for Newlyweds,” came out in 2017 after she got married, to George, a former Navy SEAL. The couple now have three boys.
During the pandemic, Chambers offered easy, smart meals on social media, perfect for stuck-at-home readers. She created a paid Substack newsletter, thinking she'd maybe make enough for a side hustle. Think again: She's attracted almost 20,000 paid subscribers and is the No. 1 entry on Top Food & Drink Substacks.
“I grew a really loyal audience by just showing up and giving them exactly what they needed — really quick, really easy. Everybody was sick and burnt out on cooking,” she says.
Chambers' editor — Amanda Englander, the editorial director at Union Square & Co. — says: "Her audience has proven really loyal and really engaged. I think it’s because she’s such a genuine person but also because her recipes are also so true to how we all really are in the kitchen.”
(On the day she was contacted, Englander was letting shrimp defrost to make Chambers' shrimp orzo skillet).
Ten of Chambers' recipes from the newsletter have found their way into the cookbook, including one of her most popular dishes, Hella Green Pasta, which uses boiled kale and garlic, and Parmesan in the sauce.
“My kids do not touch a green vegetable, but they absolutely demolish Hella Green Pasta,” she says. “It has this insanely creamy, delicious sauce. There’s olive oil, there’s tons of Parmesan. And it’s like a pesto — pesto’s cool cousin.”
