The Reading Warehouse

How to make delicious meals from prepared convenience foods.

Create sensational family meals that taste like they were made from scratch, yet actually use convenience foods -- canned, frozen, bagged, boxed, or from a jar. For soul-satisfying weekday meals to decadent desserts, all you need are common and convenient supermarket ingredients. With the 125 recipes in The Convenience Cook, managing mealtime has never been easier.

Take a can of salmon and create an inspired Thai-Style Curry, simply by adding some coconut milk and a few pantry ingredients. Create an Easy Shepherd's Pie by using convenience foods like ground beef, canned beef broth and frozen hash brown potatoes. A dozen recipes use one of the most commonly available convenience foods: chicken. When kids need a quick treat, simply unwrap the crescent roll dough, add some applesauce, dried cranberries, a little sugar and cinnamon and presto you have an easy and delicious Apple Cranberry Pan Dowdy.

Included is a listing of pantry staples and lots of helpful tips, techniques and imaginative variations for each recipe.