When Vancouver-based food blogger Holly Nilsson is working on a new recipe, she does so with one belief in mind: that cooking a delicious, fulsome meal shouldn’t be hard, stressful or time-consuming. She first started her online platform, Spend With Pennies, over a decade ago using her experience as a home cook and one-time single mother of three children to share money-saving tips and no-fail family-favourite recipes. And the more she shared her food with others – and learned how to adjust her recipes based on feedback from her readers – the more comfortable she felt in the kitchen. “Spend With Pennies has made me more intuitive,” she says. “And it’s also made me more efficient because I really try to cut out steps that don’t add a lot of flavour especially [if those steps add a lot] of time investment, effort or extra dishes.”
It’s that no-frills, easy-to-follow approach to food that earned Nilsson over 333,000 followers on Instagram alone, and now she’s bringing it to her first-ever cookbook, Everyday Comfort. Inside, you’ll find 120-plus hassle-free recipes – think a quick and fresh One-Pan Chicken Pomodoro Skillet or the versatile Clean-out-the-Fridge Pot Sticker Soup – designed to simplify your process and please everyone around your dinner table.
Each recipe also includes actually useful tips (for substitutions, storage, prep and so on) and tricks to help you adapt them to your own style and tastes. “I really believe that for anybody who has a copy of this book, it is going to be a go-to and make everyday life a little easier,” she says. “Life is so busy and we’ve got so much going on, and you have to figure out what’s for dinner [on top of that]. This is a book that you can turn to to solve your dinner problem in a way that’s designed for real life.”
How to make satisfying meals that are packed with flavour, without using expensive ingredients.
How to meal prep
“When we think about meal planning, sometimes we get this [idea] in our head that it has to be, like, an elaborate calendar with dates and leftovers planned for lunch,” says Nilsson, adding that that very image is why so many of us don’t want to do prep work. But when pared down and kept realistic, meal prep can make cooking any day of the week so much easier.
Some ingredients can be prepped ahead of time as you buy them
Meal planning, she says, can be as little work as noting three recipes you want to make that week and then making sure you get the ingredients during your next grocery shop. Nilsson also recommends prepping certain ingredients ahead of time as you buy them. “When I get home from grocery shopping, I prep all my veggies,” she says. “I wash lettuce and peel and chop hearty vegetables – things like carrots and celery.
Can you freeze garlic?
I love to buy big batches of garlic, pop it into the food processor, mince it and then freeze it in a freezer bag, nice and flat. Then when you need garlic, you just break off a piece and throw it in the pan. I do the same with onions. Having those things ready in advance just makes meals go so much quicker.” Most important? Give yourself a break when you need it. “It’s totally okay to take shortcuts,” says Nilsson.
“Humble” ingredients go a long way
Many of Nilsson’s recipes rely on what she calls “humble ingredients” – basic items, like carrots and chicken stock, that most of us stock in our pantries and fridges and can really transform a dish. Her must-haves? “In my pantry, you’ll always find onions, garlic and ginger as well as carrots and celery – a traditional mirepoix is the basis of flavour for everything,” she says.
“Then there are simple proteins – I use a lot of chicken breast, and I love pork tenderloin and ground beef. All of those ingredients together are so versatile – they adapt to so many different cuisines, can be prepared in so many different ways and give you a starting point regardless of what you need in the moment.”
Don’t forget to garnish your dishes
When you’re focused on quick and simple dishes, you may not think to priortize garnishing them. But that would be a mistake – Nilsson says topping your meals is key to boosting flavour and offering variety, especially if you’re working with the same foundational ingredients. “Fresh herbs are one of my favourite ways to change or level up a recipe,” says Nilsson. “[Finish with things like] sliced green onions or cilantro to add a lot of flavour.”
