Fresh & Fast: Inspired Cooking for Every Season and Every Day

The James Beard and IACP Award-winning author of Sur La Table shares more than 200 recipes that make fresh food deliciously convenient.

Regularly featured in Bon Appétit, Woman's Day and Ladies' Home Journal, Marie Simmons is dedicated to dispelling the myth that eating fresh food is difficult and time consuming. In Fresh & Fast, she provides more than 200 recipes that show how fresh ingredients can be more convenient than packaged foods.

Whether it's Warm Egg Salad on Whole Wheat Toast or Lemon Basil Chicken, each recipe is surprisingly simple, yet freshly conceived and imaginative. Simmons shows how to vary your menu according to the season with dishes like Crisp-Fried Soft-Shell Crabs in spring, Roasted Tomato and Fresh Corn Soup in summer and Orange Baked Squash in fall.

Each recipe tells exactly how long it will take to prepare and alerts you in advance about any steps that require a little extra time. Most can be made in less than 45 minutes, including: Lemon Basil Chicken, Warm New Potato Salad with Scallions, Penne with Roasted Vegetables, Pork Tenderloin Marinated in Soy and Orange, Sesame Brown Rice Pilaf, Spicy Marinated Shrimp, Easy Oven-Roasted Red Bell Peppers, Black Bean and Vegetable Burrito, Stir-Fry of Cabbages with Asian Flavors, Grandpa's Peaches in Red Wine, and Apple and Ginger Crisp.