Glorious One-Pot Meals

This book is dedicated to my husband,
Edward Cope, who not only cocreated the Glorious One-Pot Meal
cooking method with me but also ate every meal set before him
with gusto and compliments. And to the many fans around the world who have been
enjoying their Glorious One-Pot Meals and telling their friends about them.
May you all eat well and be healthy.

Elizabeth Yarnell has developed a remarkably simple method of putting a delicious, healthy dinner on the table quickly and easily. Her own quest for fast, fresh, nutritious meals led her to create this revolutionary one-pot preparation system.

She first introduced me to the unique one-pot meals by preparing a sampling of her recipes. I was amazed and impressed by these delectable dinners that took no time at all to prepare. As a health-conscious cook, I am delighted that the recipes can be made with very little fat and with a variety of fresh vegetables and lean meats. The results are flavorful, nutritious meals for the entire family to enjoy.

I added Elizabeth’s Glorious One-Pot Meals to the class schedule at The Seasoned Chef Cooking School and was astounded by the popularity of her classes. The concept of this unique cooking method caught on right away and her classes filled up immediately. Classes were added to accommodate lengthy waiting lists of students eager to simplify their dinner preparation.

We’ve seen everyone from restaurant owners to teenagers, from stay-at-home moms to empty-nesters take her classes. In the seven years that Elizabeth has taught Glorious One-Pot Meals at The Seasoned Chef, many students have returned every time she has offered a class. They’re always hungry for her newest recipes. I know that they—and many others—will be delighted that she has published this marvelous cookbook with a variety of delectable recipes!

I like to introduce Elizabeth’s classes by saying that this is a cooking method where, once you have the meal prepared and in the oven, you can sit down and relax (perhaps with a glass of wine!), knowing your Glorious One-Pot Meal doesn’t need any more attention until it is ready for the table.

Our cooking school students—home chefs with busy work and family schedules—appreciate the ease and convenience of preparing dinner with just one pot to clean up. They have enjoyed success with Elizabeth’s one-pot meals; I know you will too.

Susan Stevens, M.A., R.D.

Director

The Seasoned Chef Cooking School

Denver, Colorado

www.TheSeasonedChef.com

This cookbook is a credit to a true grassroots effort.

John and Jesse Cahill gave my husband and me our first enameled cast-iron Dutch oven as a wedding gift. Our thought then was, “Oh, how cute. How do we use it?” Good friend Corinne Snyder commented to me that we ate really well and asked me to teach her how to cook like we did, sparking the first draft of
Glorious One-Pot Meals.
My in-laws, including Judy and Tony Cope, Peter and Leslie Cope, John and Stephanie Donohue, and Andrew and Lisa Cope, became de facto recipe testers. My aunt, Jane Cotler, was my tireless cheerleader, recipe tester, and draft editor. My cousin Emily Cotler builds all of my gorgeous Web sites, designed the logo, and has always dropped everything else to help me make this happen. My cousin Abi Bowling is my Web guru and valuable tech support service, and cousin Julie Pottinger my role model for succeeding as an author.

My wonderful MS support group based in southeast Denver and headed by Connie Harris became early recipe testers. Jennifer Gennaro told me she believed that I got MS in order to invent this new cooking method and help the world eat better. My Bodyshops Toastmasters group cheered me on and gave me the confidence and skills to speak in public. Rocky Mountain PBS invited me to demonstrate a recipe in their 2001 Cookathon, and then reran it numerous times, giving me my first television exposure.

Sally Stich, the best writing teacher I will ever have, Leslie Petrovski, and Lara Riscol all edited my early manuscript and book proposal as I set out to find an agent and a publisher. Susan Stevens of The Seasoned Chef Cooking School not only allowed me to teach but also gave me targeted feedback on both my recipe writing and my teaching style. My patent attorney, Henry L. Smith, Jr., took my five pages of gibberish and turned it into a twenty-five-page patent (U.S. no. 6,846,504, Canada no. 2,401,092), making me a bona fide inventor.

If it weren’t for the vision of my agent, Stacey Glick, and my talented editor, Jennifer Josephy, you wouldn’t be holding this edition in your hands today.

My mother, Susan Rutherford, and stepfather, Phil Stietenroth, tested numerous
recipes, took my professional photographs and early videos, loaned me money to get my business going, and believed in me even when I didn’t. My father and stepmother, Phil and Barbara Yarnell, helped to fund my first print run, contributed recipes, and encouraged me to pursue my dreams. My sister Molly Skyar urged me to grab for the brass ring even when I thought it was futile. My sister Katie Yarnell provided babysitting that allowed me to make this book happen, and my brother, Jared Yarnell, dared me to succeed.

Finally, I acknowledge my beautiful children, Jeremy and Lilia Cope, who through their very existence encourage me to seek a healthy lifestyle. And last but not least, I thank my husband, Edward Cope, whose support has never waivered. Without my partner, my best friend, my lover, my soul mate, none of this would have happened. I am very lucky indeed.

I
magine coming home after a long day, reaching into your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, and—in five to twenty minutes—tossing enough food for an entire meal into a single pot and walking away from the kitchen. A half hour to forty-five minutes later you serve up a scrumptious meal of chicken bathed in a peanut-satay sauce served on rice with a variety of crisp-tender vegetables. Or perhaps succulent scallops tinged with ginger on a bed of chunky sweet potatoes, with an array of mushrooms and broccoli to round out the meal. Sound like a dream?

Our daily lives often seem to run on overdrive, and too frequently a home-cooked, healthy dinner is one of the sacrifices made. We’re too busy to cook properly, we complain. Or perhaps we just don’t know how to cook healthfully, or aren’t even sure we can identify healthy foods beyond lettuce. Surely we all want to feed ourselves and our families nutritious meals so we will live long and healthy lives, but until now there haven’t been many solutions for getting a good, nutritious meal on the table quickly.

It seems that while most people would prefer to eat home-cooked meals, in reality they don’t more often than they do. In fact, 82 percent of Americans say they enjoy preparing food at home and more than half claim they would cook at home more often if it didn’t take so much time. Further, while 65 percent of us say we are trying to eat healthier foods, one-third report not having the time to prepare healthy meals. Part of the problem may be the lack of a good way to cook that meets all our needs for speed, convenience, ease, and nutrition.

This was certainly the problem I faced as a newlywed and business owner diagnosed with a debilitating disease. I wanted to improve my diet and the course of my disease, but I lacked the time and stamina for long, complicated meal-preparation marathons. I wished there were an easier way to cook healthier foods. So I began experimenting
and soon discovered a new and different way of cooking that met my needs: I call it
infusion cooking.

Infusion cooking
refers to using a lidded cast-iron Dutch oven to hold layers of whole foods and flash-cooking them inside a superhot oven for a brief time. No added liquid means that these recipes are not stews but rather complete meals where each item retains its cellular integrity and emerges perfectly intact. The intense heat causes the vegetables to release their moisture, which presses up against the food and infuses it with clean flavors from herbs, spices, and other natural ingredients.

Vegetables stay crisp. Meats are moist. Grains fluff nicely. It’s as if you used three or four pots and pans to create a complete and balanced dinner, only you didn’t have to juggle the timing of different dishes or hover over a hot stove or face a daunting clean-up task. Pretty cool. That’s why I call these recipes Glorious One-Pot Meals: They allow me to serve deliciously healthy dinners with very little effort—a
glorious
feeling!

Make no mistake: These are not recipes for your slow cooker. You will not find casseroles, skillet meals, stir-fries, or even simmered stews in this cookbook.

Instead,
Glorious One-Pot Meals
offers a revolutionary new way to think about planning, shopping for, preparing, cooking, and eating dinner. This method is so different that it has been awarded both U.S. (no. 6,846,504) and Canadian (no. 2,401,092) patents. So far, I haven’t discovered any previously published recipes that use this particular cooking technique. I guarantee that you will be amazed at how easy it can be to put together mouthwatering meals in less than half an hour.

First, follow a few recipes to discover how truly easy and delicious Glorious One-Pot Meals can be. Be bold about substituting ingredients as advised. Then take the plunge and become an intuitive cook by creating your own meals out of your favorite foods. Appreciated for its convenience and simplicity, the infusion cooking technique demystifies cooking for those who fear the kitchen, while still offering the textural complexity and depth of flavors demanded by more accomplished chefs.

It has been said that there are only nine cooking methods on this planet: sauté, fry,
bake, broil, grill, slow-cook, braise, boil, and steam. With infusion cooking, there are now ten. Soon, a cast-iron Dutch oven will be as prevalent as a slow cooker in the battery of utensils available to the home cook.

My focus had been in finding a solution to my problem, not in inventing a new way to cook. However, what resulted may be viewed as the missing link between eating conveniently and eating healthfully. Happy cooking and eating!