Quick weeknight dinner

Of all the kitchen gear I test in a year (and I test a lot), a rice cooker is one of the few things I’d never live without.

From a coconut broth noodle soup to easy peasy cheese puffs, these recipes prove deliciousness and efficiency can coexist in the kitchen.

Welcome to Cooking On The Cheap, a series of editor-approved recipes that deliver big taste on a small budget.

Imagine, for a moment, a tomato soup that needs no blender to produce an impossibly creamy result, all without a drop of dairy; a lentil soup vibrant and gorgeous enough to grace the cover of a cookbook yet humble enough to eat alone at your kitchen counter for a Tuesday lunch. Seasonally agnostic (canned tomatoes here!), this soup thrives in winter with the best of your pantry staples. Once this soup comes together, you may forget there are lentils in here at all. They magically melt into the pot, nearly disappearing (that’s the idea), giving you creamy texture and luscious body: tomato (and lentil) soup utopia.

Here Oliver jazzes up a handy grain package, meaning you get big flavour, fast.