The older I get, the more I see my kitchen as a room of little, endless demands. 

I have to eat three times a day; I have to clean before and after; I’m missing one ingredient, and I need to use up the excess of another. 

It’s honestly another reason why I started to hate Sundays. Aside from prepping for my work week, I had to plan and buy for a work week’s worth of meals ― after that, in an unbelievable show of cruelty, I’m asked to actually cook them. 

Enter: The Rotation. Every household has those one or two meals which they know take next to no time to cook, go down well, are reasonably healthy, and don’t cost a lot.

So, I thought I’d share the trio that get my partner and I through a work week (two of these last us two days, so would feed a family of four for one day; the other goes in a day, but is actually meant to feed four too. Oops).

1) Chorizo and mozzarella gnocchi pasta bake (BBC Good Food)

When a recipe has earned five stars from 600-odd reviewers, I take note.

This meal basically tastes like a cheat’s lasagne, but takes about half an hour to forty minutes from fridge to plate ― the chorizo is a clever shortcut to deep, bold flavour, tricking your tastebuds into thinking the sauce has simmered for hours. 

I also like to mix a can of butterbeans in with the gnocchi. It bulks the dish out, adds a tonne of fibre, and thickens the sauce a little as the beans fall apart. 

The only downside? This is pretty hard to reheat (again, a bit like lasagne). Not that we’d know; a huge casserole dish, embarrassingly, usually only lasts us a night.

2) Bacon black beans with rice (Panning The Globe) 

I reckon this is the fastest and most delicious meal I make in the work week ― so we usually keep it ’til the midweek hump kicks in, as a Wednesday pick-me-up. 

In total, the cooking time is about 20 minutes, and it’s ridiculously cheap to make (all you need is an onion, a can or two of black beans, some bacon, garlic, and red or green bell peppers). 

Not only does it keep brilliantly, but it actually tastes better on day two. And if you want to keep the whole thing one-pot, a sachet of microwavable rice has saved my proverbial on many a work night.

3) Hot and sour chicken noodle soup (BBC Good Food)  

This five-starred recipe has probably earned its faultless score because it’s 1) foolproof, 2) super-adaptable, and 3) genuinely done in 25 minutes.

Sometimes I sub out uncooked chicken thighs for leftover roast chicken, or switch chestnut mushrooms for enoki or button kinds; I’m not sure I’ve ever used the same amount of rice wine, and I’ve never used groundnut oil or beansprouts. 

Still, the recipe ends up tasty every time, and though the recipe says the mushrooms need to be added at the absolute last minute, us heathens find they’re usually fine the next day.