FORGET slaving and sweating away in the kitchen for hours – wow your family and friends with fabulous food that’s tasty and simple to prepare. Actress and cook Fay Ripley reveals her secrets.

Best-loved for her role as Jenny in the late-Nineties hit series Cold Feet, the London-born actress has reinvented herself as a foodie in more recent years, and even won the Mumsnet Best Cookbook award for her first recipe book, Fay’s Family Food, published in 2009.

As a busy, working mum-of-two, 48-year-old Ripley’s inspiration for her latest cookbook, Fay Makes It Easy, came from wanting to put the love back into cooking, eating and sharing food.

“I now have more books than kids. My family and friends are the tick in my clock and sharing time and great food with them is what makes the grotty bits of life palatable,” she reveals.

There are 100 delicious recipes that the actress says will ‘strip away stress like fake tan covers up cellulite’.

She doesn’t shy away from the more difficult dishes, like steak with a red wine and rosemary sauce, and tackles her crusty sunflower loaf with ease, using everyday ingredients and simple instructions.

Ripley believes that every meal has the potential to be a celebration and wanted to take away the stress of what to cook. A burning loaf and a smoke-filled kitchen inspired her to set some simple guidelines, in order to make the cooking experience a whole lot more pleasant.

She said: “I pledged some rules to make life easier, to make life fun, so that I could enjoy sharing our food without beads of sweat dripping into the gravy.”

She says too many ingredients means there is always something you can’t find, don’t have or simply forget to put in.

“Too much preparation means you don’t get to brush your hair or teeth before it’s time to eat.”

Here’s hoping this recipe from Fay Makes It Easy will solve a few problems and put smiles on faces.

Chicken with beans one-pot wonder
Serves 4

  • 2tbsp olive oil
  • 8 big, skinless, boneless chicken thighs
  • 2 large leeks, trimmed and thinly sliced
  • 1tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 120ml dry white wine 250ml chicken stock
  • 2tsp grainy mustard
  • 2 x 400g tins flageolet beans, drained, but not rinsed
  • 3 slices Serrano ham (or Parma ham)
  • Handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped

    Heat half the olive oil in a heavy-based casserole dish or large non-stick pan. Brown the chicken thighs until the outside looks nutty all over. Remove and set aside.

Throw in the leeks with a second glug of oil. Soften for two to three minutes, then add the rosemary and garlic for another minute.

Stir in the wine and let it bubble for two to three minutes, stirring all the good stuff off the bottom of the pan. Add the stock, mustard and beans, then tear in the ham.

Bring to the boil, then lower the heat, pop a lid on and simmer for 25-30 minutes, until the chicken is tender and cooked through. Throw in the parsley.

Serve with crusty wholemeal bread to soak up those juices.

  •  Fay Makes It Easy by Fay Ripley is published by HarperCollins, priced £20.