"A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes" by Nancy Silverton with Carolynn Carreno (Knopf, $29.95)

I've heard many people, who are never far from a fast-food drive-thru lane, savagely put down the breed of popular culinary TV hosts and cookbook authors that preach half-homemade or half-scratch cooking.

"Ehhh! That stuff is so simplistic," they say. "I could think up that stuff myself. I would never serve that for company!" And it's true, while sometimes helpful and timesaving, more often than not these kinds of recipes often rely on ingredients like packaged flavored gelatins and processed cheese spreads. Fast? Yes. Gourmet? Definitely not.

That's why I feel it's almost my civic culinary duty to tell you about "A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes" by Nancy Silverton, if you haven't heard about it yet. For decades, Silverton has been one of Los Angeles' top chefs, founding the acclaimed Campanile restaurant, and the brains and brawn behind La Brea Bakery, which draws fans both direct as well as feeding them from supermarket aisles.

Silverton's particular combination of being overworked and a phenomenally creative chef works stunningly to our advantage in her particular take on recipes that rely on convenience products. You're leaving behind "from-scratch," while still creating superb, memorable homemade food.

Take, for instance, the tomato sauce that tops her Sicilian Swordfish. The foundation is jarred pasta sauce, however, to that you've added olives, pine nuts, currants, garlic, anchovies and chile flakes. The depth of flavor is amazing and, yet, you've only had to cook it for about 5 minutes to warm it through — before placing it in the oven with the fish.

Canned chipotle peppers in adobo perform a similar feat when added to store-bought mayonnaise along with lemon juice and garlic. Like the fish dish, which gets a sprinkling of just-chopped fresh mint at the end, this mayo relies on chopped fresh cilantro leaves. Silverton knows just the perfect fresh touches to add to every recipe to enliven the convenience products, and also the right techniques to open up the flavor, like pureeing the canned chipotles.

That's undoubtedly not all that will be opened up. With trick recipes, like those mentioned, you will most likely fall in love and use them for much more than just Silverton's initial great ideas. The combination of jarred sage pesto, vegetable broth and store-bought lemon-infused olive oil is a minute procedure that will probably be applied to more than just Silverton's prosciutto-wrapped chicken. Her brandy-raisin brown butter can top turkey or pork, not only dessert dishes like her caramelized pears.

The more than 130 recipes don't contain only two ingredients and take more than two minutes to create, but they are made convenient enough that you will probably visit them as often as you would the La Brea Bakery, which Silverton made famous if you lived in her neighborhood.

CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE

1 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or more to taste

4 large garlic cloves, grated or minced (about 1 tablespoon), or more to taste

1 1/2 teaspoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo, or more to taste (see Note)

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

Yields 1 cup.

Stir all ingredients together in a small bowl. Season with more lemon juice, pureed chipotle peppers, garlic or salt to taste.

Note: To puree canned chipotle peppers, dump entire can, liquid and all into blender.

SICILIAN SWORDFISH WITH TOMATO SAUCE AND FRESH MINT

3 tablespoons pine nuts

1 (26-ounce) jar pasta sauce (about 2 cups)

32 small pitted black olives

3 tablespoons capers

3 tablespoons dried currants

2 large garlic cloves, grated or minced (about 2 teaspoons)

4 anchovy fillets, chopped

Pinch of chile flakes

4 (6-ounce) swordfish steaks (about 1 inch thick; or tuna steaks)

Kosher salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon, extra-virgin olive oil

Lemon, for squeezing over the fish

1 heaping tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint leaves

Yields 4 servings.

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 325 F.

Spread pine nuts on baking sheet; toast them in oven for 8 to 10 minutes. With an oven mitt carefully shake pan occasionally for even toasting, until nuts are lightly browned and fragrant. Remove nuts from oven; set them aside to cool slightly.

Increase oven temperature to 500 F.

Combine pasta sauce, olives, capers, pine nuts, currants, garlic, anchovies and chile flakes in large ovenproof skillet; cook sauce over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, just to warm through.

Rinse swordfish steaks under cool water, pat dry with paper towels; season both sides with the salt and pepper.

Place swordfish in skillet on top of tomato sauce, and drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil over each steak; place skillet in oven for 6 to 8 minutes, until fish is opaque and flakes apart easily when pierced with sharp knife — but is still moist.

With utensil, carefully lift swordfish steaks out of sauce; place them on four plates. Stir sauce to incorporate juice contracted from fish and spoon over fish. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over each steak; sprinkle with mint.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC