Hesfalleninthewater : As schoolnight nondrinkers, what can we use instead of wine in recipes that call for it for deglazing etc? Once we've opened a bottle for 200ml in a recipe, it is too tempting not to pour a glass for oneself.

Hello! I have seen other food writers suggest freezing extra wine in 200ml portions for future deglazing, but in my kitchen I know they'd just get lost (freezer is a black hole), or sampled en-route to a freezer bag. The Vacu-vin is quite helpful, albeit not with my willpower.

I would agree with the commenter below – mini bottles of wine aren't bad for deglazing, and at about 200ml a bottle they're the perfect size.

IscoBusquet What are the absolute must-have store cupboard ingredients for your one-pan food?

Olive oil! So much olive oil! After years of thinking that extra virgin olive oil was only good for drizzling and too strong to cook with, I'm now a convert on account of the polyphenol levels (still high even after heated to a high temperature). I buy massive tins of Glug to decant into the squeezy bottles, and love that it tastes nice and mild to cook with (confession, I even use it for Indian food – my only concession is using toasted/untoasted sesame for south east Asian dishes.)

Good tamari soy sauce for dressings – Clearspring is my favourite – good salt to season the food (predictably, Maldon), a full spice cupboard including – to answer another reader's question – good pre-mixed ras-el hanout, baharat and tandoori spice (I like Spice Kitchen's mixes as sadly Rooted Spices are no more). Curry powder has no place in my kitchen, unless it is Sri Lankan, and made by me.

I also love having jars of extra flavour 'things' in the fridge, like miso paste (white or red), rose harissa, dijon mustard, lime pickle. Pesto is usually homemade, but store-bought chilled is fine (though not technically a storecupboard ingredient.)

And essentially, limes, lemons and rice wine vinegar – a squeeze of lemon juice is often all you need to lift a dish from ordinary to extraordinary.

Do you have any tips for stretching dinner leftovers for easy lunches the following day? Particularly something that travels well.

Hello! I am literally turning to the lunchbox chapters of the Quick Roasting Tin and Green Cookbook as we speak to answer your question. I am going to break the answer down into:

• Something carby

You cannot go wrong with a really big tray, in which you've roasted eg sweet potato or butternut squash (in my head this counts as a carb), celeriac if you're fancyor just regular potatoes. For additional veg, cauliflower works well if you add it for the last 25 minutes, ditto aubergine. You roasted the veg at about 180C with oil, salt, onions, perhaps ginger (mug off the garlic perhaps, for work) and your choice of spices – something pre-made, like ras-el hanout or baharat, or smoked paprika and turmeric, or ground cumin and (freshly) ground coriander. 45 minutes will do you for the starchier carbs, if cut into one inch pieces.

While the tray is in the oven, whisk together an easy dressing eg lemon juice, olive oil and sea salt. Once the tray is out of the oven, stir through the dressing, along with a drained jar of beans or chickpeas (for tinned chickpeas, I wrote a Filter article below on the best and worst). Taste and adjust the salt as needed.

Take as much as you want for your dinner and stir through something fresh and green – chopped spinach, rocket, herbs etc. Top your portion with crumbled feta or goat's cheese, and then your choice of nuts/seeds – and/or pomegranate and eat warm.

Put the rest in a sturdy lunchbox, let it cool down, and then stir through the remaining greens and top with the cheese and toppings. Refrigerate, and it should travel well, especially if everything fits snugly in the box.

If you think just the roasted sweet potato/butternut squash/potato won't be quite enough of a carby base, batch cooking a pan of grains eg pearled spelt or pearl barley, draining and stirring through with the roasted veg works really well. I quite like doing bulgur wheat, as it takes just 15 minutes with stock in a covered dish in the oven (double the stock to the weight of the bulgur eg 200g bulgur to 400g stock.)

The main tip for it lasting to the next day is just making a full oven tray of the veg and a generous portion of grains, and not letting any resident husbands/border collies on about leftovers.

Would you cook a one pan supper if the dish were better using two pans? Why is the number of pans the driver?

This is a very good question, and the answer is no! I would definitely use two pans if the recipe worked better – eg I find it tricky as a recipe writer to perfect the timings for a one-pan pasta, where you cook the sauce and pasta at the same time (That said, this one-pan puttanesca from my column was worth the testing! See below).

For general curry plus rice or sauce plus pasta dishes, I'd always use a pan for each – the number of pans is usually the driver if I'm very tired after work and don't feel like stirring at the stove – in which case, chopping everything and sticking it in one tray in the oven is appealing, as it offers time for a sit-down!

But I'm also a real believer in the effort-to-result ratio – spending four hours in the kitchen using every pot and pan to make a delicious meal for yourself, friends and family can be lovely if you enjoy cooking (and don't mind washing up.) But if you serve up a one-tin dish, which tastes amazing but took you 10 minutes to prep, no effort to cook and leaves you with just one thing to wash up at the end, it feels like a win, whether you're a seasoned cook or just starting out.

My mother and her friends – experienced cooks all, and I hope they won't mind me saying they're in their sixties, seventies and above – tell me they love the 'one tin' Roasting Tin recipes as a break from the evenings they spent standing and cooking and then washing up multiple pans after us – which I won't argue with!

UtterlyExhausted asks: As someone who's almost always exhausted by the time work is done but also don't want to just eat cereal for dinner or a basic sandwich, I'm looking for simple, healthy weeknight one-dish dinners that take 10-15 minutes of prep max, don't have many ingredients, and will provide leftovers.

I hear you, this is exactly me after work as well, and why I think a 'chop and chuck' traybake where the oven does the work for you is exactly what's needed. If you eat fish, think wild salmon, trout or sustainable white fish fillets in a roasting tin drizzled with soy, honey & sesame oil, roasted with vegetables that take 15-20 minutes to cook too, like tenderstem broccoli and sugar snaps (there's a video of baby me cooking a version of this here.)

As a rule with a roasting tin recipe, I always think of 'building' a dish – so if you have eg a fillet of fish or chicken breast, add flavour by spreading it with something quick from the fridge like harissa, or tapenade, or mustard, then top it with something crunchy, like breadcrumbs, chopped nuts or seeds (Paneer or tofu work well if you're veggie, or an entire block of feta). Then the rest of the dish includes things which take a similar amount of time to cook – cherry tomatoes, small florets of cauliflower, red onions, dressed with oil and salt. That should take no more than 10 minutes to chop and put in the oven, then when it comes out, a quick dressing of lemon or lime juice, olive oil, salt and fresh herbs which complement the dish will really lift the flavours, and bring everything together.

It's easy to double up the quantities for leftovers – and actually The Quick Roasting Tin (with thirty minute one-tin dinners) has a whole section on things you can make for dinner & which work well in a lunchbox the next day, too.

Soose15639 asks: Any suggestions for quick and easy gluten free, veggie recipes? I recently found out I'm celiac so am working on my new repertoire.

Rice is your friend here I think, and an all-time reader favourite from The Green Roasting Tin is the all-in-one sticky rice with broccoli, squash, chilli and ginger. Instead of cooking the rice in water, you stir it through with coconut milk, spiked with ginger, garlic and soy sauce. Then you layer it up in a dish with squash and broccoliand pop it in the oven to bake, and then take five minutes to mix up a lime, chilli and coriander dressing – and that's it!

Nowadays, I'd add in some cubed plain or smoked firm tofu for extra protein – it is absolutely not cheating to buy ready diced butternut squash if you're in a hurry. You can find the recipe here along with an old recipe video on ITV. Generally, I would lean into recipes & cuisines which are often naturally gluten-free – think soupy noodles or laksas with rice noodles, stir-fries with a peanut chilli dressing, curries and fried rice.

If you're doing rice as your carb accompaniment, you might want to try my family's microwave method, which is at the beginning of this recipe for green pea pulao rice with cardamom and almonds (the rest of the recipe is v nice too!)

Thenewschmoo asks: What do you recommend as the best reheatable meal for me to make and take round when it's my turn on the rota for providing a meal for friends who are having a hard time at the moment. Only rules are no tomatoes, no coriander.

I think taking food over to friends when they're having a hard time is one of the nicest things you can do. So many dishes taste even better the next day: for tomato free recipes, I'd suggest casseroles or gratins rather than curries. A tray of dauphinoise potatoes would make an incredible reheat dish, but for an all-in-one meal, one of my favourites is the leek & puy lentil gratin with a crunchy feta topping from The Green Roasting Tin.

You just tip 3-4 finely sliced leeks into a roasting tin along with a few cloves of finely grated garlic, olive oil and sea salt, roast them for 20 minutes in the oven, then stir through a vac-packed packet of puy lentils, two 250g tubs creme fraiche (two 200g is fine too) and a bit more sea salt – lemon juice is nice here too – then scatter the whole thing with breadcrumbs and feta and bake until crisp.

If you're making it to take and reheat, I'd do this for just another 15 minutes (the original recipe says 20-25 minutes). Then it'd be another 10 minutes at 180C for your friends to heat through (15 mins if from fridge cold). If they like mildly spiced food, then this chickpea & melted onion gratin with harissa from my Guardian column has a similar crisp-topped vibe with a bit more heat (and no tomatoes or coriander!)

Rukmini Iyer writes the monthly Cook once, eat twice series for the Guardian Feast, suggesting simple, delicious ways to make your meals go further. In the Quick and easy column, she shared tasty recipes to make in less that 30 minutes for midweek suppers. She is the author of the hugely successful Roasting Tin cookbook series, which has sold over 1.75 million copies to date worldwide, offering fuss-free, nutritious and affordable one-dish dinners.

Rukmini is be here to answer your questions.

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