Easy means you will cook it again

One pan or one tray. Ingredients from a normal shop, not a detour for a paste you will use once. A method you can follow without a thermometer, a mandoline, or a paragraph of "meanwhile". If a step says rest the meat for twenty minutes and you are eating at seven, it was not an easy Tuesday recipe.

Pick easy or rapid when you ask. Easy can be slow, like a stew that ignores you. Rapid means you are hungry soon. They are different promises. Say which one you mean.

Sometimes cooking is hard because deciding is hard. Photograph the ingredients, the shopping bags, or the fridge. You get dishes that use that, instead of a theoretically easy recipe that begins with a shop you will not do.

A photo of a book page works if you liked the dish and want it simpler. Say so: fewer ingredients, one pan, same flavour. A photo of a restaurant plate can be a hint, not a promise. Home kitchens do not plate like that, and they should not have to.

If you would not cook it on a tired day, it is not easy, whatever the label says. Look at the equipment list and the number of bowls. Three bowls for a dressing is how easy recipes become washing up. Ask for it again with the constraint you actually have. The second version is usually the one you keep.