Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food - TV review

I'm about to let you all in on a little secret. Ready? I'm 29 years old and I can't really cook. But the real secret it is, I hide it remarkably well.

Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that I'm a great cook who loves entertaining and can cater for large groups of visitors effortlessly – you know, just like one of those celebrity chefs off the telly?

My birthday presents this year even included an apron (albeit one emblazoned with the words My Kitchen Is For Dancing) and a big plastic spoon with a surprised face.

But if you probe a little deeper you'll soon realise that my meal repertoire constitutes spaghetti bolognese (made with veggie mince), lasagne (that's spaghetti bolognese with sheets of pasta instead of snakes) and veggie chilli (that's bolognese sauce minus the spaghetti and with added chilli powder).

Oh yeah, and my signature dish is something called Jacket Potato Buffet. Which – as you can probably guess – consists of jacket potatoes and a variety of shop-bought condiments.

So I guess what I'm really saying is I make a mean tomato sauce and I know how to turn on an oven – and I can dance while doing it.

I imagine I'm exactly the sort of person Lorraine Pascal's new TV show Fast, Fresh and Easy Food is aimed at. It's all about – as Lorraine puts it – 'less faff and more fun'.

Usually with these things though, the celebrity chef's idea of 'fast and easy' is so far away from what us mere mortals could cook up in 12 hours that you are wasting valuable chopping time just watching it. Remember Jamie's alleged '30 minute meals' anyone?

Although on the flip side, there was that time when Delia started serving up frozen mashed potato and boiled eggs. That was brilliant.

Lorraine, however, seems to fall somewhere in the middle. Her Limoncello jelly shots (minus that bit about soaking gelatine sheets in water) seem pretty achievable and even I can handle chucking a load of pre-prepared melon in a bowl of a rocket and feta.

But the home made bread or the 'crouching tiger hidden zebra cake'?

Well that's never going to happen in my house, and not just because it's got a stupid name. It's because it was basically a marble cake but with added faff and I simply don't have the patience.

And as for the burgers she cooked on the barbecue with her dad?

Well that bit was just plain boring. Even her poor father could only muster enough enthusiasm to mutter such insightful phrases as 'I usually buy my burgers' and 'Mmm, that tastes nice'. I'm not entirely sure why he agreed to be filmed.

In general, I quite like Lorraine. She's nice and smiley and she always wears a bright white t-shirt and no apron – she's a braver woman than me.

But I can't say I'll be rushing out to buy the new book that goes with her series or even tuning in next week because I'm just not that interested.

And I'm sort of fond of my limited repertoire, I like to think of it as endearing.

So I'll more than likely continue to dance in my kitchen and keep serving up the same four meals on a loop but that said, next time I make a jacket potato buffet I might swap the shop-bought Caesar salad for a bag of rocket and a punnet of chopped mango.

Dinner round mine on Friday night anyone?

Amy Burns