Can't cook? Won't cook? Don't worry: Caroline Dear has some nifty and thrifty ideas for tarting up ready-meals

Let's face it: women today have busy lives. It's like trying to cook with one hand and clean with the other, while you're balancing the baby on your knee and helping the older kids with homework.

But what if you've got to rustle up something a bit special - maybe at short notice or on a weekday evening?

Of course you could just heat up some ready-made 'meals, slap them on the plates and serve. But with a little imagination you can transform the prepared food and ready-made dishes you'll find on any supermarket's shelves into delicious dinners.

Look the part
The easiest ready-meals to pass off as your own are the 'premium' supermarket brands. The Tesco Finest* range, for example, offers convenience meals such as Salmon en Croute, Lemon and Herb Couscous with Chicken, and Normandy Apple and Calvados Tart. However, expect to pay premium prices for this posh fare.

But the real trick with ready-meals lies with presentation. Even the cheapest of pre-packed food can be a gourmet experience if you know how.

Click here for the ultimate cheat's cuisine dinner party menu.

Read on for some basic tricks for adding instant class:

• Food transferred to attractive serving dishes or tureens looks more appetising than meals straight from the microwave or pan.
• Serve a salad on a large plate and allow your guests to help themselves (improvise salad tongs using a couple of wooden spoons).
• Take a tip from some of the TV chefs and, instead of plonking servings around the plate, stack food in layers, surrounded by a sauce. For a neat stack, spoon your food on to the plate through a dough cutter - or even a well cleaned play-dough cutter.
• Use a kitchen towel or clean dishcloth to clean any spills off the plate once the food is neatly placed.
• For rice with a difference, spoon the cooked grains into a teacup or mug and up-end on to the plate for an attractive rice tower.
• Big white plates always make food look at its best, and remember to warm them first: just pour over some hot water, or place them in a cool oven for a few minutes.
• Nicely laid out place settings also add to the atmosphere. A side plate with a butter knife can give the impression that a lot of care has been put into the food, while a bottle of water and two glasses per guest - one for wine, one for water - makes the host look very thoughtful and organised.

Over the page: More cheat's cuisine

• Add garnishes - showering your dishes with fresh herbs is the simplest way to suggest freshness, but you could also use edible flowers, finely sliced olives or cornichons (pickled baby cucumbers), toasted almonds or pine nuts, to name but a few.
• Rather than just grating on some Parmesan cheese, use a vegetable peeler to shave off thin slices, which you can then arrange on top of your packet pasta or salad.
• Try serving fresh soups with a swirl of single cream poured in each serving
• Pep up shop-bought houmus by drizzling over some olive oil and sprinkling on a little smoked paprika; drop an olive on top for added glamour.
• Make magnificent salads by mixing a bag of leaves with unusual ingredients - try chopped sundried tomatoes, pine nuts, croutons, sliced chorizo, crispy bacon, shavings of Parmesan or even boiled quails' eggs.
• When serving French baguette bread, don't just cut straight across: cut long diagonal slices
• Whichever bread you serve, warm it in the oven for that home-baked touch.
• Dust some pieces of fruit in icing sugar for an instant dessert.
• If you haven't had time to chill the wine or beer, place the glasses in the freezer - you'll also get a nice frosty effect.
• And if all else fails, serve your cheat's cuisine dinner by candlelight - the flickering dimness just might hide the flaws in your 'cooking'.

Over the page: The cheat's dinner party menu

Cheat's dinner party menu
Here's some instant inspiration for the ultimate cheat's cuisine dinner party for four people. The names of the dishes may sound very impressive but that's the whole point: sounds complicated, needs hardly any effort. Click here for the shopping list.

Here's how

1. Start by pre-heating the oven and cooking one large or two small chickens - these will take the longest to cook. Just get the oven temperature and timings from the packaging.
2. Then put 1 large ready-made pavlova or meringue on a serving dish, top with extra-thick cream, raspberries and chopped mango (or canned peaches) and put in the fridge.
3. To make the rouille, mix 1 pack of fresh aïoli with a teaspoon of sun-dried tomato paste and blob of chilli paste - how much will depend on how hot you like your food - and set aside.
4. Put the carrots in a pan with a large knob of butter, a glass of orange juice and a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar. Put over a low heat and cook until the carrots are tender, shaking the pan occasionally. Keep an eye on the pan to make sure it doesn't burn dry - top up with water if you think that's going to happen.
5. Cut the baguettes into slices and toast under the grill to make crostini.
6. Chop some parsley.
7. Heat up two 600g cartons of fresh soup and transfer to individual bowls. Garnish each bowl with a couple of cooked, unpeeled prawns a little chopped parsley. Spoon blobs of rouille on the crostini and serve with the soup.
8. About 10 minutes before the chicken is going to be ready, put 1 bag of ready-prepared baby vegetables on to cook and heat up 2 packs of ready-made mashed potato (following packet instructions).
9. Let the chicken rest while you transfer the carrots and baby veg to serving dishes. Put the hot mashed potato in a dish and stir in a couple of spoonfuls of crème fraîche and a heaped teaspoon of creamed horseradish. Carve the chicken and serve with the veg.
10. Just before you serve the pavlova, take it out of the fridge and drizzle a little raspberry coulis over the top and pour some around the edge, on the plate. Using a teaspoon, pour drops of single cream into the coulis. Drag a skewer or toothpick through the cream drops to create white heart shapes in the dark pink coulis. Serve and relax.

Over the page: The shopping list

Shopping list

Starter: 2 x 600g cartons fresh Mediterranean fish soup (or two large jars lobster soup)
8 fresh cooked unpeeled prawns
35g pack of fresh parsley sprigs
2 baguettes
3 x 50ml sachets freshly made aïoli mayonnaise (or use mayonnaise from a jar mixed with 'lazy garlic')
jar or tube of chilli paste
tube of sundried tomato paste
Total cost: £8.40
Per person: £2.10

Main course:
1 large (2.5kg) or 2 small (1.25kg) ready-stuffed and flavoured chickens
2 x 300g packs of ready-prepared baby carrots
brown sugar
butter
orange juice
2 x 200g packs of ready-prepared baby vegetables (such as baby leeks, sweetcorn, cauliflower
2 x 300g packs of ready-made mashed potato
284ml (10fl oz) tub of crème fraîche
jar of creamed horseradish
Total cost: £14
Per person: £3.50

Dessert:
1 large ready-made pavlova or meringue
2 x 125g punnets of raspberries
2 x 200g tubs of peeled and chopped mango (or use canned peaches)
568ml (1pt) of extra thick cream
2 x 160g jars of raspberry coulis
142ml (5fl oz) pot of single cream
Total cost: £6.84
Per person: £1.71

DINNER PARTY TOTAL COST: £29.24
COST PER PERSON: £7.31

Cost are averaged and based on Tesco prices, November 2001