I originally bought this Book a couple of years ago, with the intention of making a cheesecake, which I did, and it's sat on the shelf ever since. I paid £6 for it from the School Book Club, the RRP is £14.99 - I wouldn't have paid that much for it. It sells on Amazon for about £7-8 now.

Anyway, recently I found myself with a 'glut' of Philadelphia, various Supermarkets have had it on offer recently and I've felt compelled to buy it everytime I saw it cheap. So, in a bid to use up said glut before it went out of date I looked out the Philadelphia Cookbook. As I am calorie counting just now, wanted to stay clear of the cheesecakes!

I was actually surpised at how versatile cream cheese can be. Not Just cheesecake, but pasta dishes, dips, salads, curries, soups, canopies, ice cream, cakes, sauces, plus ideas for bagels and sandwiches.

Most of the recipes are easy to intermediate, I would say, easy to follow and 90% of the recipe show a picture of what the finished product is supposed to look like. Which I find very helpful!

One of the best things about this book is that for each recipe it states the nutrional values - Calories, Protein, Carbs, Fat - which I have found invaluable!!!!

One thing I will say about the book is it gets a bit 'samey', after a while, like they tried to cram as many recipes in as possible. The cheesecake section is a bit repetitive, same cheesecake with different fruit/flavour for example, some of the pasta dishes are bit similar, but some great ideas all the same.

I've made about 8/9 recipes from the book, some better than others (but that could be down to my cooking!) BUT a few have become firm family favourites - especially the Spaghetti Carbonara - it is TO DIE FOR I've made it several times now! Also the baked Sweet Potatoes went down very well, as did the garlic and herb baked mushrooms.

The majority of ingredients used are basic things if you don't have in you'll get in the supermarket, I've not come across anything weird and wonderful yet like in some cookbooks!!! This isn't fine dining, it's cheap, low fat, family food that anyone can make as long there is a tub of Philly in the fridge!!!!!!