There's only one (pot) way to cook (101 One-pot Dishes: Tried-and-tested Recipes)

Member Name: yackers1

Product:	101 One-pot Dishes: Tried-and-tested Recipes
Date:	08/05/09 (255 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great recipes, easy to make, gives clear step by step instructions

Disadvantages: None for me

It's strange that when a son first moves out of home the mother's main concern is how he will manage to feed himself. Forget about paying the bills on time and keeping the place clean, as long as the son can keep his stomach full every thing will be OK.

When I first moved out of home my leaving gift was a slow cooker with the idea being I could set the timer as I left for work in the morning and when I returned home there would be a steaming meal ready to devour. A fantastic idea but in practice it was a different story and I soon left the slow cooker alone.

Whilst watching a cookery programme there was a recipe for a one-pot lamb dish and it prompted me to resurrect the slow cooker. One pot cooking is great as it is almost impossible to burn the food (unless it is left in the cooker for hours on end with no liquid), the food marinates in lovely herbs and spices whilst cooking, meat is always very tender and it is possible to make enough for more than one sitting. In addition it requires little attention (simply chuck everything in the cooker, turn it on and let the magic happen) and the amount of washing up is minimal.

There are loads of one-pot recipe books out there, all of which do more or less the same job. It was whilst browsing in a local Waterstones shop that I noticed a space saving (i.e. small) and attractive (i.e. colourful) one-pot recipe book that was published by the BBC Good Food Magazine, which is an organisation I had actually heard of and trusted. After a quick flick through this book I just had to have it.

101 One-pot Dishes is a handy sized recipe book (ISBN 0-563-52291-7) that was first published by the BBC's Good Food Magazine, in February 2006, that I highly recommend. The editor is Jeni Wright.

Many cookery books contain a section at the front that describes the origins of many of the recipes, specific details about ingredients contained in the recipes (such as where they come from, how they are grown, when to cultivate them etc.) and other back ground information. Whether this information is really useful in cooking the dish or not (after all most people just buy the ingredients and follow the recipe and the origin of the food doesn't affect the taste in any way) will depend on who you ask since everyone will have their own opinion. Personally, I find some of the background information interesting but not really that useful. 101 One-pot Dishes does not contain lavish background information. There is a short introduction, consisting of four small paragraphs, and then it is straight in to the useful stuff.

This book contains conversion tables to ensure you get the correct measures. Like many people in the UK I find that I use both metric and imperial measures (miles for distance and cm or metres in length for example) so I find this conversion table very, very useful. Why the UK cannot either adopt metric or imperial measures is beyond me and this 'mixing and matching' approach is so confusing.

There is a large variety of recipes in this book that includes soups (such as chorizo and chick pea, autumn vegetable and thai green vegetable), broths, casseroles (such as meatball), curries, bakes, fish dishes, rice dishes, pasta dishes and meat dishes (lamb, pork and chicken) amongst much more. A whole host of cuisines is covered from traditional English, Indian, Thai, Mediterranean, Greek, Mexican, Caribbean and Italian. I never knew that there were so many things that could be cooked in a one pot and there are a few surprises including oven egg and chips!

There are some vegetarian recipes but the majority of them contain meat or fish. Being a meat and fish eater, I find this suits me just fine, however there is limited choice for vegetarians and I would not recommend it if you are vegetarian. There are no vegan recipes in this book so if you follow this life style then this book would be of no use to you either.

There are some desert recipes, but the amount is limited and consists of 10 different recipes (such as steamed fruit pudding and tiramisu trifle). I have never been one for deserts so the limited choice does not bother me in the slightest, in fact I wouldn't mind if this book didn't have any deserts in it, but if you are the sort of person who likes deserts I can see how this book may not be suitable for you.

Every recipe gives the list and quantity of ingredients required (to serve four people so you have to scale up or down accordingly), the time it takes to prepare and cook the meal, and step-by-step instructions. The text, on the left hand pages, is clearly spaced out, easy to read and follow and uses easily understandable terms. There is no technical jargon here. On the right hand pages there is a photograph of the finished dish.

All finished products are photographed close up and the results are fantastic. The pictures are very clear and every detail can be seen. I have never managed to get my finished dishes looking like they do in the book, although this applies to all meals I have cooked, and I do suspect there is some airbrushing, but at the end of the day does it matter? In my opinion the pictures are there to add to the attractiveness of the book and encourage consumers to buy it. Pictures do not alter or affect the recipes in any way.

According to the back cover the recommended retail price for this book is £4.99. At the time of writing it can be bought new from Amazon for £2.00 or used for as little as £1.14. This is a bargain price for a book that will last ages (there are so many nice recipes to try) and whilst I would recommend shopping around to get it at the right price I think it offers great value for money even if you have to pay the full recommended retail price.

****Conclusion****

I am a one-pot meal convert and absolutely love them. They are so easy to prepare, easy to clean up afterwards and the results are always fantastic. Before I found this book I was struggling with recipes and had the same repertoire that was getting boring. This book introduced me to a whole new world of meals and I have even started to develop my own from the ideas in this book.

All recipes are clearly laid out, easy to follow and taste great. They may not look like the photograph of the finished article but as long as they taste good that is all that matters.

Summary: A book of great recipes for the simplest form of cooking