Good kitchen read with plenty of ideas & tips - something different than your normal cookbook (How to Feed Your Whole Family... - Gill Holcombe)

Member Name: CeltP

Product:	How to Feed Your Whole Family... - Gill Holcombe
Date:	24/09/09 (14 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Large selection of recipes, little bit of everything, healthy and cost conscious

Disadvantages: Paperback novel style with small print and no pics. Work required in finding recipes.

This book is written by Gill Holocome and published by Spring Hill. It was first published in 2007, reprinted in 2008 and 2009.

Given the current recessionary climate we're in I was delighted to find a recipe book that focused on healthy but cheap family meals.

I have a weakness for cook books. I'm always looking for new ideas to liven up our menu plans. But for a book to last anytime in my kitchen the recipes need to be reasonably HEALTHY, EASY and CHEAP. Otherwise the book is doomed to eBay or Freecycle.

This book is not your typical cookbook. It's a small book, by cookbook standards. It's about the size of a paperback novel. And against type it doesn't contain a single picture of any of the recipes. The typeface is also similar to that in a paperback novel. This was a problem for me as I found it difficult to read from while trying to cook.

What's in the book:
Well there are 10 Chapters:
Introduction
Wake up to Breakfasts
Little Gems and Tough Cookies
Make Dinner not excuses
Quick Fixes
The Joy of Soup
Join the Pudding Club
Can't Cook? Don't Cook!
Let them eat Cake
Not Only but Also
Weekly Menu Planning

The recipes are divided up in a novel way. But for me it meant I had to look for longer to find what I wanted.

The weekly menu planning chapter would be a great start for people that are new to menu planning. Included with each plan is a shopping list, receipt and price per shop. The menus though only include Mon-Fri. It would be useful to have some weekend menus as well.

All your bases are covered here. With a few recipes for everything. Meat, Veg, Rice, Pasta, Cookies, Cake and Soup.

Summary:
Every time I take this book out I make a mental note to cook from it. But I very rarely do. What puts me off is the book size and how difficult it is to find the recipes. There are too many recipes crammed into too small pages. I have ended up writing a few favourites into a hardback notebook instead.

It would be great if the next edition was larger, had a hardback cover and some pictures. This would turn it from a book I read to a book I cook from.

Summary: Good starting point for menu planning healthy reasonable cheap meals. Not a book to turn to everyday