I’m crap in’t kitchen and fancy changing that. Can anyone recommend a decent book, nothing too poncy, faffy, or overly complicated, but am willing to be a little adventurous?

I fancy using beans and pulses, love seafood and spicy stuff. The daughter’s a veggie, so a few meals to suit her too. Thanks.

Delia Smith’s “How To Cheat At Cooking”,is a nice starter book,or Nigella Lawson’s “Kitchen” a bit more flash.

I would look at the early Jamie Oliver stuff (The Naked Chef, The Return of the Naked Chef), it’s reasonably easy, quite quick and doesn’t have too many fancy ingredients. The Hugh Ferney-Whittingstall stuff is good as well, I’ve got quite a few “every day” recipe’s from them.

Does it matter that I can’t bear Delia or Nigella?

Try Lorraine Pascal’s Home Cooking made easy …. it’s simple yet very tasty stuff, with ingredients which are easy to source. I’ve cooked quite a few of her recipes now and they are fab! And it has a vegetarian section, the mushroom and chestnut risotto there is to die for !!

+1 for the Jamie Oliver stuff, simple and straight forward well explained and normally not to fiddley.

For veggie stuff a lot recommend the Moosewood books

Nigel Slater’s Fast Food is very good and he’s not as annoying in a book as he is on telly

Does it matter that I can’t bear Delia or Nigella?

not at all thats why you use a book rather than watch them on the telly

Nigella stuff is fun and easy, Delia stuff can be good for back to basics stuff “How to Cook” was a good book as it deals with a lot of stuff that other cook books leapfrog past. Its learning the basics but with sophisticated results. Her mash is astounding.

I think Jamie Oliver books are good for an understanding of why a recipe actually works, but his 30 minute meals book did this least successfully. There tends to be a core set of ingredients/flavour in his books, so when you’ve shopped for one you’ve got a lot of the little odds and ends you’ll need for another.

Nigel Slaters 30 minute cookbook is good (although its old now, I presume its still available). The meals are more self indulgent evening treats than big dinners and entertaining food, and its lots of clever little ideas rather than set meals and menus

For everyday stuff Jamie Oliver is pretty good. His recipes pretty much work whatever your ability and the food tends to be ‘family’ stuff rather than wannabe restaurant dishes.

slainte 😀 rob

Cheers all. Looks like I’m leaning towards Jamie Oliver atm

His magazines are good too, in fact they are possibly more useful than his books

Best way to learn to cook is to settle down with a good cup of coffee on a Sat/Sun AM and watch a cooking show live or recorded – anything – James Martin, Simon Rimmer, Nigel, Jamie, Hugh etc. then rush out and get the ingredients and cook up whatever they just did.

I have loads of books but really a Google Recipe search gives me the best ideas and its all there online, dont need books anymore. I do my own ready steady cook – open fridge, see whats there, search a few Google Recipies, bingo.

Delia’s complete cookery course.

Bog standard cooking covers just about everything you can do in the kitchen. Not just the cooking but also how and what to buy, how to store, what equipment etc etc

First published in 78 so probably older then Jamie.

Personally I don’t find Jamie Oliver that great. He’s good at what he does, but what he does is make cooking really easy, not always tasty.

Nigel Slater does it for me; he’s pretty unpretentious and doesn’t use obscure ingredients you could never find (unlike your Rick Steins), his recipes are tasty and a good mixture of easy and slightly more challenging.
Nigella Lawson isn’t my cup of tea, for recipes or anything else, really.

+1 for Delia’s complete cooking.

Turned me into the culinary genius that I’m now perceived as

I can’t stand Delia either but I have to say, that even though I thought I “knew” how to cook, her “How To Cook” Books (I think there were two) were excellent.

I dunno how “crap” you are in the kitchen (I suspect not that crap really) but if you can just not imagine her voice as you read the recipes, the techniques and information in them are great and a doddle to pick up. You can buy both books together (in one) now from Amazon for around £25 or something. Check out the reviews. I still cook lots of the recipes from there and hey, y’know, they just work. (A lot better than Jamie’s tbh).

I’d say once you’ve done those books, then Nigel Slater’s early books are definitely worth a punt. Though, I think with Nigel, you have to be reasonably confident in the first place – as his recipes can be a bit ambiguous – a handful of this, a shake of that, a glug of the other.

+1 for Delia’s complete cooking.

+2

(I’m just thinking that the OP might find it a bit boring – she is ever so slightly patronising, even in her written word) 🙂

Dunno about her techniques, but I’ve never got on with her recipes. She seems to have a knack of ruining otherwise perfectly good food.

I’d love to get something that improved my kitchen technique though; maybe the ‘how to cook’ would be good for that?

+3 for Delia’s Complete Cookery. Covers basics that other books may leave out, surely this is where everybody starts, I know I did. Mum gave me her copy when I left home, many many years ago.

APF

Delia always good, ditto Jamie Oliver, Nigel Slater’s recipes are almost always shit.

I’m using Food from Plenty by Diana Henry.

edit: Mary Berry for cakes 😀

Last night I made Nigel Slater’s Turkey and Squash Bake, as shown on the tellybox on Saturday morning. It was a bit odd, had waaaaaay too much red wine in it. Texture was amazing though.

Nigel Slater’s recipes are almost always shit.

As I said, a bit of confidence and flair are needed. 😆

All you need for a nigel slater recipe is some-one else’s version of it!!

Keep it coming – don’t mind a bit of experimenting to get it right re; Slater

emsz – I don’t eat cake, have you not seen my buffness? 😉

everyone eats cake Formerly. Don’t lie 😆

Actually emsz seriously, I don’t eat cake, sweets, chocolate, after dinner puds, crisps (mebbe the odd low fat pack), much bread, chips (well rarely), spuds in general, pastry – sweet, or savoury, fatty meat, junk food of any description or anything else fatty or sugary (fruit being the sugary exception).

your body is a temple, thats why its best to leave your shoes on the outside

http://www.jamieoliver.com/

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes

Wow, formerly, that’s pretty strict!

Luv cake, and chips!!

what do you eat?

Lean ham, chicken, the odd bit of bacon (but usually without bread), fruit (lots of) – bananas, apples, melon, grapes, nuts (in moderation – fatty, but good fats), crumpets, bean salads, green salads, cous cous, tuna, mackerel, prawns, lots of cherry tomatoes, peppers/sweet peppers, some fibrous cereals.

Remember I work away cruz/rob, so all this is instead of eating Maccy D’s/greasy spoon breakfasts, pre-packed sandwiches and fast food evening meals. At home at the weekend I’ll have the odd wholesome meal cooked by Mrs STR, or even a takeaway, but then still selective.

Worldfoodcafe 🙂 great food

River Cafe Italian Kitchen by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers has some excellent but really easy pasta dishes if that floats your boat. Plus a really bonkers but delicious Christmas cake recipe. The Jamie Oliver ones mentioned above are good too.

Books I most often use are Moro and Movida. Jamie O’s ‘Cook ‘is good too.

str – dead impressed mate, what about boozing?

edit: Mary Berry for cakes

For some reason every time I saw her on the Great British Bake Off I wanted to punch her in the goolies…

Boozing cruz? I drink like a bloody fish mate as well as smoking like an express steam train. No resolutions, but both need to be cut down this year.

More votes for Jamie and Nigel.

The early Naked Chef books or the 30 minute meals one from Jamie.

For Nigel, get Real Food or Real Cooking.

Or get anything by Simon Hopkinson.

My body’s a temple too. One where they sacrifice things and burn them as offerings 😀
Watch that lovely Mr Martin on a Saturday for ideas, a lot of the fish dishes are quick and easy. Keith Floyd has some good recipes too.