Food & Drink Awards - the best Cookbook Shortlist
Ellie's Kitchen is a top UK food blog dedicated to delicious recipes, food news, kitchen gadgets and reviews. This article first appeared on Ellie's Kitchen and is shared as written by her. See more of the Food & Drink Awards.
With so many cookbooks on the shelves it’s often hard to know which ones to go for, and if you’re anything like me you’ll pick the books written by TV chefs or the ones with the pretty covers. This method of picking often doesn’t leave you with much variety or choice and sometimes we can get stuck in our way and not really experience the best of what is on offer.
Cookbooks are something I take real pleasure in reading, not just for ideas and inspiration but also to pick up new techniques and familiarise myself with basically recipes to be able to adapt. It’s often not just the recipes in a book that can inspire you but the blurbs and passionate prologues written by the chef, baker or TV personality themselves can also fuel your passion in a particular foodie field.
It was because of my love for cookbooks that I decided too add a Best Cook Book category to my Food&Drink awards! Here are the three entrants!
Tiny Budget Cooking – £14.99 (now reduced to £10.07)– Limahl Asmall’s Tiny Budget Cooking contains 4 weekly meal plans, price-checked shopping lists, ingredient swaps to personalised recipes and all for a small budget of £21.00 per week. Each recipe also cooks in 15-30 minutes, helping you save money, waste less food and eat better. Published by Bluebird books
The Flexible Vegetarian – £20 (now reduced to £12.57) – Whether you’re an occasional meat-eater, a vegetarian who needs to cook for meat-eaters, or even a dedicated veggie, you’ll find this very flexible book filled with delicious and practical recipes for every lifestyle. The Flexible Vegetarian’s dishes offer two solutions: they can be served as completely vegetarian meals, or with the addition of a simple meat, chicken or fish recipe, making them suitable for meat-free days and meat-eaters alike. Published by Frances Lincold
Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredients – £26 (now reduced to £11) – Every recipe in this book uses just five key ingredients, ensuring you can get a plate of food together fast, whether it’s finished and on the table super-quickly, or after minimal hands-on prep, you’ve let the oven do the hard work for you.
Each recipe has been tried and tested to ensure the book is packed with no-fuss, budget-friendly dishes that you can rustle up, any day of the week. Published by Michael Joseph