This cook book is not by the two lovely people who presented the ITV programme of the same name but by a guy called Rob Allison and it does not contain all the recipes from the TV show. That said it does have some excellent frugal ideas in it and I was glad that I was able to get my hands on a copy.
It is a substantial hardback book with excellent photography of the dishes. At the start of the book there is also lots of good advice about how to store food to avoid waste and how to save money on the weekly grocery bill. Then the book is divided into 6 main sections which includes one on using up leftovers and one on Friday night feasts. There is even a dessert section !
All the recipes are costed on the basis of being for 4 people and costing £5 for the whole dish i.e. a cost of £1.25 a head per portion. Now this is a bit expensive for my everyday budget but there are lots of adaptations which you could make which would make the recipes cheaper. For instance, I would not put chorizo sausage in my macaroni cheese !
The section I found most interesting and the reason I bought the book is the one on Friday Night Feasts. This includes recipes for having your own 'takeaway' at home including Chinese. American, Mexican, Indian, British and Thai. All of the 'feasts' include more than 1 dish and I feel that I would definitely have a go at some of these ideas, especially the Indian and Chinese ones. That's where the cost of £5 for the whole feast seems like good value for money and I will be trying out a few ideas next week during those 2 birthdays.
There is another book I would recommend along these lines and that is "The Takeaway Secret'. That is a smaller, cheaper book and does not have pictures. It does a similar job but without the emphasis on cost saving. All the recipes are still cheaper than a takeaway !
The "Save Money Good Food" book has a retail price of £18.99 and I would not pay that much for it ! I waited until I found a damaged copy on Amazon for £4.99, it had a big crease down the middle of the cover. I paid for it using a Swagbucks gift card and used the Amazon Prime trial for shipping, so the book was effectively free, that makes it good value !!
I've heard of this book before and it sounds pretty good. I think I shall do what I did with jack Monroe's book 'A girl called Jack' . I borrowed it from the library for a couple of weeks to see if I liked it. I did, so I asked my daughter for it for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteThat is such a good idea ! I checked out the library here but they did not have a copy and it costs £3 to get an inter library loan, so spending the voucher seemed a better option.
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