River Cottage Light & Easy

I think I've now got all but one of River Cottage cookbooks, and this one has me thinking to take a trip there for one of their cooking schools. Love his philosophy, love his flavors and healthy heartiness of the recipes in this collection. I have hundreds (yes, hundreds) of cookbooks and this one is in my "use often" pile. There's always something to try, and this book introduced me to some new ingredients. All of which are available via Amazon.

Really creative, interesting recipes. Appreciate that he counsels moderation, which is the key to making healthy habits a lifestyle IMO. I would give 5 stars but which there was more explanation as to why some wheat substitutes were made- why is rice flour more nutritious, for example? Also which the instructions had a conversion for us temps/ measures- I can make them on my own but that leaves room for error.

The recipes I've tried have come out great. Tasty recipes. It does require replacing of some items that I would think are staples in most kitchens, but the changes I've made to date have been worth it.

New kind of cooking, but very instructive.

Great recipe book, tried quite a few recipes and love the curry pastes. Only drawback is the availability of some ingredients.

An original and brilliant piece of work..! the author has made an incredible receipe selection very useful specially for those suffering from food restrictions.

excellent book with clear easy to follow instructions and truly tested recipes

Perfect!

I am normally a fan of HFW's books but this one is a very mixed bag. It aims to be gluten & dairy free. A bit of me did wonder if, as has been my experience with similar styles of food, the flavour would get left out too. I have to say that the recipe list for the most part didn't inspire - some of it just sounded too weird and most of it really didn't get the tastebuds going. Not only that, but few of the recipes that are photographed look visually appealing - often very beige & bland. Quite a few of the 'recipes' don't really need a recipe e.g. the banana split recipe.There were a few decent soups: aubergine & tomato; creamy tomato soup enhanced with cashews which gives a rich flavour; sweetcorn & tomato broth. Most of the salads left me cold although a raw cauliflower & peanut salad and chick pea salad with avocado 'mayo' were OK. As for the rest in the savoury line, the oven-baked mushroom & shallot risotto and aromatic nutty chicken were alright. I enjoyed the mango & lime smoothie but to be honest making a smoothie barely needs a recipe and it is easy enough to ring the changes. Of the desserts/treats, mango with lime & chocolate was fine but in essence all you do is peel and slice a mango, sprinkle it with lime juice and drizzle melted chocolate over - not exactly rocket science. The baked pears with almonds & apricots were fine too but again there is nothing much to it unless you are a complete novice in the kitchen, and the same applies to the almond rice pudding with lemon & bay. The St Clement's polenta cake with blueberries is nice enough but HFW indicates it is a variation on a Claudia Rosen recipe.Overall then this has been a disappointment. I got it as a cheap Kindle download (using it on the Kindle app on my tablet was fine) but would have been disappointed had I spent anything close to the full price of the hard back edition.

Lovely book, which is full of recipes that I both wanted to try and that were easy to work through. I have stayed clear of giving it a 5 star review because I do think some of the dishes are very ordinary, and wouldn't make them again... however many are gorgeous, including the wonderful roasted mushroom and parsley soup. Truly yummy and so easy to make. It's now my go-to dish when using up mushrooms. There are some great gluten free baking recipes - I really like the oatcakes, and all of the dishes are light in terms of *not* being huge portions of starchy carbohydrate based food.

Not as rubbish as the non-gluten/dairy free people have commented below. I'm a big subscriber to the River Cottage Cannon and I was rather pleased with the recipes in this book. I don't have a restricted diet, but I am keen to explore new foods and combos all the time. I have never used nut milks and the like and I've been rather inspired by this book. It doesn't have much in the way of what I call 'filler recipes' e.g. there's recipe for poached egg on toast in the Everyday book!

Hugh is such a down to earth cook and whatever he tackles he brings that same 'do-ability' to it. As several members of my family have special dietary needs, this book is going to be used a lot. Normally if I find one good recipe in a book I think I have done well but this one has lots of ideas that appeal to me; even though they don't contain some dairy or wheat ingredients. When cooking for specialist diets it is wonderful to serve up something delicious that can be enjoyed by everybody. Well done Hugh!

I am not trying to avoid wheat and dairy which is basically what the recipes in this book are all about but there are some really lovely recipes in here and some imaginative use of ingredients such as blitzing avocado to make a 'mayo'meat and fish recipes in here too so not all veggie