Guest blogger, Alice, reviews One Dish Dinners by Penny Oliver…
If you are anything like me: single and time poor, cooking can sometimes be a nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, I looove eating but often it’s hard to see the point in cooking just for one. In One-Dish Dinners (RRP $40), author Penny Oliver aims to disprove the myth that cooking a fabulous meal requires complicated recipes and/or a multitude of pots and pans. Let’s face it- no one really likes doing dishes.
There are five main chapters depending on your choice of cooking “dish” whether it be a (i) pan or wok, (ii) bowl or platter, (iii) pot, (iv) casserole, or (v) tray or dish. Appropriately, this book is filled with many winter warmer type recipes. Think baked spiced pawns with crumbled feta or puy lentil and winter vegetable stew. But don’t get the wrong idea; the heart of this book is modest everyday type food. Humble food such as lamb shank casserole, baked stuffed mushrooms and chicken and vegetable casserole are scattered throughout this collection. Although I was born and raised in New Zealand, I grew up on Chinese food so I am really grateful to have a collection of staple recipes all in one place.
There are also plenty of moreish looking one dish desserts. White chocolate and caramel tart with summer berries, anybody? Or perhaps orange and rosemary crème brulee or feijoa and plum crumble is more up your alley…
Each one-page recipe is accompanied by a full page of beautiful mouth-watering photography – the kind that sends you into a sudden (temporary) culinary frenzy and ignites your inner domestic goddess. The photography is also a good point of reference for what your end product should ideally look like (although this isn’t always realistic as things don’t always go according to plan!).
Helpfully there is also a four page index of all the recipes sorted alphabetically by ingredient, so you can see at a glance what your options are based on what your star ingredient will be. The ingredient lists themselves for each recipe too are pantry staples. There are also plenty of vegetable only based recipes, suitable for vegetarians or as a small portion to accompany.
I’m thinking this book would be great for a winter date night! Definitely a welcome addition to any bookshelf, no matter how seasoned the cook. I can’t rate this book enough!
About the Author
Hi everyone, my name is Alice and I am a beauty and skincare addict! I love trying new products and raving about my holy grail finds. I am a lawyer by day, and an amateur yogi and foodie at all other times.
Follow me on Twitter (@alycatbeauty) for all sorts of health and beauty related rants.
Alice
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