Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal

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Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal

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Buy Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Category: Cookery
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Ani Johnson
Reviewed by Ani Johnson
Summary: A cookery book bearing Lorraine Pascal's trademark clear, concise and stylish culinary inspiration. One or two of the ingredients may not be exactly store cupboard but, whether gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian, trying to be healthy or just in search of yumminess, it has something for everyone.
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 256 Date: August 2015
Publisher: HarperCollins
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0007489701

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Lorraine Pascal specialises in no-nonsense, simple recipes that provide delicious results; a speciality that has afforded her a deserved space in today's crowded celeb chef culture. Lorraine's ethos in Eating Well Made Easy is to provide recipes for everyone, encompassing vegetarians, allergy sufferers and those who just want something delicious, all with a healthy spin.

Before getting to the recipes themselves Lorraine empathises with those of us on diets of one sort or another. While acknowledging that there's not one reducing/lifestyle/health-ridden diet to suit everyone she shares the healthy eating system that works for her along with more general information regarding balanced diets. If you feel laden with balanced diet data though, this only lasts a few pages and is easy to skip to get to the proof of the pudding… and the first course… and the main course come to that, not to mention the nibbles.

The book is well produced providing each recipe with a beautifully photographed finished result on a facing page. This makes it a tribute to the food stylist and photographer as much as to Lorraine. It's then sub-divided into breakfasts, light and Sunday lunches, weekday and posher dinners, lazy brunches and finger food/nibbles plus suitably tempting desserts.

Having spent a glorious long weekend road-testing recipes in the interests of professionalism and greed (ok, mostly greed!), I can confirm that you don't need to be on a diet to luxuriate in the food.

I started with the blackberry and blueberry ginger yogurt pots from the breakfasts, the fruit going beautifully with the yogurt and toasted oats and the whole thing being lifted by chopped fresh ginger. For those wanting something different on the go in the morning, how about slices of Granny Smith apples spread with peanut butter? Yes, it does sound odd, but it works. These sit well with recipes bearing more traditionally breakfast ingredients like eggs sitting in roast tomatoes for instance.

On to lunch and the seasonal yum of roasted pepper, tomato and caramelised onion soup with buckwheat for that extra texture. Any delay before eating compared to opening a tin is oh so worth it. Talking about worth it, Lorraine's original take on bubble and squeak is also one to try.

Dinner brings us to the unctuously thick, hearty leek, aubergine and chickpea tagine with cashew nuts and apricots. I'm not a vegetarian but I didn't miss the meat, especially when serving it with warm crusty bread. If you prefer something meaty the low fat creamy (i.e. yogurt) butter chicken is one to think about and savour. Ok these two dishes may require an extension of your spice rack and a bit of a hunt (el ras el hanout for the tagine was a bit of a poser!) but it's an investment as these aren't dishes you'll just make the once. I must admit to lacking courage when it came to the very green coloured cabbage and pineapple smoothie (evidently my professionalism has limits!) but it was in a good cause as the alternative was the tasty cauliflower-based pizza – scrumptious eons better than it sounds!

I would just say that, as it does lean towards healthy eating, a calorie/salt/sugars rating at the bottom of each recipe would have been nice. However I didn’t muse on this for long; there were date-rich chocolate brownies to be eaten after all. In fact I was so smitten by the online ARC that I went out and bought the book. Says it all really doesn't it?

(Thank you HarperCollins and the people of Netgalley for providing us with a copy for review.)

Further Reading: If you want to stick to the healthy eating theme, try Deliciously Ella: Awesome Ingredients, Incredible Food That You and Your Body Will Love by Ella Woodward. If, on the other hand you have no worries about that, then perhaps Paul Hollywood's Bread: How to make great breads into even greater meals by Paul Hollywood or Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food by Nigel Slater. Then, of course, there's Jamie Oliver.

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Buy Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal at Amazon.com.

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