One Pot Cook Book

As far as I am concerned food that can be prepared in one pot is most welcome in my kitchen. I’ll let you into a secret, although I feel it is one shared by many, I hate washing and drying up. And we don’t have a dishwasher. Anything that minimises time spent at the sink is a friend of mine. Don’t be misled, the One Pot Cook Book contains far more than just: chuck it in, lid on, in the oven. At the same time not everything in the book takes ages to cook; it’s not a 15 minute meal solution either but somewhere wholesome in between.

The ‘one pot’ part of the title of this book doesn’t indeed refer to ‘pots’, there are also recipes that use one tray for oven cooking or one dish for baking. Either way one receptacle so that’s fine by me. The book is divided up into: soups, simple suppers,winter warmers, summer spreads, explore the world and easy puds and the colour coding (red for meat, green for vegetarian and blue for fish) is really handy too. It’s nice to see where the inspiration comes from for each recipe is in the margins along with tips and other ideas.

Trying to decide what to make was quite hard, I was torn between: jerk pork tenderloin with plantain, pot roasted chicken with bacon and leeks or meatloaf. After deciding that I’ve never tried meatloaf before I wanted to give this a go. It was so easy! Mix the mince with herbs and spices then bake in the oven. You also add some tomatoes and potatoes to the oven at the same time so everything is ready to be served at once. I like dinners that you can leave to cook while you get on with something else and it made plenty for leftovers the next day.

I really like how simple the book is, text only, but it would have been nice to see some photos of the finished dishes. Not of everything but a few scattered into each chapter would have been a welcome addition. I guess you know you’re getting a book full of recipe ideas with no ‘wasted’ pages and there are illustrations in the book too. I can see myself regularly picking this book up for some no fuss ideas in the future.

Thanks to Head of Zeus for the book. All opinions expressed are my own. The One Pot Cook Book is written by Hattie Ellis and published by Head of Zeus.