I enjoy cooking and I love reading cookbooks. I think the best ones are the British ones because they often have beautiful pictures, creative recipes and the recipes often seem fairly easy to achieve! When I lived in the UK, I loved watching cooking TV programmes showing popular chefs like Jamie Oliver. Recently, I ordered Jamie's 30 minutes meals and so far I am enthused by the gorgeous food and the simplicity of the cooking. It is not the usual cookbook with chapters: Starters, Pasta, Meat... What Jamie Oliver has done is to break each full meal with all components into tasks. The meals include main course recipes with side dishes as well as puddings and drinks which can be served to your family and friends. You follow the instructions and Jamie will have you cooking like a chef in your own kitchen! The 50 different meal ideas suggested in the book are supposed to be done in 30 minutes, but as I tested some of them myself, they are definitely doable in 45 to 50 minutes (well...I am not as speedy as a chef!) So I would say those meals are done under an hour.

Last weekend I tried the Piri Piri chicken which comes with mashed potatoes and a salad and some gorgeous Portuguese style tarts. I learnt new tricks to put cinnamon into puff pastry and also to do a quick caramel sauce without any disaster! Just watch the videos and you will see how easy this is and how yummy all the dishes look!

Part 1

Part 2