I want to cook from scratch, and eat less processed food. Recipe book recommendations please?

[Didyouevah]

I have 2 dc, overweight dh and a baby on the way.

I have time to cook better than I do. No allergies... And yet I just cook the same old stuff. Pasta bake, risotto, baked potatoes.

Not enough fresh stuff, fruit, veg.

Any suggestions welcome thank you

This website is brilliant: www.100daysofrealfood.com

Loads of info. Thankyou.

I am no jamie Oliver fan but his ministry of foods is good and I've cooked loads from it!

I love anything by Nigella. I think Kitchen is my fave. Some of the recipes are a bit fancy but there's loads of good and simple stuff in there too. I also love her writing style. It makes me feel calm.

I found how to eat very dated.
I don't want to cook anything from it anymore. However her kitchen i found excellent.

I like Jamie Oliver but agree his food can be pretty spicy. Though Jamie's italy is good at my home because DD1 loves pasta.

I also really like Diana Henry's cook simple. It is very cheap on kindle. DD1 adores the Pacific lime chicken and the North african spiced poussin (chicken) for example. Also the potato salads, the rhubarb cake, the pasta. There is a crumbed fish that is very good too. Every thing in the book is fairly fast to cook.

If you get kitchen DD1 loves the Korean keema, cheesy chilli and jerk chicken from it. There might be more but that's what I could remember just now.

I'd really recommend Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food or The 30 minute cook; loads of really simple recipes, often with storecupboard ingredients, that are very quick to make. If you're not used to cooking from scratch it's probably a great way to get started. I also love the way he writes about food - makes me hungry!

I think good recipes are nice but for me it's about retraining your diet away from having fancy high salt/sugar/fat meals every night and getting used to simple cleaner food such as steamed or roasted veg, a lot of it, with roasted or baked chicken/fish/meat, etc., and or salads with lots of healthy fresh veg in it.

I have one of 2 or 3 things for breakfast and one of 2 or 3 things for lunch every day. Boring but healthy.

I love Jamie Oliver books but we are chilli addicts here. River Cottage Veg Every Day book is brilliant.
I noticed yesterday that our local library has loads of recipe books including new ones, you could borrow some to see if you like them before spending any money. Also those recipe cards in the supermarket are often good.

There's a new HFW 'light' book that has lovely recipes, none of which use gluten or dairy. Anna Jones' (a Fifteen graduate) book A Modern Way to Eat is vegetarian and fantastic (and I'm a committed carnivore). Hemsley Hemsley is great too, lots of alternatives to processed carbs in there and all low sugar, nutrient dense stuff.

I think for simple, approachable, non-intimidating but delicious food you can't beat Nigel Slater. His recipes are never daunting or overly elaborate but always interesting.

You need to cut down on the carbs (pasta and potatoes especially) if you want to watch your family's weight so learn to use pulses in interesting ways. Things like chickpeas and lentils are really cheap and HONESTLY they are delicious if you take a little time to learn how to cook them and season them properly. It's not hard, but sometimes involves planning ahead. They will take on the flavours of stocks, herbs and spices really well and are great at bulking out meals if you are trying to cut back on the meat or the carby stuff. If your children like baked beans there is no reason why they shouldn't love other pulses and legumes cooked from scratch.

For brilliant recipes using cheap and healthy ingredients I really recommend Diana Henry as well. Her books are really inspirational.

And let's not forget good old Delia.

I cooked the lamb meatballs with the harissa chickpea thing from Jamie's 30 minute meals last week and it was fantastic. I tweaked it a bit to work with what I had in the house, but everyone loved it and it was very simple to do.

Sorry, thread-hogging now, but my latest new book which I LOVE LOVE LOVE is Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family. It's quite expensive at 20 quid from amazon but it is a massive book with loads of really useable and useful (but not dull and samey) recipes in it.

Nogella's first book, How to Eat. A true classic and covers all the basics beautifully. Can be had for £2 on ebay!

Still reading all the comments! Thankyou.

I can recommend the 'Crumbs' recipe book that has recently been published; I've made loads of things from it and the chilli recipe is the best I've made. I get loads of recipe books from my library to try and then buy those with recipes that I actually make, rather than just plan to! The Annabelle Karmel book for Fussy Eaters is also a really good all rounder (and not a baby purée in sight!)

Haha at baby purée. That woman was my guru when I was weaning!

I find I get a lot of waste in terms of spices, they will go out of date before I need to use them again?

How about a transition period where you make healthier versions of your current meals, bulking up pasta/chilli/curry sauces with fresh veg, then move on to maybe some passata from scratch?

Have you got a slow cooker?, I got a good book from The works? or some where similar which has some good recipes which you can just throw together.

YY to Nigel Slater, River Cottage Every Day (I love the veg book). I love Nigella's How to Eat but I do agree it's a bit of it's time and I find her recipes a bit pricey for day to day - it might be worth a borrow from the library though as she writes really well and I learned a lot from reading it. Basically I learned to cook by reading lots of Nigel Slater and Nigella

The BBC Good Food website is also pretty good for everyday recipes.

Yes we do have a slow cooker. Tend to cook same old stuff in there though...

I actually have more cookbooks than I originally realised. I get cooking fatigue when I spend loads of time and energy on something for the DCs to reject.

didyouevah I only cook for myself. I don't actually care if DD1 likes them. More often than not, she just says yuck to everything (she's 3yo). The only thing she consistently eats are beige food - chips, rice, pasta, bread etc. And even if I serve up rice, she'll say she wants chips, and vice versa. I just told her that's all she's going to get and she can go hungry if she wants. She seems to be growing ok even though sometimes she does reject dinner. I think she just loads up on weetabix in the morning.

The only thing I've stopped cooking are very hot food. To my mind, at least it's food she has a chance to actually eat. She cried when she can taste the chilli.

Oh yes. Rejection results in no extra action on my part.

We're off to a flying start here. DCs have a long day on a Tuesday and I wanted them to eat before the adults due to timings.

I had my son help make French (wholemeal) toast with crudités and hummus.

When I collected them they asked what was for tea. I said French toast. "But I don't like it wah wah". I just breezed through it. Asked for help and they wolfed it down.

I'm no delia but it was a stress free meal with fresh food, clean plates without long delays which met my 'objectives'. I'm pleased.

Dh will cook for us - a Nigella pasta recipe - later.

look at everybody everyday - I love this book as it has families at the heart of it so lovely food for grown ups that can be adapted for fussier kids if needed - the adaption is built into the recipe - he bases several recipes around a single key item - chicken breast or aubergine or puy lentils. he assumes no skill and explains it all very well with great photos. not had a dud yet from this book - think would be a fave one out of the 200+ I own!