The Help Yourself (and others) Cook Book

The Help Yourself (and others) Cook Book is a Search Press publication with a difference. This book is being sold at £4.99 with all proceeds going to the Ghana Education Project to build a school in Nkwanta Ghana. The book has been written by Dawn Waldron who is a trained nutritional therapist and a cancer survivor. Are you getting the idea, this book is good from every angle. The recipes do you good, the money you spend on the book does someone else good and there are many other food related issues which are touched upon in the non-recipe passages.

I am not always a wholesome eater- (proven by my figure!) but the recipes actually had even me going wow and there aren't even any carefully styled pictures!

Search Press very kindly said that I could take an abstraction from the book and here it is. Tonight for tea we had 'Simple Chicken Bake' I usually do a roast on a Sunday night and this was much, much more low maintenance. I sliced a leek and a mammoth sweet potato, these went into a small pot. I half covered this with chicken stock. On top I placed four chicken thighs, the recipe calls for them to be rubbed with pesto, but also suggested a Marmite/Marmalade combo I was very brave and went for the double M option and it was very yummy! This was baked happily for 45 mins. The chicken was sort of steamed and baked and only having one pot to wash up is a huge advantage. the recipe suggests serving with greens but I felt it might have been more veg than we were used to! The meal serves four adults, with two smalls at the table the chicken got finished and the pot still held some veg and stock and meat juices. I stuck in Billy the blender and now have a soup base for my lunch tomorrow.

There are lots more recipes in this book which look cheap, healthy and quick so it will be a kitchen shelf regular. If you are considering a New Year detox, think carefully about your consumption of food or fancy supporting a great educational cause then it's got to be £5 well spent!