On the table in 30: One Pot Cookbook Review

Last updated on February 10th, 2024 at 12:45 pm

 

Let’s getting cookin’

If you have been following me long you will know that I am a HUGE fan of fast, family friendly, easy recipes. I have shared many of my own favourites here at Let’s Talk Mommy and am so excited to have a sneak peak at Parragon’s new Love Food cookbook: On the table in 30: One Pot which is a part of their new range. 

It includes soups, stews, casseroles, bakes, salads, wraps, stir fries and more. There isn’t a recipe in here that I wouldn’t cook for my entire family, toddlers included. I love that all the ingredients are well known and nothing takes a pro-chef’s technique. 

I was impressed the recipes’ layouts with step by step easy instructions and photos along the way. Photos along the way always help me visualise what I am supposed to be doing and how it’s supposed to look. I am no professional chef, and I won’t sit here a pretend to know cooking in and out but I do know a good cookbook when I see it.

I would highly recommend this one for anyone not just families. There are many recipes that could be made even for a single serving, quick and easy. I would have loved this cookbook when I was living on my own in college. Most recipes are easily doubled or tripled for larger families too so it’s very versatile. 

I love food styling and playing around with my prep work before cooking. Any chance to get cooking and photography, I am there. One day I would love to style and photograph food and drinks for a cookbook or food magazine. 

Here I am measuring out my ingredients and spices for the falafel pitta pockets. I love recipes with chickpeas so I was really excited to try this one out first on the family. 

The Falafel Pitta Pocket has plenty of flavour and the kids loved it which really surprised me with all the spices involved. I even used my parents as guinea pigs for this one, they were left surprised that they loved it as they had never tried falafel before. I think most people just don’t know that much about falafel so they aren’t sure what they are eating.

I will definitely be making this recipe more this summer, the combination of spices and chickpeas were delicious. It’s light and easy to make which is a huge bonus with small tots. Stuff any vegetables or salad in with it to create a great healthy, summer dinner.

The kids weren’t as keen on the tahini dressing but I thought it added the perfect mixture of flavours to the falafel. My parents were also divided on the tahini sauce but both loved the overall flavour of the falafel pitta pocket. I think my mom loved how easy it was to make too as she watched me whip this batch up for them. 

It’s great visiting home and having so many family and friends around to test out recipes on. They also love that they don’t have to cook and get to try various foods that they might not otherwise try themselves. So throughout the cookbook there are many recipes that look amazing, are well known and I will no doubt try them all but I stuck to the falafel pitta pockets and the ham & leek risotto because I knew it was dishes my family probably wouldn’t have tried before.

 

I have only made risotto one other time before this and I can honestly say it didn’t turn out very well but the easy step by step instructions on this recipe were amazing. I was so pleased how great it turned out and so was everyone else. The texture was perfect, the flavours in this recipe were a great compliment to each other. My kids love ham & leek anything as I make a lot of soups and casseroles with these ingredients so they were really happy with this dish as well. 

I like spicier foods so for me this needed a little more kick so I added crushed red chilli flakes to mine. My parents loved the parmesan cheese on top and the kids preferred grated, melted mozzarella on theirs. The beauty of this recipe is you can alter it and add to it whatever you desire. It will be so handy to have this risotto recipe and create a plethora of variations to it. 

I am an expat American living in England therefore I am constantly needing to convert measurements in recipes. It would be nice if all countries used the same units of measurements and it can really make or break a recipe if you get the measurements wrong. I loved that there is a full size temperature and measurement conversion table in the back of this cookbook. One I probably will have open numerous times a week instead of always having to ask my husband to convert it for me. I guess it’s great that I married a human calculator but he will appreciate this as much as I do, I just know it. 

 

These are just two of the 60 amazing recipes in this cookbook. I can’t wait to try the rest and continue to share all my food styling photography with you along the way. 

Cookbook available soon. Keep your eye on @parragonbooks on twitter!