How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy Balanced Diet, with Very Little Money...etc

juno

My sister is going to get that book for Christmas She's always moaning about her lack of saucepans

Hardup_Hester

I received my copy of How to feed your family etc on Thursday, read it from cover to cover. I tried to get on here to leave A review & the site was down!!!

There is probably not much in the book I don't know, but I still enjoyed it, it's very down to earth, the recipes all seem very simple & I loved the 5 week meal plan, each week's plan was shown with the costs associated with it from a different supermarket, ie Week one Tesco, Weeks Asda etc.
The only problem with the weekly menus so far is that they don't include weekends so the costs are for a 5 day week.
All in all a good book especially for a beginner to cooking/frugal living etc.
Hester

thriftlady_2

Thanks for that Hester:) Even if it does teach me to suck eggs I still like books which back up my approach to food and cooking. I can't resist books with menu plans in either, so I've just ordered a copy.

Mics_chick

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

Hi
I've just had notification from Amazon that my copy has been despatched, I'll post a review as soon as I can
Hester

I've only just had notification of despatch by Play.com so it shows I should've stayed with Amazon after all :rolleyes:

Mics_chick

I received my book yesterday and had a quick look through it and it looks very good to me so far :T

thriftlady_2

Mine has just arrived :j I'll let you know what I think later but first impressions are promising;)

thriftlady_2

I'm impressed with this book. I think Gill Holcombe must be my twin separated at birth:D I agree with nearly everything she says. It is full of common sense about the importance of eating proper food, feeding fussy eaters, packing lunch boxes and much more.

The recipes are simple and varied. Some of them include short cuts like using a can of soup, or instant mash but for the most part they call for plain and simple wholesome ingredients.

There are recipes for breakfasts, main meals, cakes and biscuits, puddings, extras like ginger beer and chutney, fudge and honeycomb (there seems to be a craze for that at the moment).

The menu plans are good and varied and include shopping lists.

All in all, I like it and think it would be especially good for someone who wants to start cooking real food and reduce their family's reliance on ready-meals.

One minor quibble -when recommending which chicken to buy she says to avoid 'anything that isn't proven free range (check for the little tractor logo on packaging)' The tractor logo does NOT mean free range -in fact it means very little when it comes to animal welfare.

PasturesNew

I've always wondered. These "£5/day" books... is that for all food/EVERY meal, or does it just mean for the main meal?

I mean - £5 ... it's not rocket science is it!

thriftlady_2

Hi Pasturesnew,
If you mean the Bernadine Lawrence book How to Feed Your Family for £5 a Day, then yes, she budgets for 3 meals a day. She doesn't include snacks though, and her book is pretty stringent economy-wise. Of course it was published a few years ago now so the figure needs to be revised upwards.

There is a book by Sophie Grigson called Feasts For a Fiver which has some lovely seasonal recipes. This is for individual meals though. The meals in the book vary in the amount they serve too, some for a family and some for just 2.

EagerLearner

It's now showing £6.49 for the book mentioned in OP or £12.08 with Martin's book x