Book review of The Lazy Cook by Susie Kelly

My review today is for The Lazy Cook (Book One): Quick and Easy Meatless Meals, Susie Kelly’s latest book that was released this week.

It was great to read something new from Susie as I’m a huge fan of her writing (especially her travel memoirs set in France) and she always makes me laugh. This book, although primarily a cookbook is no exception, as her no-nonsense guide to tasty homemade meals is interspersed with little anecdotes from her foodie recollections and contained more than one ‘snort out loud’ moment.

Susie is a very well traveled lady who has lived and worked in quite a few countries, and obviously enjoyed the local food and cultures while she was there. These experiences and many years of collecting favourite recipes have given her plenty of material for this book, including memories from her early life in Africa, street food in Nairobi, tales from dinner parties, life in France and recipes from her Italian mother-in-law. Susie shares all these and more with her unique sense of humour that never failed to make me smile. As Susie and her husband are vegetarians and as the title suggests, the only thing you won’t find in this book are meat recipes, although she does admit that many of her salad, curry and sauce recipes would work well with meats too. I’m not a vegetarian, but there were so many delicious sounding recipes in this book I never found myself yearning for a meat dish while reading it.

Top of my list of recipes to try are the smoked salmon quiche, as it is a very luxurious sounding recipe and the baked walnut balls as we have two huge walnut trees, so I’m always looking for interesting and different walnut recipes.

I have to admit to being a little disappointed that the measurements given are only in cup sizes as I have so many different sized cups at home I never know which one to use, but give me a gram and I know where I am. Thankfully, like Susie, I’m happiest when experimenting in the kitchen and to have a recipe book that positively encourages me to play with the recipes and quantities to suit my tastes is very refreshing. Susie encourages a relaxed attitude to cooking and therefore this book would be perfect for those people who want to cook something different, but often feel daunted by difficult or complicated methods. 

The Lazy Cook (Book One): Quick and Easy Meatless Meals is available in ebook and paperback format and is published by Blackbird Digital Books who kindly sent me a copy to read and review. Amazon links to The Lazy Cook and Susie’s other books can be found below. You can also read my France et Moi interview with Susie here.