Cooking 4 Change - 101 famous Kiwis share their favourite recipes product reviews

If you only buy ONE cookbook this year... make it this one.

Over a hundred famous, semi-famous and "who?!" Kiwis share some of their most beloved recipes in a good cause - well, multiple good causes actually. And what stunning recipes they are... everything from lemon curd (Thanks Jon's [Grand]Mum!) to Artichokes in a Vinaigrette (Cheers, Kerre.) - breakfasts, lunches, dinners both wholesome and fancy, every level of posh from rustic to formal... and plenty of desserts and even preserves. I was beside myself with inspiration... which is why I took Jon's Lemon Curd recipe and put my own spin on it, creating three golden jars of Orange & Lemon Curd! Thanks to a neighbour who refuses to trim their Mandarin tree - which I am utterly grateful for - my next experimental outing will be a Lemon & Mandarin Curd I think.

With the few oranges I have left over, I am planning on making the "Super Simple Orange Cake" recipe on Page 451... because it looks amazing, and I simply MUST discover how including orange skins in a cake can come out looking as good as the photos, and tasting as good as I have been told. It's one of those counter-intuitive things in life you simply must experience for yourself because it sounds utterly bonkers.

Now, don't get me wrong when I say this, but I did find that well over half the recipes in this book either didn't suit my tastes, used ingredients I either have issues with or simply can't afford, or just plain sounded impossible for me to enjoy for any number of reasons... yet even taking that into account this one book had well over 40 recipes that I fully plan to try and make at least once in the next year or so. So... at $50 for the book, you could say that each recipe I try will cost me $1.02 - which is pretty good really. If you had no issues with even a single recipe, you would find this book to be awesome value at about 49c per recipe. Still more than a 5-min Google hunt would cost you, obviously... but the "good cause" clause kicks in and you can't help but see that buying this book is a darned smart idea.

Overall, I have tossed out nearly all my old cookbooks now - I haven't touched them in over 5 years, so don't need them. This book is all I need for the next few years at least!