Valerie Ferguson

There is an appealing universality to Italian cuisine and with the emphasis on fresh vegetables, zesty flavours and simple cooking, it is for healthier and easier than many other European diets.
Ingredients - pasta, rice, polenta, pulses, tomato puree, olive oil, olives, Balsamic vinegar, porcini mushrooms - are relatively inexpensive and easy to source and while the technique of making basic pasta or pizza dough might be too time consuming for most, both are easily available in a prepared form from the shops.
recipes include minestrone, roasted pepper antipasto, crostini, spaghetti Bolognaise, pasta, cream and parmesan, chicken cordon bleu, meatballs, roast lamb, risotta, frittata, roast mushroom, stuffed aubergines, rocket, pear and parmesan salad, Italian trifle, ricotta cake, Granita and Olive bread.… (more)

You don't have to be Irish to thank God every night for this most delicious of foods: originally from South America [I think] the Brits bought the spud to Erin as a cheap and easy vegetable for the obnoxious Paddies and although reluctant to try it at first, by the 18th Century even the leprechauns had been won over and the potato has been regarded as Irish as the clover ever since.
The book presnts a short section on some of the basic techniques, like baking, roasting and saueing, but most of it is given over to recipes on diffrent ways to prepare his humble but beguiling tuber.
Take your pick: we have potato skewers, potato cheese puffs, latkes, wedges, potato tortilla, potato skins, bubble and squeak, hash browns, haggerty, potato gratin, rosti, potato cakes, potato galette, potato Charlotte, gnocchi, mashed, scalloped, and Hasselback potatoes, new potatoes, Gratin Dauphinois, even Bombay spiced potatoes.
No offence but you can keep your rice: a hot baked potato, a spot of butter and some salt - gastronomic heaven!… (more)