Always delicious recipes, and non deceiving pictures; it shows the food in a 'I could have made this' way.
Success guaranteed with this book.

Very good...and very british.

When I was in University, I had the best deal in the whole world. I did all the cooking for my roommate, and she did all our dishes. I hate dishes, and she didn’t know how to cook beyond the basics of sandwich making. To be fair, I didn’t really know how to cook either, but I was eager to learn, eager not to do dishes, and I could do slightly more than make a sandwich. I can’t remember who bought me this cookbook, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me and my roommate.

If you’re new to cooking, this book is a great place to start. It’s not that the recipes are necessarily simple, but Oliver’s instructions are fairly detailed. He’s descriptive enough that you feel like you know what you’re looking for at each step, which can be a godsend when you have no idea what it means to make a roux. The book also has a section in the front that gives you a basic recipe and then modifications or extensions for that recipe – like a basic tomato sauce with instructions for pasta, a cassoulet knock off, and some Mediterranean style baked fish, or a method for really good baked potatoes, and then a range of toppings and fillings. There are also recipes for things like a really great onion gravy, which is a nice thing to have in your back pocket. It even has an inventive sandwich chapter!

Another great thing about this cookbook for novice cooks are the way he measures some things – a knob of butter, or a wine glass of wine. And he frequently tells you to “chuck it in” or “bash it together.” One of my favourite things about cooking is that most of the time you can eyeball things or tweak a recipe to make it your own. This book gave me a lot of confidence in my own ability to decide the right amount of an ingredient, and not to fret if I’m missing something. The recipes made me feel like cooking food can be something fun that you throw together casually, rather than something that needs to be done with scientific precision. (As you may have gathered, I am not a baker.)

I fondly remember hosting a dinner party with recipes entirely from this book – a roasted chicken stuffed with a lemon and thyme sprigs and draped in bacon, roasted potatoes with rosemary and garnished with the crumbled bacon from the chicken, and French peas with more bacon, butter and lettuce. In retrospect, it was perhaps not the most balanced of meals in terms of flavour, but I will never forget proudly bearing that chicken to the table and hacking it apart in front of my awed guests.

Now, almost ten years after someone gave me that book, I love cooking, inasmuch as something you have to do to everyday to survive can be, I consider it a hobby. I don’t need this book anymore for it’s detailed instructions (although they’re sometimes nice to have), I still return to it for the proportions for some recipes (the carbonara with bacon and peas is foolproof and creamily comforting) and for some of his more inventive dishes (there is one where chicken breasts are stuffed with banana, topped with bacon, and baked on top of white beans with leeks, cream and white wine – he calls it grotesque, and it is, but it is also delicious). That lemon stuffed chicken has become a standby for my old roommate and I (she learned to cook after all). Even if you’re not new to cooking, I certainly wouldn’t consider this book a waste of time. Perhaps you won’t appreciate his detailed instructions as much, but there are a lot of interesting and delicious recipes in the book.

Very good. One of my two favorite Jamie cookbooks. (The other is Jamie's Italy.) Plenty of good recipes that are easy enough to make for weeknight dinners.

I give 5 stars for the artistic side of this cookbook. It was so much fun to read and the picture were great. For an "essential family cookbook" I thought that William would not eat a majority of the recipes and they were too complex for me. I guess I was looking for something a little simpler. I did like the lunchbox tips and am going to try a few of the pasta recipes.

amazing book............good book to refer and a must keep!!!

He's kind of twerpy, but I can't help but love his recipes. Bah.

This book has gorgeous pictures and makes you really want to cook (and eat)! But, from a practicality standpoint, not the most useful cookbook on our shelves.

I've had this book over a year and haven't made 1 thing from it. I like the pictures and his style of writing out recipes and categorizing them, but there is nothing in it that has really grabbed me and said, "COOK ME!"

A bunch of good recipes, mostly for accessible and tasty dinner dishes. In this book there are less, if any, recipes for baking and bread than in many other Jamie's books. Pictures are good and instructions are easy to follow.
Of the ten Jamie Oliver books I have, this is the one I use the most.

Favourite dish: Rigatoni with aubergine, tomatoes and mozzarella

Most of the recipes in this book are easy to make with ingredients that are easy to find. I love that Jamie chooses olive oil over other types of oil. My favourite ones include 1) pasta peperonata and 2) chicken legs with tomatoes.

Best home-made tomato soup recipe in here! Try it!