Nosh 4 Students: A Fun Student Cookbook. See every recipe in FULL COLOUR. 50% more recipes than its previous Best Selling Edition.: A Fun Student Cookbook - Joy May

Being a student myself and only leaving home for the first time properly just last year for university, there are many things to be worrying about.

In my case when I was moving to a completely new city not knowing anyone, there are many new challenges.
Not just having a sudden shock to the system of waking up without any of your usual friends or family around, but also knowing that if I don't do cooking or washing that it won't ...
...been far too nice all my life, cooking me meals and doing washing for me and so I had gone by in life not properly developing some of these skills. Its then that you really appreciate how much your family has been doing for you!

So to make it easier I had heard from a friend about this book, which I can honestly say now was a godsend!

For anyone who is a bit under experienced in the cooking department, this book is ... more

Being a student myself and only leaving home for the first time properly just last year for university, there are many things to be worrying about.

In my case when I was moving to a completely new city not knowing anyone, there are many new challenges.
Not just having a sudden shock to the system of waking up without any of your usual friends or family around, but also knowing that if I don't do cooking or washing that it won't actually ever get done! Unfortunately for me my parents had been far too nice all my life, cooking me meals and doing washing for me and so I had gone by in life not properly developing some of these skills. Its then that you really appreciate how much your family has been doing for you!

So to make it easier I had heard from a friend about this book, which I can honestly say now was a godsend!

For anyone who is a bit under experienced in the cooking department, this book is for you! The way Joy May has written this book is wonderfully down to earth and simple to understand to those of us who have never been adventurous with food!

It starts ground up, going quickly over the basics of how long you should be keeping vegetables and meat for before they start going off along with basic kitchen hygiene and good buying ideas to save money.

From that the recipes begin, they are all laid out in simple and easy to understand steps with complete ingredient list for that dish and a large colour photo of each, which is brilliant as quite often recipe books don't give you any idea what the final product should look like!
Each recipe also comes with a 1-5 star difficulty rating, allowing you to work your way up to more complex dishes and a rough idea of how long each dish will take to cook and prepare.
Not only that but the entire utensils required for making any recipe is simplified - no weighing scales are required. With a knife, chopping board and one or two basic pans + casserole dish you can make the vast majority of recipes already!

The book has over 100 recipes and covers a large variety of dishes with more than half of which also being suitable for vegetarians or having a vegetarian alternative option.

Another point I would like to note is that all the recipes within this book are practical, cheap and easy to make. Most recipe books which normally have page upon page of "exotic" meals - meals which the average person would never bother making because they usually take too long to make or look far too exotic to actually sound that appealing.
This book does away with them and keeps all the recipes simple and practical ones that I the average student would prefer to eat day in day out.
From chicken curries to chili con carne (which I would thoroughly recommend!) or soups to ways of making pasta more interesting, this book has it all!
At the back there are also example menus that you could have for a week, including a shopping list of things you would require to cook all of the dishes that week, really quite handy!

Overall not only has this book helped me learn to cook but it also ensures that I have been eating well whilst at university. I see other people living off microwave meals and takeaways every day. Just spending a little time preparing food every few days (the ability to make large portions and freeze them for reheating later) has had a large impact. Not only do I feel more alert and more able to concentrate after having a good meal, I am actually saving a large amount of money by preparing food from scratch. And as we all know students need to scrimp and save and get extra money by any means! (The main reason for this review as well!)

So if you're planning to go to university or have a son/daughter who you know isn't best prepared for cooking meals then I would thoroughly recommend this book. Just by having this guide to help me through the basics made settling into this totally different lifestyle a lot easier! 

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