One Pound Meals: Delicious Food for Less

I had never heard of Miguel Barclay - I don't have an Instagram account - but since purchasing this book I have discovered him on YouTube where he demonstrates making some of the recipes, well worth a look. I have become so tired of trying to scale down recipes for dishes I have really enjoyed which are designed for 4,6 or even 8 people. Even when amounts are given for 2 people it isn't always easy to freeze the other half and boring to eat the same thing the next day. I struggle with my weight and portion control plays are large part in weight loss, here he has sorted out portion sizes. In the past I have ended up with expensive ingredients that I have never used again, I am confident this won't happen. This book is the answer to all my problems and I am looking forward to working my way through these appetising looking recipes. A big thank you to Miguel Barclay! I liked this so much on Kindle I bought the paper copy, I can write out my own variations of the recipes given and even my own recipes and work out my own costings. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone cooking for one.

4.5 stars I do love this, but I would add what is probably a fairly obvious statement. The costings of £1 Meals are done using the cost of the amount of ingredients used, per head, in order to meet this brief. So the pancake batter quantities given along with three rashers of streaky bacon will give a single breakfast portion. The £1 does not cover the cost of the packet of bacon or the 6 pack of eggs. These aren't the amazing feed four people for under a quid costings of Jack Monroe, who is just inspirational and whose A Girl Called Jack: 100 delicious budget recipes is still rightly a best-seller three years after publication. Miguel first came to many people's notice on the TV programme This Morning when it was presented by Eamonn and Ruth Holmes. and his Chicken Katsu Curry recipe as cooked on that show puts in an appearance here on page 56. Personally speaking I use cornflour rather than flour for this recipe as it gives a glossier sauce, but it is a good one. What helped to make this book five stars is that unlike some cookbooks the recipes for main meals aren't extensively padded out with recipes for what turn out to be side dishes or light snacks. There are a few of these, and some are decidedly offbeat. Miguel's hangover cure involves making a thick portion of macaroni cheese, then making a stacked sandwich with it with slices of toast. I'll pass. Most recipes however are food you do want to eat, and the full page colour illustrations of the finished dish are a visual treat. I liked the fact that these were the finished dish, not some in between stage, and being opposite the recipe they made for a handy visual reference. Miguel may be on trend enough to use hashtags like #meat #casual #chicken #posh at the top of each page as a quick reference guide for readers but essentially this is a cookbook that sticks to the rules of what makes a cookbook valuable. Instructions you can follow easily for food you will want to cook, with an idea of what the dish should look like at the end (although I learned to cook with a lot of books that didn't have pictures too).

4 words - I. Love. This. Book. This truly is no gimmick, every meal averages out at a pound if not even less!! The presentation of this book is great! It's fun, happy, vibrant and is a pleasure to read and look at. All the photography work too is astounding, not something I can say for a lot of cookbooks. Above all else, the photographs of the food are realistic! When I was looking at these crazy colours and great tasting meals with extravagant presentations for the first time, I found myself very easily (and inexpensively) recreating them perfectly! All the recipes here are written for one portion, but it is very easy to double all ingredients and create a meal for two. By making sure you have a few basic ingredients as well as some herbs and spices, every recipe is easy and great fun to create. Miguel's personality shines through the book, with his little overviews at the start of every meal. I can tell he is a passionate chef and proud of his book. Kudos to him. The basic premise of the book is to create meals for a pound(if you couldn't tell). While it may cost £1 for a packet of flour and £3 for minced meat or £2 for a bag of potatoes, as the recipes are small, a 100g portion of flour used in the recipe averages as something like 10p. This gives Miguel another 90p to introduce every other ingredient and which he does very well. The recipes are all really great and innovative. There are many adaptions of very well known and popular meals stripped down to their one pound roots. However, they still taste just as incredible. There is a good variety of recipes to suit many people. The only thing to bear in mind with this book is that it probably shouldn't be used everyday. Ultimately, to get the best flavour out of everything, most of the recipes require olive oil and a frying pan. There is a lot of frying food. You can decide for yourself how much you would use this book everyday, but please be careful as this isn't the most healthy alternative in the world. Don't get me wrong - I love this book but I feel this in an important point to mention. For me, I might cook a meal one or two maybe three times a week and don't feel guilty in the slightest for frying everything. To conclude, I can only hope i've given the book as much justice as it deserves in this review. The book oozes joy and fun. It shows great looking and realistic photos. It has been written in a great and fantastic way! Above all else - it works!! It's eating cheap without compromising any great meals or flavours! Highly recommended to students (me) or for people living on budgets. However, if you don't fall into those 2 categories I would still urge you to buy this book as its great fun to see how far Miguel takes your £1!

Lots of really great ideas in here, and I love the idea of being able to create really hearty, healthy meals for approximately one pound per serving (per person). Gives you a handy list of every ingredient you'll need for each recipe, so your cupboards are always stocked to make something! It's also really cost effective; I'm a student so it's obviously a big help to find ways to cook that don't break the bank!

I haven't been following Miguel on instagram for too long, only 2 months - tops 3 - but I really liked his approach to food. Also, I was just complaining to my boyfriend that all of my really good other cook books tend to create meals for 4, 6 or even 8, and since I share a flat with 3 girls and only responsible for my own meals with one single drawer of freezer space, that was a no go, however strongly I felt I wanted to meal prep and store portions or leftovers for months.. so here's my honest review of 'One Pound Meals' (the cook book): 1. I love how simple it is. Many times I ring my mom or grandma for a recipe and somehow it sticks better than rereading a list of directions 4x.. and with Miguel friendly guidence throughout the book I honestly feel like I need to read it once and realize how quick it is to make and then remember how to make a meal. 2. I love how the leftovers correlate with other ingredients from another recipe 4 pages later in the book. First I was like: "200g tomato can again?" But then I realized tomato cans are my way to go anyway even if I am cooking a meal from a "fancy" cookbook. The big difference here is that in One Pound Meals 3 out of 5 ingredients align with another recipe's, while in another cookbook maybe 1 is the same out of 9 (and it is probably olive oil...). 3. I love that it is exactly the portion size I need! I hade a shikshak today for lunch and it was perfect. As it was also mentioned in the book, we could add or swap ingredients and I had some home smoked ham in my fridge that needed to be added to something! I am still a learning cook and tho I am getting more and more confident in swapping or adding stuff to a written recipe, with One Pound Meals I do not hesitate at all! 4. It could also easily be called 'One Pound Meals in One Pot' because how efficient all of the recipes are?! Honestly, my washing was a delight! I only used a chopping board and a pan. And maybe a spoon. That's it. Amazing! 5. This final point of my review is not really a review, because I am not sure if I am right. If there was one thing I would suggest or make a bit differently is including prices within the recipes. I am sure Miguel spent hours deciding if he should do it or not, and maybe he has regretted many times that he ended up not adding it, but I don't really care to be fair. It would be just nice to see and learn how to shop around when there are so many options, many with misleading advertising. But for someone who trying to eat healthy but also make sure that spends only an ok amount of her salary on food it would be a great help! But honestly, don't even take this final review seriously, because I am really in awe of the greatness of this simple book! Less seems to be always more! Happy cooking!

There are a lot of recipe books that look good on paper but when you actually start to use them you discover they're not quite as good as you first thought. This definitely isn't one of those books. The meals are made with easy to source ingredients, are relatively quick to make and what is good for me, are for one portion recipes. Lots of variety but keeps the ingredients down to a manageable amount. If you have a lot of the spices and herbs it will definitely be possible to keep the portions to £1 but once you have these items then they can be used again. Some of the recipes call for items I wouldn't think about using so it makes you think outside the box a little bit. All in all a great book - can't wait to start making some of the recipes.

As a working mum with a lot of fussy mouth to feed, I don't have the time/ budget/ patience for most cookbooks *cough Jamie Oliver and his 30 minute cookbook that ends up taking more like an 30 hours to make* I found one pound meals a refreshing change, most of the recipes take little effort to make and don't use the whole of your crockery cupboard to make one meal! So minimal washing up! Each 1 person portion costs about £1 and you just multiply the ingredients to how many people you need! Better than the "this recipe is for 6 people", and most of it ends up in the bin. The recipe cost doesn't include the cost if you need to buy a packet of something. Such as if you only need 1 egg but have to buy 6. It'll only count that 1 egg. Overall I would highly recommend this cookbook to everyone as it doesn't cost the earth and the food actually tastes good! (Highly recommend oven fried chicken!)

Excellent purchase love the recipes