Customer Reviews

Pure Simple Cooking: Effortless Meals Every Day

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I knew nothing about this British cook, Diana Henry, until my niece, Maud, made me baked peppers stuffed with bread crumbs, from ``Pure Simple Cooking." Along with the bread crumbs, go toasted pine nuts and the amazingly good combination of chopped mint and chopped basil. (Maud believes that many good vegetarian recipes, including this one, are made even better by the addition of sauteed sweet Italian sausage. I heartily agree. )
Also a big success: pasta with shrimp, lots of garlic, italian parsley, feta cheese, and lemon zest. The lemon zest, like the mint combined with basil, adds some unusual zing to the dish. What Henry brings to the food world: her recipes are easy but really lively and interesting.

British cuisine usually comes up in conversation as a joke, so it's easy to forget about all the incredible UK cooks out there like Gordon Ramsey, Marco Pierre White...and now Diana Henry. I love the visuals in this cookbook and the beautiful, rustic-looking food photography.

The recipes are simple and quick, just as advertised, and the flavors are unique. There is definitely a British edge to the food, which is refreshing though sometimes a bit heavy compared to what we are used to eating in the US.

For example, I don't know anyone who cooks plain -- not Italian -- sausages for supper, though bangers and mash (aka: sausages and mashed potatoes) are a perfectly common meal in the UK. Somehow, Pure Simple Cooking made me want to try it anyway, particularly the vinter's sausages with grapes.


I made the roast chicken with preserved lemon, sweet potatoes, olives and pimentón -- it was incredible -- seriously, incredible. I also tried out the zucchini, herbs and ricotta dish for a dinner party. It went over so well that there were no leftovers (and I always cook with leftovers in mind)!

Henry provides a lot of different options for each of her recipes, which is helpful if you don't happen to have certain ingredients on hand. With basic spices and easy-to-find cuts of meat and poultry, Henry shows you how to create beautiful and easy hour-or-less meals.

Granted, I totally subscribe to Henry's method for meals: I spend the bulk of my kitchen time making a great main dish and then serve quickly-composed sides like green salads along with it. This isn't fancy cooking, but it's still unique and very tasty. A lot of the dishes in it are all-in-one meals, often combining veggies, starches and meats that go into the oven all together.

The only thing that I would change about this cookbook is its reliance on sugar in a number of the dishes that simply do not need it.

I prepared the middle eastern lentils as recommended but it could, at most, use a tiny pinch of sugar - not the teaspoon stated in the recipe. Ugh, I am shivering thinking about it -- the taste was SO off! Other than that, I am a big fan of this cookbook.

I first got this book from the library and liked it so much I bought it - I like the way she makes basic food elegant enough for company in a very simple and quick way, including suggestions for altering the recipe, side dishes and ways to spiff up store bought stuff like ice cream for elegant desserts. Great book if you like to entertain or eat "gourmet" with a real limited time to prepare.

I took this book out of the library and decided to buy it, as I couldn't do without it. My family has loved every recipe so far, with the Pacific Lime Chicken being the favorite. The recipes are easy, and although some of the ingredients were not standard in my pantry to begin with, they certainly are now. This cookbook rarely goes back on the shelf in our house...I've begun making grocery lists from it, as we eat so many recipes from this one. The recipes are easy, flavorful, and anything but boring, while still taking very little effort to make. I highly recommend it.

This is my favorite cookbook--and the photography in it is simply gorgeous. I am not a great cook, yet with this cookbook I was serving restaurant-caliber meals.

I, like other reviewers, had never heard of Diana Henry. I was browsing in my local Barnes & Noble one day and they had this book as part of a display in the cookbook section. The photography caught my eye right away, but flipping through the book it was the ease of preparation and depth of flavor in the recipes that enticed me to purchase the book. My husband and I have thoroughly enjoyed every single recipe that I have made from this book and it is now the book that I tote with me to the grocery store when deciding what to make during the week.

In the introduction to this book, Ms. Henry explains that her approach to cooking changed since having two children. She, like the rest of us with children, can no longer putter around in the kitchen for hours preparing meals. Rather, she explains, the oven has become her savior. Most recipes in the book use the oven as the primary source of heat or at least the finishing source of heat (i.e. some things are quickly sauteed first and then finished in the oven). I have made mostly chicken and fish recipes from the book, but I will make my way to the lamb and other recipes.

If I have one criticism about the book, it would be that the index, rather than listing the particular dishes individually, will just say, for example, "chicken recipes, pages 8-20." As the book is not voluminous, it is not really burdensome to flip through the entire chicken section, but I do prefer an index that lists the recipes individually.

Other than that minor aberration, I absolutely love this book and wholeheartedly recommend it.

This is an amazing cookbook. You will absolutely be bowled over at how easy it is to actually cook real food. You can skip the processed aisles altogether now!