Getting the Most Out of Our Second Cookbook

The second Pinch of Nom cookbook is finally here and we’re so excited to see all of you enjoying your copies. All of the recipes in our Everyday Light cookbook are under 400 calories and many of them take less than 30 minutes to make!

Perfect for whipping up after a long day at work, you don’t need any fancy equipment or ingredients to make the recipes in our second cookbook. We use a couple of handy pieces of equipment and a few key ingredients to help make these recipes delish and we’ve put together a list of them below. 

Our cookbook is really accessible for everyone and so, although we suggest using this list of equipment and ingredients, they’re absolutely not essential and all of our recipes can still be made without them!

These recommendations are fantastic for making all of the slimming friendly, quick and easy recipes in our new book…as well as some of the ones from our first book and on the website too!

Our Facebook Group

Want to share some pictures of your fantastic cookbook creations? Or are you looking for inspiration on which recipe to try first? Maybe you just have a query about one of our recipes! Our Facebook Group can help with all of these things!

We’ll always try to help and our group members are all absolutely amazing and super supportive too!

One of our favourite things is seeing all of your reactions to our cookbook and the photos of your dishes – make sure you let us know what your go-to cookbook recipe is!

How to make the most of our second cookbook:

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Sticky tabs/Post It notes

We don’t know about you, but we love marking our favourite recipes with sticky tabs or Post It notes!

It’s a fantastic way to not only highlight certain recipes, but also to make notes and mark how they fit in with your diet plan of choice. 

This means that you can quickly see all of your notes at a glance and keep your book up to date by switching them out as and when you need to make any changes.

Potato masher

We can’t stress enough the importance of having a good quality potato masher.  We love this Joseph Joseph masher as we’ve found that it really stands up to a good mash! It also folds away to go back in the drawer when you’re finished which means that your kitchen stays tidier.

Knife sharpener

Not only are blunt knives dangerous, but a sharp knife also makes your prep so much faster.  If you don’t already have a knife sharpener then this one is a really effective and affordable choice.

It has a suction pad to stop it from moving around which makes sharpening your knives quick, safe and painless!

If you fancy treating yourself to a brand new knife, then we think that this all purpose chef’s knife is a fantastic investment. It’s suitable for pretty much anything and it really will make cooking so much nicer!

Fine grater

This really is a staple piece of equipment and it’s so, so useful.  We love using this micro fine grater to grate cheese as it helps to make a small amount go a long way – perfect for saving on calories and Points!

Multi-cooker/pressure cooker

We can’t stress enough how useful a pressure cooker is, as it makes it so quick and easy to create delicious meals in a fraction of the time. A multi cooker is an even better investment as you can also use it for slow cooking.

The Instant Pot is our multi cooker of choice and we use it whenever we want to rustle up something tasty in a flash.  We use it for loads of our recipes including our Campfire Stew.

Tupperware

Our second cookbook has a section dedicated entirely to batch cooking which makes planning for the week ahead super easy.  We use tupperware to freeze individual portions of our batch cooked recipes and then defrost and reheat them as and when needed.  We’ve also got loads of batch cooking recipes available on our website – perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

It’s really important to heed the NHS advice for storing and reheating food which you can find here.  Remember, if your dish includes rice then you’ll need to be a bit more careful.  You can find advice on reheating rice here.

Xanthan gum

This ingredient might sound really exotic, but don’t panic! It’s actually super simple to find and you can even pick it up in the ‘free from’ aisle of most supermarkets – or, of course, over on Amazon.

We use xanthan gum as a thickener in a lot of our recipes as it’s a great, gluten free alternative to cornflour.

You won’t need very much of this at all and we use it in loads of our recipes including our Creamy Pepper Sauce – it’s well worth picking up in our opinion!

Low calorie cooking spray

Where would we be without this ingredient?? Low calorie cooking spray has been a real game changer for us as it means that we can cook without needing to worry about all of those pesky extra calories from cooking oils.

Our spray of choice is Frylight as it comes in a range of different flavours and is available in your local supermarket.  You can also grab it over on Amazon if you prefer.

Stock cubes/stock pots

These little stock cubes and pots pack such a big flavour punch and we use them all the time! Stock pots generally tend to be gluten free which is another added bonus and many brands also make gluten free stock cubes – easy!

We honestly can’t stress enough how useful these little flavour pots are and we use them for lots of our book and website recipes like our Beef Stroganoff.

Measuring spoons

Ever made the mistake of accidentally using a tablespoon of chilli powder instead of half a teaspoon? 

Measuring spoons are a fantastic way to make sure that you avoid making the aforementioned mistake (Which we’ve never done. Never. Honest…) and they’re one of the most useful items of kitchenware that anyone could ever own.  

You can find a wide range of different measuring spoons over on Amazon.

Want to keep track of your recipes and meals? Get our Pinch of Nom planner!

Our Pinch of Nom food planner is the perfect accompaniment to both of our cookbooks and is a great way to track and celebrate your progress!

This 6 month planner also includes one EXCLUSIVE recipe per week (that’s 26 new recipes!) to keep you motivated and on track.

Don’t already have your copy of our food planner? Grab one here.

Want to get your hands on our Pinch of Nom cookbooks? Find out how!

 

Our Everyday Light cookbook is our SECOND cookbook and if you haven’t already got it then what are you waiting for?!  

It’s the perfect companion to our first cookbook and you can find out more about how to get your hands on a copy of both of these here.