Christmas gift guide: Five cookbooks for the foodie in your life

I might be biased but I think a cookbook is a great gift for Christmas for the foodie in your life. It can't be just me who loves thumbing though a book, making notes on the recipes I desperately need to make and drooling over the beautiful pictures. You can pick them up really cheap on Amazon if you keep an eye out and they make a great shout for a secret Santa as they're often involved in £10 and under promotions.

The Roasting Tin - Rukmini Iyer
I've waxed lyrical about how much this book has changed our weekday dinners and recommend it to everyone I know. It's a great option for cook who has only just started to experiment in the kitchen as the recipes are so simple and rewarding. The ingredients are always so easy to source and all store cupboards ingredients that you can use over and over again. There's nothing worse than buying an ingredient to use once and then it gathers dust at the back of your cupboard.

Simple - Ottolenghi
This is my first Ottolenghi cookbook and what a corker it is. I am obsessed! This is brilliant for cooks who enjoy spending time in the kitchen experimenting with different cuisines. It loosely follows a Middle Eastern theme and has some great vegetarian dishes to try. Despite the name, the recipes really aren't that simple to create so it's very much a weekend book. You do need a lot a patience to commit to a recipe!

Fresh India - Meera Sodha
Not just one for vegetarians, Fresh India is a delight full of absolutely delicious curries, mouthwatering desserts and tasty snacks. It's a must have for anyone who loves Indian food but are after something a little different to the norm. They're always so simple to follow and I really love Meera's tone. She really makes you feel like one of family and I love her stories.

Sirocco - Sabrina Ghayour
I love all of Sabrina's book but you really can't beat her second offering. Sometimes attempting new cuisines can be a bit overwhelming but Sirocco really makes you feel like you can tackle Middle Eastern food head on and always come out with a success. There are some fantastic fusion recipes. I feel lots more of a weekend book as the recipes are much better eaten in a mezze form - I don't always have time too attempt more than one dish during the week!

John Whaite Bakes at Home - John Whaite
This is one of my favourite baking books with everything attempted deemed to be a success. It's a great book for the more accomplished baker as the recipes really stretch you. He uses some really unusual combinations but just seems to know what works perfectly. You can tell he's really put in a lot of effort to find recipes that work.

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Buying a house 101: the truth about how we saved for a house

There are many reasons how people get on the property ladder. In a day and age where owning a house seems to be impossible, it is so handy to know how people get on the ladder. I think it's so important to talk about things like this. As how do you know if you're able to do it unless you know how others have managed to do it? It shouldn't be a taboo subject. It took us just over a year to save £14k for our house deposit. That was for a 5% deposit for a two-bedroom terrace doer-upper house valued at £240,000. Here is how we did it.

We wasn't given a lump sum of money by our parents but we did receive some help in lots of ways. We were lucky to both live at home paying minimal rent to allow us to plough most of our money into savings. That helped us immensely and was the main reason why we were able to save such a huge amount of money in just a year.

I was given some money when I passed my driving test which my parents had saved in a life insurance scheme from the day I was born. I wrote my car off after five weeks when I was about 22, long story, so I got a a sizeable lump sum back of around £2,000. I haven't driven since so put the money away into a savings account. This helped towards my half of the house deposit. I was also made redundant from my job around four years ago, so this went into my savings too. This was around £1500 as I dipped into for a cheeky holiday at the time.  Both these things really helped me get a start on my savings. I saved up £3,500 myself to help bring my hotel half of the deposit to £7k.

My boyfriend had some shares that his great uncle left him in his will when he was a teenager. He cashed these when we started to start seriously save for a house. He got a couple of grand and then saved the rest himself.

So that's how we did it! It was thanks to cheap rent living at home that we were able to do it in a short amount of time. Although rent is a lot cheaper in Essex than in London, it would have taken us a lot longer to save if we were paying rent.

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What I've been cooking #6: Simple

Ottolenghi is one of those food writers I have wanted to try for a long time. I fawn over his recipes on the Guardian every week but as he is well know for being a bit of a faff, I had yet to try a recipe personally. The list of ingredients has always put me off. But I was lucky enough to be sent a copt of his newest cookbook Simple at work. When it arrived I had a quick flick through, turning over so many pages of what I wanted to make. The ingredients are pretty easy to find and the imagery is just beautiful.  I now want to buy all of his cookbooks and am eagerly checking Amazon to see if they become reduced. I honestly couldn't recommend this book and have loved every single thing I've tried. It's not really much of a midweek book but I absolutely adore it for weekend cooking, for when you have a bit more time in the kitchen. So what did I make?

Blueberry, almond and lemon loaf
Ah this was absolutely delicious! It came out as more of a drizzle cake because I ran out of icing but I think I prefer it this way. I'd definitely make it into a drizzle into the future. The blueberries and lemon were the perfect partnership. They both really made the cake taste so fresh and light. I can see myself making this cake over and over again.

Pasta Alla Norma
If I could, I would eat aubergine every day for dinner so it's a bit of a mystery why I had never eaten this pasta dish before. Roasting the aubergine before gives it such a deep, delicious flavour and really does make the dish. There's just something about roasted vegetables isn't there? For something so simple, Pasta All Norma really hits the spot. It's a great dish to cook when you have friends round as it tastes so delicious but won't make you spend all your evening in the kitchen. I served it with lashes of parmesan on top and homemade garlic bread.

Braised eggs with leeks and za'atar
We love tomato based bake eggs in our household so I was intrigued to see how these ones would taste. Filled the the brim with leeks and spinach, these feel like a much lighter option. But the added feta gives it something a little extra. Next time I would emit the salt seasoning during cooking as I found it a little too much with the cheese. The dish was pretty filling and we didn't even need any crusty bread.

Butterbean mash with muhammara
Found in Levantine and Turkish cuisines, this hot pepper dip is originally from Aleppo, Syria. It's so simple to make, the most difficult and time consuming thing is roasting the peppers. The butterbean mash has a similar taste to hummus and was very addictive. Next time I would add some more chilli flakes in to give it a bit more of a kick. I ate this with some delicious cumin and coriander flatbreads from Rachel Allen.

Spiced 'Shepherd's pie' with butterbean mash
This was another winner! I loved the addition of the butterbean mash, it help make it feel 'lighter'. I omitted both the apricots and the olives as we're not fans. I think it needed another tablespoon of Harissa as I was very cautious. Next time I'll use two tablespoons. Again it's quite time consuming so is another weekend job. But it's 100% worth spending the time on it.

Slow cooked chicken
I had every intention to make the corn curst but completely forgot to buy sweetcorn in our weekly shop. So we ended having it as a stew instead and I served it with salad. It was absolutely delicious and I think it is my favourite recipe in the book. I loved the kick of the Harissa and the tender chicken that just fell apart. It's the perfect dinner for a cold winter night. It does take quite a long to cook so it's definitely not one for week nights.

Avocado butter on toast wth tomato salsa
This was a massive faff and I'm not quite sure it was worth it. The butter mixed with avocado didn't really blow me away. It was tasty but it's not going to replace my normal method of making avoiding on toast. I can't be bothered to get the stand mixer out every time. I did however love the addition of the cumin seeds so will be using that little touch more frequently.

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