Henry Firth

I recommend reading Hilary’s review. She has made some of the recipes in this book. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5348521498

I had this book out from the library for a long, long time, but I didn’t spend any more time reading it than I usually do with cookbooks and I didn’t make anything from it. I did read it cover to cover but I’d recommend reading Hilary’s review and the reviews of those readers who tried at least some of the recipes. This is the second Bosh cookbook that I’ve read. I also gave that book 4 stars and, if I’m remembering correctly, I think I liked that one better than this one. It had more recipes that interested me. I have another two Bosh books on my to read shelf.

They do give some good cost saving tips such as eating seasonal produce and using up what produce is on hand, which is also one good way to avoid food waste, and of course things such as cooking from scratch and batch cooking. To have so many ingredients on hand is not that budget friendly though.

There is a short nutrition section in the back that will likely be helpful for readers/cooks who don’t know much about vegan eating.

There are a lot of frequently included ingredients that I don’t like. Vinegar, (vegan) yogurt, and too many others to list, and that’s because I am a picky eater. Yes, I can always leave out and substitute ingredients and change amounts, and I do for most recipes. What recipes do look good to me in here look really good.

From Breakfast + Brunch not that much appealed to me, mostly because I usually prefer savory foods in the mornings and most of these recipes were sweet. The hash brown breakfast pizza looked interesting but there is sugar in that recipe too. I do like sweet things but I don’t like sugar in my savory dishes but I might like a couple of the recipes for dinner/dessert. I did appreciate the smoothie suggestions for each of the seasons, though I prefer eating vs. drinking my food.

From Soups, Salads + Light Meals what looks good to me is Black Bean Soup & Chili Corn bread (sans the yogurt garnish) and Lemon Tofu.

From Food for Friends what looks good are Shiro Wat & One-Day Injera, Tofu Madras, Ultimate Hummus.

From the Comfort section, as is or pretty much as is, what looked good to me are Baked Ratatouille Rice, Henry’s Mushroom & Nooch Risotto, Ultimate Moussaka.

From the Sweet section what looked good is Apple Tarte Tatin, Chocolate Traycake, Crunchy Honeycomb Bars, Bosh! Gingerbread People, Lemon Drizzle Traycake.

From Staples: Homemade Tofu (though I don’t have the equipment for it), Notella, Ultimate Green Pesto, Arugula Parsley & Hazelnut Pesto, Chili & Garlic Naan, Henry’s Curry Stock, Thai Green Curry Paste, Thai Red Curry Paste, Lockdown Loaf, Foolproof Focaccia.

Contents:

Welcome
About this Book
Cooking with the Seasons
Make Recipes Your Own
Cooking on a Budget
Budget Cooking Hacks
How to Batch Cook
Pantry Essentials
Budget Banquets

Breakfast + Brunch
Soups, Salads + Light Meals
Food for Friends
Comfort
Sweet
Staples

Nutrition
Useful Conversions
Big Thanks!
Index… (more)

This is a fun and gorgeous cookbook. My very favorite thing about it is for many recipes they’re customizable and they list many choices of ingredients in each category. So you can make one recipe many times and it can be different every time.

The cookbook authors have a video channel where you can watch them cook (two English guys) but I haven’t viewed any of their videos. They’re at: www.bosh.tv.

The guys seem personable, and confident and highly competent in the kitchen.

The photos of the finished recipes re mouthwatering and beautiful. They’re real artists.

There are two things that didn’t make this a favorite cookbook for me for very personal reasons and they’re common in many cookbooks I read. One is that all the basic recommended equipment listed that are good to have for preparing the recipes I don’t have and am unlikely to ever have. The other is that for most recipes I’d have to tweak them (which is actually okay because I never really use recipes as precisely as they are given) because I don’t like so many ingredients that others seem to like. Examples of ingredients that are included that I’d leave out or substitute are: vinegar, mustard, mayo, coconut, capers, jackfruit, sea vegetables, yogurt, and alcohol, though I sometimes am okay with wines as part of cooked dishes, and sundried tomatoes which I’ve only occasionally liked depending on how they’re used.

In addition to the several customizable recipes I also liked some of their (various international) menus, as they combine a few of their recipes to make a full meal/feast.

I had started to write down all the recipes I’d want to make/eat, both the ones I could make as is and the ones I would need to change a bit to my tastes, but I started listing so many I finally stopped. If I ever want to make anything from this book I’ll have to borrow it from the library again. But I will say their vegan chocolate cake might be the best I’ve seen, even better than the one I’ve made, adding more cocoa to the cake and the frosting, from Jennifer Raymond’s classic book, so I’d like to try it. Ditto the chocolate mousse using aquafaba. I buy a lot of canned beans and would really like to try using the aquafaba from them. Except for the cocktails section, there were multiple recipes in every section that I found highly appealing.

Contents:
Welcome
This book
Your kitchen
Fantastic feasts
01 QUICK EATS
02 BIG EATS
03 SHOWPIECES
04 GREENS & BOSH! BOWLS
05 SMALL PLATES & SHARERS
06 COCKTAILS
07 DESSERTS
09 BREAKFASTS
Nutrition
Thanks
Index

According to the cover, Henry Firth should have his name listed first and Ian Theasby’s name should be listed second, but I don’t have the time or patience right now to change the data in every edition listed here, so I’ll leave it be.

ETA: (I could add a LOT) is that one thing I did notice though, but only in a very few recipes, was that in the photo there was sometimes an ingredient (green peppers, for instance) that didn't appear in the printed recipe.… (more)