Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life by Jamie Oliver

Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life Reviews

• 
  Jules

  I must have had this book for about a decade now, and don't see myself parting with it any time soon. I bought it around the time I first got into growing vegetables myself, if you ignore the years I helped my dad with his vegetables when I was a child. I even ate almost all 40 of his baby cabbages straight out of the ground when I was about 3 years old, oops. It's amazing what a child can achieve while their parents aren't looking, ha ha.
  
  This book is full of tips on how to grow fruit and vegetables in your own garden or allotment, along with tasty recipes using the items you've managed to grow yourself, which is always a satisfying feeling.
• 
  Christine

  This book is huge! The gardener and tree hugger in my equally appreciate Oliver's take on food. Oliver weaves conversations about food production, environmental issues, balancing hugging trees with real life, etc. in with his great recipes. He promotes local food, eating foods in season, and discusses the reality of our current food production world. The recipes are mostly straight-forward and simple, which is helpful for us ADD folks. ;-)
• 
  Alex Mendiola

  I love the unconventional format of this book. Oliver groups the recipes by season/ingredient. This is a great companion to his television series, ironically titled "Jamie at Home." His passion and enthusiasm for fresh ingredients and simple recipes translates very well to the page. Personally, I like to have a companion photo with as many recipes as possible for presentation ideas and this book has wonderful photographs of the food. I haven't cooked all the recipes yet but, I must say that most are quite tasty. I've found that some of his recipes do have a definite English quality. That is not to say they are awful but rather have a bitter quality. In my humble opinion, he tends to use too much lemon. His Italian recipes are fabulous, especially, his pizza. They key is his very simple four ingredient sauce, the best you'll ever have. In addition to recipes and commentary, gives simple instructions on how to grow most of the ingredients in a home garden. It inspired my first foray into gardening. What I’ve learned from other great cookbooks and chefs is that the simplest recipes are the best and “Jamie at Home” (the book) supports this thesis.
• 
  Danielle

  If you're trying to figure out new ways to highlight the bounty of your garden, this is it. Using simple, everyday pantry items (for the most part) Jamie really brings out the best in fresh, ripe produce.
  
  The photos are gorgeous, and the recipes are very easy to follow. The book is broken up into seasons, and the Mothership tomato salad is not to be missed. It is stupidly easy, but tastes like everything tomatoes ever promised to be. A bottle of wine, a loaf of crusty bread, and maybe some cheese is all you need to round out a meal featuring the bright salad (recipe here:
  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ja...).
  
  A slight warning: this book will definitely make you long for your own garden, and quite likely, an outdoor wood-fired oven (especially if you watch the companion television show).
  
  Even if you already are a pro in the kitchen, this should be added to the collection of cookbooks. Oliver is able to bring out the best that each vegetable (or fruit) has to offer, revealing techniques not to be missed.
  
  
• 
  Kelly

  Whenever I peer into this book, I'm attacked by the green monster of jealousy. How gorgeous (and gigantic) is his garden? It's so fantastic! And that's what's really interesting about his latest cookbook. He intimately describes his garden and teaches you how to grow veggies...shortly, it's awesome.
  
  I've tried a few recipes from his book. I tried his asparagus dishes, which were all fantastic. And I made his onion soup, which turned out yummy. The best thing I think I made so far was the blackberry and apple pie. He also includes a pastry dough recipe, which is fantastic and kind of MADE the pie (though it was a little bit on the thick side, all due to the fact that I fail rolling out dough).
  
  And as an art major, I have to shout out the the designers of this book. BEAUTIFUL photography, graphics, texts, layout. *GROAN* FANTASTIC!
• 
  Jane

  Love the format of this book. If you're fond of gardening or just dreaming to own a vegetable garden despite living in a cramped urban apartment like me, this book is a great treat! Like most Jamie Oliver's books, this one is filled with great photos, colors, and pretty illustrations.
• 
  Rowan

  Charming but ultimately I didn't leave with a single recipe that I intended to actually try.
• 
  Ms Miaow

  Love the countrified photos, layout, paper quality and format of this book (Sophie Dahl's cookbooks are similar).
  However if you are vegetarian like me you wont appreciate all the references to shooting game, meat and there are some dead animal images... But for carnivores maybe it might get them thinking about where their meat actually comes from.
  
  Great recipes (very time consuming and chefy though) the cheeky chilli chutney actually took me 3 hours over two days! Welsh rarebit, rhubarb bellini, english onion soup, apple & blackberry pie and the squash soup were also delicious, I recommend them.
  
  Just wish I grew my own fruit and vegetables instead of relying on tasteless supermarket ones!
• 
  Sophie Crane

  Excellent all-round cook book. Friendly feel and many, many recipes that you WILL ACTUALLY COOK, unlike most celebrity chef books.
  
  Jamie introduces a vegetable with a spread explaining how he grows tham in his garden, with lots of wholesome photos of him getting his hands muddy. Then follows a section on using that vegetable in the kitchen. Some recipes revolving around it, others focusing on a different main ingredient.
  
  The pie recipe is a favourite.
• 
  Christine

  It's been more than a year and I'm still working through this inspirational collection of seasonal recipes. Frankly, I'm appalled it's taking me so long when everything I make turns out lovely.
  
  Jamie Oliver, my cooking icon, uses veggies as the centerpiece in the majority of the recipes grouped here and every passthrough I find something droolworthy. One of my favorite recipes, the Asparagus and Potato Tart, has made numerous dinner appearances, despite the pitfalls of creating a filo crust. Grrr, filo. Although many recipes have meat in them, it's usually either something that's simple to leave out or something I'm inspired to make with a meat substitute. The Italian Ham and Spinach Tart, for example, I'll be making this week and leaving the ham off. Easy peasy.
  
  All the recipes I've tried have been successes. Many have earned repeated rounds on the menu, like Sweet Pear and Apple Salad with Endive, Superb Squash Soup, Creamy Asparagus Soup, Fresh Tagliatelle with Sprouting Broccoli and Oozy Cheese Sauce, Rhubarb and Sticky Ginger Crumble, Mothership Tomato Salad and more. Top two recipes on my 'to make' list: Baked Cauliflower & Broccoli Cannelloni, Incredible Smashed Peas & Fava Beans on Toast. Note to self: plant fava beans.
  
  I admit, I'm a sucker for Oliver's excitement over good-quality, fresh produce. Why shouldn't I be? He's absolutely right. Jamie's abstract directions (a 'good handful of parsley') may worry a more methodical cook, but I find them an opening, a verbal head-nod to improvisation and creativity. I find Oliver's recipes and his hands-on approach to home cookery continually inspiring, making this book one of the first I reach for in a pinch.
• 
  Kecia

  This is one of the most interesting cookbooks I've come across. It's divided by season and subdivided by main ingredient...with gardening tips thrown in to boot! Very cool way to organize recipes, IMHO. And the photography is gorgeous.
  
  In the Introduction Jamie gives a shout out to the Brittish sitcom The Good Life. I fell in love with that show back in the late 80s. The show was produced in the 70s and was way ahead of the curve telling the story of a couple who went off the grid to live a sustainable, simple, self-sufficint lifestyle. The show made a real impression on my all those years ago and perhaps it influenced the person I am today.
  
  I tried 3 recipes from this book and all 3 were good to very good. My favorite of the 3 was the the grilled butterflied monkfish with a sweet runner bean stew. I could not find monkfish at my market so I used swordfish....and it was a real winner! I also loved the humble home-cooked beans. I love beans and this was a nice way to prepare them and I plan to use this recipe often. The last recipe I tried was the Welsh Rarebit with Attitude. I liked it, but it wasn't my favorite.
  
  I would have tried more recipes but it's time to return this one to the library. I'll be keeping my eyes open for a used copy to add to my personal collection.
• 
  Elizabeth

  I absolutely love
  Jamie at Home, so was really excited when I saw that a cookbook was coming out. The show is focused on single, seasonal ingredients - so, for example, three recipes about rhubarb - and the cookbook takes a similar focus. In addition, the cookbook has advice about eating and growing local. We haven't made many recipes from the cookbook yet, but I've genuinely enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to doing more as the seasons come around.
• 
  Audrey

  This isn't really a cookbook as much as it is a manifesto or a lifestyle book. The photography is GORGEOUS, and the book itself is just beautiful, with thick textured paper and a lovely cloth cover. I'm just beginning my cooking experiments, so a lot of the recipes here seem very unfamiliar to me -- not what *I* would consider simple fare. Aside from that, I thought that the gardening / vegetable information was extremely helpful and really liked that portion of the book. This is one to really sit down with and spend a lot of time on -- there's a lot to get through in this book.
• 
  Yesim

  Great book to curl up with. Makes u want to buy a farm, a land and start everything new by planting and growing ... :))
• 
  Hillary Hall

  My favorite, most used cookbook! Many pages have food splatters on them, which to me, means that a cookbook is loved, and serving it's purpose in the world.
• 
  Terri

  Good book. Not just to cook from, but also to flick through. Lovely pictures.
• 
  Nancy

  Gorgeous book. The design and photography are fabulous. Being that it focuses on gardening and growing vegetables in many of the added essays, it's really disappointing that nearly every recipe uses meat and dairy. Why not highlight the veggies? There's not one recipe I'd make without major alterations. An extra star added for the brilliant design.
• 
  Tania Bingham

  More than any other person, Jamie Oliver taught me how to cook. And more than that, he taught me to love cooking. This cookbook, based on his TV show of the same name, taught me the most. Recipes from this book have become essential family staples in our home.
• 
  Maggie Leayr

  An old favourite
• 
  Daniel

  Beautiful book, wonderful photos. Excellent, Jamie.
• 
  Roberto Carrasco

  It's a lovely book, but those pictures of dead rabbits are quite creepy so I give it 4 stars and not 5.
• 
  Henriette Strydom

  Loved it. Still use it.
• 
  Stephanie Hammond

  Good home cooking with some great tips on how to make them extra special and tasty. Lots of handy tips and good information and photos are superb. Just what I expected from Jamie Oliver.
• 
  Amy

  Loved this cookbook!
• 
  Carolyn Semple faucher

  Gourmet Gardeners will love this book, although it may cause garden envy!
• 
  Naomi Smart

  This recipe book by Jaime Oliver has both recipes and how to grow your own veggies and fruits and herbs. I will buy this because I loved it. The pizza dough recipe was awesome.
• 
  Mariachiara Farina

  Utile compagno di ricette sfiziose ma anche bellissimo libro da sfogliare per scoprire i prodotti dell'orto, la loro stagionalità e tutto attraverso una fotografia eccezionale.