The Food Truck Cookbook

I really like the The Food Truck Cookbook by Michael Van de Elzen, based on his television series, The Food Truck.

The premise of the TV show (which I didn't see) was to make healthier versions of common takeaways. The series "followed celebrated Auckland chef Michael Van de Elzen on his one-man mission to convert Kiwi junk food fiends to a better way of eating".

The Food Truck Cookbook offers a brief overview of fast food in New Zealand and to balance things out also has some excellent nutritional advice from the Heart Foundation and a guide to healthier ingredients, and a section on making the basic/essentials.

 

 

The book is simply presented and easy to follow. Some of these healthier fast foods have quite involved recipes, but judging by the photos - which are beautiful - making these meals would be worth the extra effort. I am very tempted by the recipe for vegetarian burgers, but would not make these mid-week because it is a very involved recipe. But many of the other recipes are family friendly mid-week fixes.

I love the photos in this book, they make me feel like I am on holiday. It is a riot of colour, the food looks beautiful and there are tonnes of beautiful photos.

I also like that it offers ways for us to eat foods that are convenient more frequently by making them healthier. Burgers and butter chicken are an easy sell to kids, and healthy versions will keep mum and dad happy (and more able to enjoy it with them).

My only gripe would be that the index is not particularly comprehensive, items are only listed by their title and not indexed by ingredients. It would be useful to be able to look up ingredients, and food by 'type' in the index when dipping back into the book. Definitely not a deal breaker though. This is a lovely, lovely book.

This book is available from the Munch E Store: www.munchcupboard.com. Or you might even be lucky enough to win a copy of this in a Munch Monday Madness competition sometime soon. Wouldn't that be cool.

Mummy to three small boys