500 Casseroles - buy now click on cover

One of the handiest series of books I have come across in a long time is the 500 series of books.

I have copies of 500 Cakes, 500 Casseroles and 500 Salads.

They are the sort of books you keep in your kitchen and which eventually land up all spattered with various liquids, but you keep on falling back on them for advice.

Perfect for the novice cook as the recipes are really idiot proof, each book has a good range of dishes from the classic to more contemporary foods.

Each book is written by an expert in the field and the once thing that really appeals to me is that after each section there is a piece of variations on a theme – for example, in 500 Casseroles the long simmered beef daube has four variations, one with parsnips, one with red potatoes, one with shallots and one with orange zest.  500 cakes offers a recipe for the classic Madeira cake and offers orange, cherry, fruity, vanilla and poppyseed laternatives.  500 Salads offer the Caesar Salad, from the town of Tijuana, Mexico and the variations ar chicken, red hot, chicken and cashew nuts and sweet chilli tofu.

A clever and well thought out range of books which sell at just over R100 each – great value.