Yates Garden Fresh Cookbook

By Kate Frasers (HarperCollins, RRP $44.99)

 

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There has been a bit of gardening rivalry in the newsroom in recent months thanks to the interest of many in growing vegetables.

The editor's guide to growing vegetables has also helped spark an interest among readers and while the weather hasn't exactly been conducive to record-breaking growth rates, there should be enough in most gardens to ensure the gardening bug has bitten.

So, understandably, there was a bit of a scramble to claim the rights to the Yates Garden Fresh Cookbook. What a sure-fire winner – not only does it tell you how to grow most vegetables, herbs and fruit, but it also gives you great ideas on what to do with them. Or at least that was the idea. Instead, what you end up with is a great guide to gardening and a mish-mash of recipes.

There's little in the way of ideas to deal with the glut of tomatoes and courgettes that inevitably come. There might be several tomato recipes, there are three for eggplant and asparagus, yet only one for silverbeet – and none for spinach.

The book does cough up ideas for chicory, and tamarillo, but the most bizarre one had to be strawberry and prawn salad cocktails. Think I'll give that a miss, along with the book.

- © Fairfax NZ News