• Cati on August 14, 2012

  Found more recipes in Bills Basic that I will make than I did in Best of Bill which I purchased at same time.

• evromans on October 02, 2011

  One of my favorite books, healthy and delicious everyday cooking. Bill Granger at his best.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Pancakes

  • Kitchenangel on March 25, 2019

    I have tried MANY breakfast pancake recipes and now this is the only one I will look at. perfection.

  • Juleslovesgoldies on March 11, 2026

    My ‘go to’ pancake recipe. Love these!

• Baked porridge

  • Melanie on March 02, 2014

    Totally worth waiting for this porridge to bake in the oven. I halved the recipe for two people and made it in separate dishes. I substituted yoghurt for the cream.

  • TLouise on December 30, 2020

    Wow this was amazing! I used chopped walnuts as that was what I had on hand. This is such a warming, indulgent recipe. I'm going to make this for my future grandchildren.

• Eggs Benedict

  • Melanie on August 06, 2011

    This recipe includes the homemade english muffins (which are a winner!). Roll the dough out quite thin. The muffins really don't need 6-8 minutes each side - keep an eye on them as they will probably be done earlier.

  • KIGirl on August 20, 2014

    Yes - the Muffins are 5/5 ! (I am yet to try the Benedict)

• Bran muffins

  • Melanie on July 13, 2014

    Comes together easily and tastes nice too. Made a couple of changes - mainly, not using bran, after boyfriend recoiled in horror after remembering a bran & oil muffin from his past. Instead used plain flour, whole wheat flour and rye in roughly equal quantities. End result was ok - nothing overly amazing but perfectly acceptable as a healthy muffin. Used fresh orange juice as the zest is required anyway.

• Kedgeree

  • Hellyloves2cook on May 29, 2013

    Tidying my kitchen pantry led me to make this recipe. I wanted to use up some long grain rice that I had left in a packet after filling up my containers. Rather than smoked trout(called for in the recipe) I used smoked mackerel- as cant buy trout in NZ. Yes the mackerel was sat in the fridge and needed eating. I just quickly rustled this up for my 3 boys - oh joy to a mothers ear ...... all 3 gave the thumbs up ! Quick and easy. Also good for gluten-intolerant guests.

• Lemon drizzle loaf

  • KIGirl on August 20, 2014

    I substituted zucchini for the blueberries - strange I know, but I had a glut of zucchini in the garden !

• Brownies

  • KIGirl on August 20, 2014

    I found that roughly chopping the chocolate was not small enough, the bits just sank to the bottom - so grated on the next attempt... 4.5/5

• Tom yum

  • Hellyloves2cook on September 07, 2012

    Pg 61 Not an authentic version but very tasty and light- I added some shiitake mushrooms to this also. Would make again.

• Vegetable soup

  • Melanie on September 13, 2014

    Simple weeknight dinner. I added chicken (which is an optional addition) which meant that my vegetables were slightly overcooked - I would rethink timing of my dish next time.

• Spiced pumpkin and lentil soup

  • evromans on October 23, 2011

    Nice soup for autumn sundays (and other days). Added a can of diced tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes, still, tasted great.

• Quinoa salad with pomegranate

  • ChefBeccs on November 18, 2019

    My quinoa was mushy. I think I may have taken it off the heat too early.

• Lentil, beetroot and celery fattoush with labna

  • Melanie on September 13, 2014

    Delicious - I will definitely make this again, it would be good to serve this one as a dinner party style dish. This wasn't very practical as a 'take to work' lunch due to the number of components but made lunch feel that much more delicious.

• Thai beef salad

  • lou_weez on May 28, 2019

    Great flavors! I added tomato, orange segments and mixed lettuce to bulk this out a bit.

• Baked orecchiette with sausage and cavolo nero

  • Melanie on March 02, 2014

    Low effort, maximum flavour - good building block recipe that is easy to make changes to. Leave in oven for at least 15 min. I substituted baby spinach for the cavolo nero.

• Pad see ew

  • Melanie on August 06, 2011

    Made with chicken instead of pork, so good!

• Lemon chicken

  • Melanie on July 13, 2014

    I really enjoyed this. Used skinless chicken breasts so they didn't become crispy, but still got a good coating of spice while frying. Timing for frying and oven worked perfectly, chicken didn't dry out at all. The sauce was great, I will make this again. Served with steamed rice and broccolini.

• Chicken burritos with coriander and green chilli

  • Melanie on November 05, 2011

    I substituted black beans for the red kidney beans - the bean/onion/tomato mix tastes amazing! I cooked the chicken but probably wouldn't bother with it next time as it doesn't actually add anything to the end result. I'd actually prefer this as a vegetarian meal.

• Chicken and dried apricot pilaf

  • evromans on October 02, 2011

    Tasty, easy recipe for a family-style dinner. Loved the middle-eastern flavour that the ras el hanout adds.

  • Melanie on July 28, 2014

    Agree that this is an easy dinner to put together, good mix of flavours too. I used brown rice so added extra water and increased the cooking time - the end result was probably a bit stodgier than if I had used white rice but was still ok. I also substituted chopped toasted almonds for the pistachios, which worked really well. Stir the apricot in towards the end of cooking time to help them plump up slightly. This made 6 meals for us, served with the Date Relish (suggested accompaniment) and some steamed green beans.

• Date relish

  • Melanie on July 28, 2014

    This was so simple and tasty, it really helped liven up dinner (served with the Chicken and Apricot Pilaf from the same book but this would also work well with more simply flavoured meals). I used dried Sayer dates which aren't as juicy so I quickly soaked the chopped dates in hot water before continuing to prepare the relish.

• Perfect steak

  • treay on August 17, 2025

    The other day, hubby came home with two beautiful sirloin steaks and suggested to have them with green peppercorn sauce. I have made this sauce in the past, but for some reason, I enjoyed the taste of the sauce, but not the peppercorns. I looked for a recipe in my cookbooks and found this one. It was delicious!! I think the trick to it was frying the peppercorns with garlic for about 30 seconds. They became crunchy and very palatable. Served the steak with mash potatoes and green beans. A delicious combination. Lovely meal.

• Crème fraîche mash

  • KIGirl on August 20, 2014

    O.M.G. - who knew mash could taste this good !

• Lamb curry with yoghurt and tomatoes

  • Melanie on October 18, 2014

    Great recipe - really benefits from the long slow cook (and reheating). Despite the relatively long list of ingredients (for one of Bill's recipes) they are all standard store cupboard / supermarket ingredients. Served with steamed rice and a simple coriander and tomato salad.

  • digifish_books on June 05, 2015

    Pleasant enough but somewhat bland, lacking curry flavour. In fairness, we did eat it on the same day it was cooked, so perhaps the left-overs will taste better.

• Fish cakes

  • Varundel on April 19, 2015

    Made these a few times now and I love the fact they use tinned salmon which make them a more frugal midweek meal but still packed with plenty of flavour. I use yoghurt in place of the crème fraiche.

• Salt and pepper squid

  • etcjm on February 17, 2022

    Good. I halved the recipe. The batter is odd - it makes it hard to coat the squid. However the end result was a very crispy batter. I'll be more generous with the seasoning - I didn't measure and thought I'd added enough - I hadn't. Great option for a gluten free batter. Will try again.

• Beetroot dip

  • Melanie on June 22, 2020

    Tasty enough but start with less yoghurt, as the end product was too runny for us.

• Chickpea burgers

  • Hellyloves2cook on May 29, 2013

    Being a vegetarian I decided to make burgers for the whole family that we could all enjoy; rather than me being the odd one out as often the case with this sort of food. Patties easy to assemble- non of that shape and place in fridge for 30-45 mins to get firm- no, non of that, just rest the mixture for 5 mins , shape and shallow fry. How easy is that? The patties/burgers were tasty and went brown and held their shape rather than many which disintegrate before your very eyes as soon as you touch then with a spatula to turn them over. Yes I was impressed- well done Mr Granger. Top marks! The downside.according to my teenage sons and my 8 year old, was I served them inside WHOLEMEAL buns . You dont serve a burger in a wholemeal bun they told me! Anyhow - I loved them and I disagree with the boys - the wholemeal bun was nice and together with the serve of greek yoghurt and all the greenery and red onion etc- a very healthy meal....... and filling.

• Broccolini with chilli

  • Melanie on July 13, 2014

    This was good but not great - I think that I added too much water into the pan for steaming, as there was no hope of this reducing to create a pan sauce. Tasted nice and I liked the steaming technique.

  • treay on June 01, 2025

    It was very good and easy to cook. I also added some ginger and used jarred chilli instead. Delicious!

• Black bean chilli

  • DeirdreM on May 17, 2014

    This is an easy-to-make and tasty meal; the corn salsa is very good.

• Lemon tart

  • Cati on August 23, 2012

    This recipe needs to stand for at least 2 hours before you can cut into wedges. Not the 20 minutes the recipe called for. It was still very runny then.

• Pavlova with brown sugar and strawberries

  • Melanie on March 02, 2014

    I really enjoyed this pavlova - I found it wasn't tooth achingly sweet. The yoghurt / cream mixture was great.