Brilliant book full of diverse ideas for cooking easy snacks, meals and dishes that will satisfy all the family and liven up the dinner table!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

Found this to be a 'regular' cookbook trying to cover everything, but the flexible bit is a little bit pushing it too far, as it doesn't look like the author actually did try the flexible manner they recommend in the recipes. Good as a general family cookbook - but not exactly flexible per se

This cookbook had some really great recipes. The recipes were easy to understand and not too complicated for the average cook. I enjoyed the illustrations and look forward to making these recipes for years to come.

It’s divided into 6 categories + Dietary Index

Breakfast and Brunch
Soups and Broths
Small plates and snacks
Main meals
Sides
Baking and desserts
Does give some good ideas for me to get creative about what to eat. Mostly fancy stuff though, not really for penny pinchers like me.

But it was the Introduction that grated my nerves. Clearly a manifesto on ‘clean eating’? I found it rather infuriating.

2 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Nowadays families are desperately in need of cook books like this where a member of the family, or many members of the family want to have the same meal but it needs to be accommodating to the different health needs. I love how each recipe shares the alternatives and starts from such an easy baseline for many diverse families. I would recommend this book for parents, families and anyone looking to change up their recipes.

really enjoyed this easy, yummy, fun, family cookbook, easy for a novice and also impressed the chef in our family. Brilliant for my on/off vegetarian daughter, something for everyone.

The Flexible Family Cookbook: 75 Quick and Easy Recipes with Over 200 Options to Keep the Whole Family Happy by Jo Pratt is full of simple and delicious recipes to keep the whole family happy. Jo Pratt provides flexible adaptations for each recipe to account for allergies, intolerances, and lifestyle choices. Traybakes and one-pot roasts make for easy and convenient time-savers, whilst scrumptious puds and simple bakes help get smaller hands involved in the cooking. Covering everything from gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free cooking and veganism, to suggestions for flavor and spice adjustments for younger or fussier palettes, this book will be a lifesaver in the kitchen and a crowd-pleaser at the table.

The Flexible Family Cookbook is an well organized and attractive cookbook. I thought the recipes and instructions were clearly written and easy to follow. I liked the options, suggestions, and adjustments that were included with most recipes to account for allergies, picky eaters, and personal tastes. The photographs of the food were very appealing, and I think they put a good light on the selected dishes. I just wish that more of the dishes were more centered on ingredients families are likely to already have on hand, or would readily find (at a reasonable price) in the average grocery store. While there are substitutions, I just felt like the ingredients were often a little to upscale for me, and possibly many other households. I am interested in broadening my family's culinary appreciation and the dishes that make everyone happy, but not when it means stretching our already tight budget and patients to find pomegranate molasses, no matter how good that picture looked.

Not the most inspiring cookbook honestly. Some nice looking recipes and lots of options to change up the recipes but most of it just left me a bit uninspired.

The pictures were beautiful and homey, the writing was fine-good but a bit impersonal. I like the "flexible" trope, but the flexible options for each recipe were mostly just general suggestions about what substitutions you could make - like, try strawberries instead of raspberries! Maybe it's because I don't have kids and people lose all creativity when they're busy trying to sustain a life (this is a joke!), but I probably could've thought of switching strawberries for raspberries myself, ya know? I think I was hoping for the ~flexible~ suggestions to be a little more out of the box. Overall, 3.5/5 rounded up to 4 for this cookbook.

The Flexible Family Cookbook was full of simple, yet delicious recipes, but the really great aspect was the variations that were included with each recipe. Each recipe included ways to change the recipe and make it vegetarian or gluten free! It helped to create a more varied cookbook!

The recipes weren’t basic. Some of the things included were samosas, pho and Moroccan baked fish in a bag! All of the recipe instructions were simple and easy to follow! This one is well worth the read!

This is a very good cookbook with a lot of good recipes that I am excited to try!

Thank you, NetGalley, and the publisher for providing me with this book for an honest review.

This is a great looking cookbook with recipes that have a lot of flexibility so you can cater to your particular family's needs. This book covers everything from gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free cooking and veganism, to suggestions for flavor and spice adjustments for picky eaters. I love all of the options! The photographs are beautiful and I really wish they had used a beautifully styled food photograph for the cover. The illustrated cover is not appealing to me at all and brings to mind those odd Gooseberry Patch cookbooks from the 1980's.

I'm a big fan of Jo Pratt's previous cook books and I'm not dissapointed with this one. The stunning photography in this book ensures that I can always find something I want to make.

The book is split into useful sections and includes helpful notes on substituting ingredients for picky eaters or dietary requirements.

Highly recommended

This overall was a decent cookbook. I appreciated that it provides flexible adaptations for each recipe to account for allergies, intolerances and lifestyle choices. As a mom of 2 small boys and a picky husband, having a cookbook on hand that offers delicious substitutions to recipes can be a lifesaver! The recipes were all easy to read and I loved all the accompanying photos.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Some good recipes within this book. Enjoyed cooking them with the ‘help’ of the teenagers. We were able to find things we hadn’t tried before and was good to get the kids in the kitchen as well and teach them new skills

Loved it. I can't wait to make all of these different recipes. It was stunning to look at. It was also very creative and has a great variety of recipes to choose from

This book contains a variety of family friendly recipes and because nowadays some family members may have nut, diary or gluten allergies or are vegan, each recipe has a note on how to change it up for these purposes, hence the "flexible" from the books title.

This book is divided into 6 main chapters plus an introduction and a dietary index:
- Breakfast & Brunch
- Soups & Broths
- Small plates & Snacks
- Main Meals
- Sides
- Baking & Desserts

The recipes come with both metric and imperial measurements, easy to follow steps and a list of the ingredients needed. Some of the recipes come with more than one idea on how to use the ingredients, for example, run out of left over chicken for the Chicken Broth, then it recommends chunky sausages instead.

Many of the recipes from the Main Meals do seem to be from foreign climates, though the recipes do look very appealing to all members of the family, and I'd certainly like to have a go at making The Chicken Noodle Spring Rolls, the Slow cooked Asian beef, Sweet and Sour Meatball traybake, Baked Tuscan bean and sausage stew to name but a few.

I have a nut allergy sufferer and a vegetarian in the household, so this is a great book for listing alternatives that I can put in the recipe instead, plus the dietary index at the rear is a good idea as it divides the recipes into vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free & sesame free and egg-free. Makes it much easier to find the recipes that would fit into your dietary needs.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

Flexibility is Fun and Adds Choices

This fun cookbook is meant to help satisfy family members' different needs and wants when it comes to food. Most recipes have flexible options, like how to do vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, dairy-free, and gluten-free versions as well as little upgrades, how to make traditional versions, and options if you really love meat, veggies, or cheese. For simple things like oatmeal, the author provides a variety of toppings. Each recipe has a photo, and the pictures look very inviting. Some dishes are more complex meant for lazy days, while others are simpler, ideal for a work night. The cookbook is divided into sections: breakfast and brunch, soups and broths, main meals, small plates and snacks, sides, and desserts. The author has included English/American standard recipes as well as ethnic ones. Indian flavors seem to be a favorite. I was surprised by how many recipes I wanted to try, particularly the soups and one gnocchi bake. I also found looking through the flexible options inspiring. I often sub out ingredients in recipes that I find, but it's fun to see how another cook does that. I've certainly got some new ideas for flexible options that I can use in my own recipes and others that I will come across. It was summer when I reviewed this; most recipes seemed better suited for cooler weather, so I intend to revisit this cookbook once the season changes. if you like cookbooks that give you a lot of options for each recipe—whether you are doing so for your family or not—you might find this book as fun as I did.

This is such an enjoyable cookbook and has plenty of recipes that will keep everyone in the household happy.

I like that it’s broken up into 6 different meal times

Breakfast and brunch
Soups and broths
Small plates and Snacks
Main meals
Snacks
Baking and Desserts.

One of the favourite breakfasts that we tried from the book was the iced banana and Peanut butter smoothie, my goodness it is very tasty and was a hit with my son, he has special needs and so has a lot of sensory problems with food but he couldn’t get enough of this smoothie!

Other recipes that I have tried and enjoyed are,

Cauliflower and chickpea soup
Mexican street corn and prawn chowder (yum)
Popcorn cauliflower bites
Quick pan pizza
Super veggie cottage pie
Crunchy chicken and Parmesan schnitzel
Rainbow fries
Favourite chocolate brownies (which I served with stewed raspberries)

I could actually list so many more that I want to try! All recipes I tried were a hit and very easy to make


Tonight I’ll be making the cheese onion and potato pie and Jamaican banana and caramel pudding.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an arc copy in exchange for an honest review.

As the author Jo Pratt aptly describes her cookbook is the Swiss Army of cookbooks as many of her recipes options making it easier for the family to eat together. The author says her recipes cut down on the use of sugar while emphasizing the use of good fats. She also wrote there are some "naughty" recipes too rounding her selection of recipes.

Some of the recipes you'll find include:

Raspberry and Mango Smoothie
Loaded Breakfast Burriots
Simple Pho
Quick Pan Pizza
Creamy Salad Dressing or Dip
Rainbow Fries
Chocolate Meringue Mousse Cake

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.