Cooking through Rose-Tinted Goggles: A 23 year old's 85 favourite recipes and all the ways you'll change them

I tend to think of cooking as easy. As long as you understand the recipe and follow the steps, it should work. But sometimes it just doesn't! So we make the same food over and over again because there’s only a handful of recipes we trust not to fail on us. I however do actually love experimenting and trying new recipes, and testing a recipe and then changing it to suit my taste; making it a few times to get it just right. But then I don’t write my changes down anywhere, I lose the original, and 6 months later when I try and cook it from memory again ~ surprise surprise ~ it doesn’t turn out like I remembered. Regularly I’d be stood over a hot stove googling which herb works with both bacon and butternut because I forgot, or scrolling through screenshots on my phone because, turns out, I actually don’t remember the recipe I’m currently burning.

So this project was born, retest all of my favourite recipes, get them perfect with my little adjustments, and then write them down once and for all! In doing that though, I realised that everyone has their own little things they love to change. Like my dad adds a dash of Worcester sauce to everything, I use more salt than my husband does, and my mum always adds extra veg to a standard recipe. And then so many people have allergies that mean they have to adjust every recipe they ever try. So what’s the point of writing a cookbook if everyone that ever reads it is going to change it? Which is when I decided that that would be the point of this book. Friends and family around the world have tirelessly helped me by cooking my recipes and sending back their personal comments, adjustments, ideas, and more. So while my recipe is just how I like it, on the right of each one you’ll see photos from other people as well as their personal changes. Some of them have even contributed their own favourite recipes! So have fun experimenting, and figuring out just how you want to change all of this fantastic food.