If you have trouble finding inspiration for daily family meals and like having weekly menu lists, you might like Simon Holst's new little book, Everyday Easy Quick Meals (Hyndman Publishing).
They range from risottos to pastas, curries, hamburgers and, for weekends, roasts and lasagne. A handy little book for families looking for inspiration for relatively quick and easy meals.
Jax Hamilton, the irrepressible Christchurch-based food writer and 2011 Masterchef NZ runner-up, has her second book out: Union Jax: Back to Blighty (Bateman).
The Jamaican cockney returns to Britain after nine years in New Zealand, explores London markets, the seaside, dines at three acclaimed restaurants as well as market stalls and pubs, ventures north of the Watford Gap and across the Irish Sea to the Emerald Isle.
Her enthusiasm bubbles over in her lively tales and her recipes are inspired by her travels.
London chef and food writer Maria Elia returns to her roots in her latest book, Smashing Plates: Classic Greek flavours redefined (Kyle Books). She grew up in the kitchen of her Greek Cypriot father's London restaurant and the recipes in this are inventive and enticing.
Her parents separated when she was a child and her father returned to Cyprus, but the award-winning chef spent a summer cooking and experimenting in her father's tavern in the Troodos mountains of Cyprus to develop these recipes.
They are a modern but sympathetic take on traditional dishes and flavourings: cinnamon, fennel, oregano, mint, rose and orange flower water, olives and olive oil, capers, tahini, pulses and grains, fruit, nuts, cheese, yoghurt and, of course vegetables.
There are vegetable or fish versions of keftedes (meatballs) made from tomato, carrot or sardines; baklava filled with tomato and runnerbean; and innovative uses of coffee or ouzo flavourings in desserts, dressings and savoury dishes.
Another British chef putting her own spin on traditional dishes and flavourings is Rachel Khoo in My Little French Kitchen (Michael Joseph/Penguin).
She has expanded the reach of her earlier book, The Little Paris Kitchen and explores some French regional cuisines: Brittany, Bordeaux, Basque, Provence, Lyon, and Alsace.
Her recipes are often twists on the traditional: savoury Paris-Brest and kugelhopf, or a vegetarian version of an Alsacian meat pastry puff, but others are more authentic like the Basque espelette jelly (made from medium-hot chillies and served with cheese) or semolina quenelles (dumplings) from Lyon. The book is generously illustrated.
Ballymaloe, with its restaurant, country house hotel and world-renowned cookery school has led the way in the fresh, sustainable local food movement in Ireland for the past 30 years, not to mention the rehabilitation of Irish cuisine in international circles.
Darina Allen's latest book 30 Years at Ballymaloe (Kyle Books) is a glorious history of the school, its visiting teachers, its own gardens and farm, along with recipes and lots of photographs of the development of the school and associated enterprises.
A gifted cook, teacher and television presenter, as well as a tireless campaigner for fresh local ingredients and founder of Slow Food Ireland and the first Irish farmers market,
Allen includes numerous recipes using fresh local ingredients. There are contributions and recipes from a diverse range of teachers at the school. It's a treasure for those who love real food.
In our own backyard, the South Pacific, New Zealand-born international chef Robert Oliver is campaigning for fresh, local, healthy and sustainable food to be served on Pacific Islands to tourists instead of imported international food.
It means developing the agriculture which declined as locals turned to unhealthy imported products like canned corned beef or frozen lamb flap. Author of the prize-winning Me'a Kai (2010), he has now brought out Mea'ai Samoa: Recipes and Stories from the heart of Polynesia (Godwit), with Dr Tracy Berno and photographer Shiri Ram.
Here he narrows his focus to Samoa, looking at traditional cuisines, the provenance of the ingredients, and recipes from small villages to modern takes by chefs in the towns, and even Samoans in New Zealand.
This is vibrant and colourful, with Ram's glorious photographs of food, people and scenery and aims not only to entice readers, cooks and visitors, but also to empower the locals, whether producers, chefs , tourism operators or government officials.
