Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen: Delicious, Feelgood Home Cooking From the Sunshine Islands Hardcover – August 1, 2019

Heads up, written with metric and Imperial measurements. So many tasty Caribbean dishes. I'm quickly making my way through the book. Bonus that he has Jamaican roots. You should watch the show too!

With no summer to speak of and a blink-and-you-missed-it fall, I was excited to dip into this book from “the sunshine islands”! We started with Jamaican Beef Patties, a kind of meat turnover that is absolutely delicious!! I have a weird skin thing with hot peppers (I cannot prep fresh peppers without my skin burning for HOURS!), so we left the scotch bonnet out. They were still quite delicious! If you like hot peppers, this cookbook is definitely for you!! A large portion of the recipes all for some kind–and occasionally multiple kinds–of hot peppers.We had some bananas that needed to be used up, so we made the Sunshine Banana Bread next. I like the mixed spice and addition of a little coconut. It added a little something different to the bread. It is quite delicious!!There is a lovely mix of recipes in this cookbook alongside gorgeous photography that makes you want to book the next flight out! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am happy to recommend it.I received this book from Trafalgar Square Publishing through IPG for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have fallen in love with the pasties in this book ! Soooo deliciousPlease take a moment to push the helpful button and make my time typing up and reviewing worthwhile 🥰

As someone who has quite a few Caribbean cookbooks and grew up with cooking from 2 Jamaican parents. I consider myself quite knowledgeable. This book is the most unique cookbook i own on caribbean cooking and its more in line with "Caribbean Modern" by Shivi Ramoutar than it is with Levi Roots array of cookbooks or "The Pepperpot Club" by Jonathan Phang or "Original Flava" by the McAnuff brothers (Although that last one is a wonderful halfway house). This books uses Caribbean flavours (and not just Jamaican) to reinvent a host of dishes youve had before. Its a fantastic accompaniment to the TV series that aired and a fantastic book if you want to prepare caribbean flavours at a dinner party. It proves you can make flavour look posh. A worthwhile addition.

This book is beautifully illustrated, well written and contains a wide range of recipes to suit all tastes. Every course you will need for a great dinner or mix and match for a buffet meal. The drinks section is brilliant, including non-alcoholic ones too and you can also bake some nice cakes/sweets to enjoy with a nice cup of tea. It's different and unusual but the recipes are not complicated and don't have difficult to source ingredients. A beginner cook could find recipes here and so too could the expert. It is by far the best cookbook for 2019 and beyond.

=================Why did I buy this=================I saw a snippet of Ainsley's show on tv where he made the buttermilk chicken burgers and I was trying to find the recipe for it online somewhere but never could. I then found this book online which was based off of meals he made in the show so I figured I would get it and see what else there was that was worth making.=================My initial thoughts=================There's a lot of recipes, like a lot alot. There's a good variety of things ranging from vegetarian to meat and even desserts! The thing most important for me was the buttermilk recipe that I wanted from the beginning and which was the main reason I got this book - note, burgers were delicious, a lot of work though!=================My thoughts now=================The reason I'm marking this down is because I don't drink alcohol of any sort and I found that there were a number of recipes in the book which contained some sort of alcohol as its main ingredient. Now one could say that I could've left that ingredient out but then it feels like a recipe that's half complete. I would've just personally liked more options where alcohol wasn't involved. I also felt the vegetarian section was a bit lackluster. The rest of the sections had actual meals to eat but it seems most of the veg section were just snacks. I managed to find at most like 3-4 recipes that I genuinely liked the look of and tried.=================Conclusion=================In conclusion, I don't think this book is for me. I'm sure all of the recipes or most of them would be great for someone who loves alcohol but it's not for me sadly. Also more intriguing veg options would be a plus as well as more generic options where possible that included ingredients you could mostly find in your local Tesco. Ainsley is a great chef and the recipes I did try turned out yummy, I just think I'll try and do more research on the recipes before I commit to the book.

I enjoyed the television programme and so wanted to see the caribbean sea again. The programme and book inspired me to visit Antigua. It truly a beautiful place. The people are wonderful and the food is fantastic. Thank you Ainsley Harriott - in my opinion one the best Caribbean cookbooks released. Well presented, well delivered and a positive outlook on the whole caribbean region.