We were lucky to have a visit from popular foodie, home cook and baker Vanya Insull to share with us her new cookbook, Always Delicious. You may know Vanya from her popular food Instagram and website, VJ Cooks, she's definitely been one of my go-to's for a tasty quick recipe.
Always Delicious is Vanya's fourth cookbook and this one is packed with all sorts of yummy recipes. Her cookbook covers everything from light bites, salads and dinner options as well as desserts and sweet treats! There is even a barbecue section which is perfect timing heading into the summer season as well as delicious looking fresh summer cocktails. I love how each chapter begins with a photograph of each recipe to expect which makes it super easy when deciding what to cook. The book also comes with two ribbons which is handy when planning out meals.
As a teaser, Vanya brought in some of her delicious Mars Bar slice (on page 134), it was amazing and the recipe is super easy. She walked around sharing the slice with our team while answering some of our quickfire questions!
Quickfire Questions with Vanya Insull
- Sweet or savoury? Sweet
- Tea or coffee? Tea
- What do you bring when someone says, “Just bring a plate”? I'd maybe bring like a pasta or a really nice salad. There's quite a few nice salads in the book. Maybe like a roast cauliflower and beetroot salad. Bring like a dessert like a cheesecake or something like that because you can make it ahead and then everyone's impressed.
- What are you reading at the moment? I am reading Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty and I'm also listening to Chris Hammer's audio book, Full Circle.
- What is your favourite thing to bake on a rainy day? I love cookies so like a warm chocolate chip cookie you can't go wrong.
- What is your most used kitchen gadget? I've got a really good lemon squeezer that squeezes them really flat from Dream Farm, that's probably one of my favourites I'd say. Then I love my spatula from Dream Farm as well.
- What is your most loved cookbook? My most loved cookbook would be the one that my mum made for me from all our family recipes for my 21st birthday which kind of got me into cooking. She wrote down all her recipes and then got our friends and family to put them into the cookbook as well.
- What's your mum's favourite dish to make? She likes Snicker Doodles which is an American style cookie and those are on my website.
- Where's your favourite place to eat in Taupo? We've got really good food trucks, Motcha is a great food truck. Also, the Pink Taco is a yummy Mexican one and then I quite like Lionel's for like casual eating.
While giving Vanya a warehouse tour she quickly spotted the amazing range of puzzles that we have in-stock. She is a keen puzzler and was already picking out her favourite puzzle brands as well as discovering some new ones she hadn't tried before. To say thank you, we gifted her one of our beautiful puzzles from our Reverie puzzle range which we could all tell she had her eye on!
Huge thanks to Vanya for visiting Book Hero and also to Allen & Unwin for organising her visit, order your copy of Always Delicious now for easy, yummy summer recipes!