Hungry Healthy Happy by Dannii Martin

Jacqui Small
Photography by Jacqui Melville
RRP £20

Who is it for?

If you’re wanting to clean up your diet but don’t fancy subscribing to a miserable regime of tasteless calorie-counted ready meals and shakes. In other words it’s for people who love food and cooking but need to lose weight!

Dannii’s aim is to share recipes for the kind of food she loves like delicious desserts, pasta dishes and curries, but with a healthy spin. That way if you’re trying to lose weight, the key is that you don’t feel like you’re depriving yourself.

Easy to follow?

Dannii’s put together a well laid out book which starts with her own inspiring weight-loss story, then continues with the principles of losing weight and exercise. She also explains how you don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy foods and sets you up with her store cupboard essentials along with a fortnight’s worth of meal planning to get things started. It’s the ideal book to curl up with at the weekend to inspire the start of a week of healthy eating.

The recipes chapters are very straightforward and divided into everything you’ll need: Breakfasts, Snacks and Treats, Light Meals and Lunches, Hearty Main Meals, Side Dishes, Desserts and Drinks.

The layout of the recipes themselves are clear and unfussy, not too many ingredients and simple instructions. As you would expect from a healthy eating recipe book, there’s a nutritional breakdown per serving clearly laid out on each recipe page.

Photography/Styling:

Diet food can often look sparse and unappealing, but the stylist and photographer have done a fabulous job of brining Dannii’s recipes to life in a colourful and inviting way. Natural light and simple backgrounds let the dishes really sing out from those pages.

Most likely to cook…

I really want to try and make Dannii’s home made Chocolate and Hazelnut Spread so I can stop buying Nutella which is full of destructive palm oil and way too much sugar.

The Quinoa Bean Burger looks fresh and satisfying and perfect fodder for my vegetarian husband.

Roasted Lemon and Garlic Asparagus would be the perfect side dish for a Spring barbecue.

I love the idea of forfeiting a calorie-laden takeaway for Dannii’s glorious looking Sweet and Sour King Prawns.

Healthy Noodle Pots are Dannii’s spin on the student classic and are ideal for a speedy lunch when i’m working from home during the week.

Least likely to cook…

I’m just not sold on the whole spiralizer thing… so i’d swerve the Spaghetti Bolognese with Courgetti. I’m happy to have pasta, just less of it!

Would you buy it for a friend?

Well you’re always on dodgy ground buying your friend a cookbook aimed at losing weight, but i’d certainly recommend it to anyone who’s wanting to shed some pounds without having to sign up to an expensive subscription service.

Rating out of 10:

I’m giving Dannii a 9 for this brilliant book. It’s wonderful to see a collection of inspiring healthy recipes that are achievable, affordable and genuinely tempting.

Courgette Fritters from Dannii Martin's book Hungry Healthy Happy, photography by Jacqui Melville. Published by Jacqui Small (£20).