The Cyclist’s Cookbook – Food To Power Your Cycling Life by Nigel Mitchell

In the introduction to his book, The Cyclist's Cookbook: Food To Power Your Cycling Life, Nigel Mitchell says, 'It's more a book for cyclists who love food', which I think sums it up perfectly. Since starting to review the book it has been by my side in the kitchen and when planning my weekly food shop, which speaks volumes. Each of the recipes is presented in a simple, clean format, they're easy to follow, and generally based on a small number of ingredients.

It isn't a pure performance cookbook, but it isn't presented as such. Not that it is full of junk food – far from it – but it hits the right balance of performance and simple recipes that are tasty and adaptable, that I have been coming back to over and over. I reckon it's bang on for the majority of us amateur cyclists.

> Buy this online here

The book offers a good mixture of Nigel's background, the recipes themselves, nutritional advice and anecdotes. It contains 67 recipes spread across seven different sections, including breakfast, on-the-bike food and main meals. One little niggle is that I found the book hard to keep open on the right page while cooking – it would close very easily when left to its own devices.

The recipes are generally presented on one page, and use the same easy-to-follow format. The right hand side includes some summary information (difficulty, ingredients, nutrition) and the left hand side an introduction to the recipe and the recipe itself. And the photographs of the food are enough to make an instagrammer proud. Another small niggle – it would have been nice to have the total time it takes to make the recipe included in the summary.

I've made my way through quite a few of the recipes, and there are a few I have come back to numerous times. The homemade granola, the super porridge, the rice pudding (thanks Nigel for making it okay to eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner), the Canarian potatoes combined with mojo sauce, the flapjacks, the recovery shake, the tomato sauce, the pizzoccheri and the porceddu. That's quite a few, now that I write them down, but the family isn't complaining, and it's still tasting awesome.

> How to eat right for sportives and long rides

A word of warning for anyone making the energy balls: while pureeing the ingredients for these I smelt a faint burning and thought it must just be my legs from an earlier interval session. Turns out dates are pretty tough to blend and my handblender spluttered and gave up. Use proper equipment, don't destroy a handblender like I did!

The recipes that have made it to the book feel well selected, and I really appreciated that it doesn't appear to be bloated with filler meals, which makes browsing the book and choosing what to cook much, much easier. I did notice that a few of the page references were a page or two out – slightly annoying but it didn't detract from the book for me.

> Fuelling for epic rides — how to get the right food to keep your energy levels up and avoid the dreaded bonk

Each recipe is graded by difficulty, from 1 being the easiest to 5 being the hardest. Difficulty is relative, but I didn't find any of the recipes in this book arduous or overly time-consuming. Which is perfect for a time-crunched cyclist: simple, quick and nutritious food.

Verdict

Simple, tasty, nutritious recipes – my new kitchen best friend