About Beyond Baked Beans

The first Beyond Baked Beans book was published 4 years ago in response to my feeling that students were no longer eating the kind of food that you found in the average student cookbook. At least our kids weren't. Like most of their contemporaries they'd travelled a fair bit and eaten out at a variety of different kinds of restaurants so the idea of smothering a can of tuna with a tin of mushroom soup and sprinkling a few smashed up crisps on top didn't really appeal.

The book did far better than we ever could have imagined so was quickly followed by a vegetarian version (Beyond Baked Beans Green) and last year, in response to the feedback we'd been getting that many students cooked just for themselves, by Beyond Baked Beans Budget.

From the early days we also had a website which enabled me to highlight recipes that were based on produce that was in season but it wasn't economic to update it as regularly as I'd have liked so this year we finally decided it was time for a relaunch. And here it is!

New features you'll find on the site include Beginners' Basics (from how to boil an egg to how to stop your rice going soggy), a section on cutting your food (and other) bills and an expanded health section. There will also be more info about specific ingredients and prices that you simply can't put into a book because the information would rapidly become out of date (but not as many recipes - you'll still need to buy the books for those!)

We hope the new site will be useful not only to students but others of you who have recently left home or who are struggling to make ends meet. If you'd like to contribute tips and recipes we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime here's a little bit about us:


Fiona Beckett
Fiona has been a student (twice) and has also been on the receiving end of endless calls from her 4 children - which still go on now - about how to cook everthing from mushrooms in a microwave to a Sunday roast. She’s also an award-winning journalist and cookery writer who has written for most of the national press from the People to the Guardian and is currently contributing editor to the wine magazine Decanter. Apart from the Beyond Baked Beans titles she has written 14 other books including The Healthy Lunchbox,  Sausage and Mash and Meat and Two Veg. She also runs a website about matching food and wine called - appropriately enough - matchingfoodandwine.com



Kerry Torrens
Keeping us all on the straight and narrow is Kerry Torrens, a qualified Nutritional Therapist who studied at The Institute for Optimum Nutrition, one of the UK's foremost nutritional institutions. She is currently continuing her research with a Masters degree at Middlesex University.
Kerry runs a private practice www.foodlinkfirst.com in Surrey and Hampshire and works with clients of all ages, providing one to one nutrition consultations and advice on a wide range of health issues. She has a special interest in the diet and nutrition of children and young people and is an active representative within the Food for the Brain Schools Campaign.


Helen Barker-Benfield
Our former competitions and freebie supremo Helen freely admits she's on a budget currently herself having taken a time off to have her first baby Eva. She works regularly for food magazines such as BBC Good Food and Olive and will be keeping us posted on the bargains she spots and, we hope, contributing the occasional recipe if we can twist her arm.


Absolute Press
My lovely, long-suffering Bath-based publishers. One of the few who let authors write the kind of books they want to write. AND their designer is a fellow Liverpool fan.