The Independent has published its run-down of the 50 best cookery books, and there are some notable examples of interest to self-sufficientists.

Like Margeurite Pattern’s The Basic Basics: Jams, Preserves and Chutneys, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Family Cookbook, which aims to get not only parents but also kids busy in the kitchen, and Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life, in which the TV uber-chef jumps on the grow your own bandwagon and shows you what to do with your home-grown produce.

But the one thing we like even better than a cookbook that shows you what to do with the produce you have gathered or grown yourself, is a cookbook that costs you nothing to read.

The UK government has decreed that all schools have to start teaching kids how to cook, and to help it’s produced a free book of 50 everyday recipes, including a Blagger favourite, mushroom risotto.

All 50 recipes can be downloaded, for free, from the Teachernet website, even if you have no connection with the world of education at all.

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