While some writers pack every last page of their books with recipes and twee little pictures of their flour-dusted kitchens, I prefer my cookbooks to spend the first ten or twenty pages hitting me with some solid information. Store cupboard essentials for their style of cooking, different varieties and properties of noodles . . . I'm not fussy, really, I just like more insight into the writer and their recipes than some pictures of laughing models eating poached eggs. In Good Better Green Zita Steyn does me proud, running through her so-called 'green champions' in great detail and including flavour profiles for various herbs and vegetables – perfect if you're coming to the book with the best of intentions but rather limited knowledge of aquatic greens and unusual brassicas. The concept of the book is a simple one: to encourage the reader to introduce more greens into their diet. There are plenty of handy sauces and dips to try (what better way of getting more nutrients into your diet than as a tasty accompaniment to a larger meal?), tempting, vibrant salads and some baking ideas – cabbage cake, anyone? – which are bound to prove a talking point.

José Pizarro is known as the man who keeps Londoners fed with some of the finest Spanish food in the capital in his small empire of consistently excellent tapas bars and restaurants. In his third book, Basque, Pizarro transports us all to Spain, with a colourful collection of recipes focussed predominantly on the Basque region and San Sebastián, its foodie capital. Beautifully designed, shot and laid out with photos of local landscapes and people sandwiched between enticing pictures of dishes and ingredients, while dishes such as Pork chops with white bean purée and Spinach, blue cheese and pine nut empanadas bring the delights of the region to the reader Pizarro does not hide his other intention, of coaxing the reader to Spain to try it for themselves, too.