Small Pleasures

"Ryan Riley's recipes deliver bold flavour and deep comfort: this is a book that nourishes both body and soul." - Nigella Lawson

Whether you're recovering from an illness, or running low on mood, time, energy, money or headspace, Ryan Riley has the easy and delicious recipes to minimise the work and maximise the flavour and perk yourself up.

No matter how you're feeling, do something enjoyable for yourself and beat the January blues with Ryan Riley's small pleasures: simple, delicious bites packed full of Life Kitchen's signature flavours to revive your love of food. These are recipes high in flavour for low times, to nourish and heal, with the added bonus of using ingredients that are naturally gut-friendly.

This is Ryan's manifesto to feeling better and falling back in love with food: first you have recipes for comfort, for when eating is a chore but these recipes are the first steps in the roadmap to feeling more yourself; then comes restoration, with recipes to reawaken your senses; and the final chapter, pleasure, is all about indulgence, a love letter to yourself as you return to the world.

Take some time for self-care in the kitchen with these simple and surprising recipes – new favourites that you didn't know you were searching for. These are can-do recipes for when you feel like you can't. From marmite jacket potatoes or 5-ingredient miso tomato sauce to green herbs and 'nduja frittata and gochujang, ginger and avocado toast, the 80+ simple recipes are all easily scalable, so no matter your mood or appetite, there is something in these pages to help you rediscover the joy of food. These are small pleasures with big flavours.

Ryan Riley is the founder of Life Kitchen, which immediately gained support from the public, press and ce­lebrities nationally, and he has gone on to run his signature cookery classes for people living with cancer across the country – including collaborations at River Cottage, Daylesford and the Jamie Oliver Cookery School. He is also an established food writer and stylist who has worked for print publications such as Sainsbury's Magazine, Waitrose Food and BBC Good Food. In 2019, Ryan opened the Life Kitchen Cookery School in his home town of Sunderland. In 2020 he published his first cookbook, Life Kitchen, and Small Pleasures followed in 2024.

@lifekitchen / @ryanrileyy