Anyone waiting for the last minute to finish their holiday gift shopping still has time to pick up the ideal gift that will not give the recipient any clue it was an afterthought. Nigella Lawson’s newest cookbook Nigella Christmas is part cookbook and part coffee table art book that delivers the simple, warm, satisfying and user-friendly recipes that have made her such a culinary success.

The cookbook is comprehensive, providing recipes for soups, salads, stress-free suppers, and desserts. For the main event on Christmas Eve or Day, there is an hour-by-hour account of the tasks that should be completed throughout the day to prepare and present the perfect meal. There is a planned menu for a traditional Christmas lunch menu for 10 to16 guests, which includes among other things spiced turkey, redder than red cranberry sauce, and gingerbread stuffing. The perfect roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, and butternut orzotto are a few other recipes included in this feast.

Although the book obviously has a Christmas theme, the spotlight is actually shared by other themes of food, family, friends and festivities. The aromatic Christmas ham might not make it ways onto your table outside of the holiday season, but there is certainly no reason the majority of the other recipes cannot be used throughout the year. For example, the tortilla soup or choc chip chili certainly have the potential to warm up any cold winter day.

A holiday cookbook would not be complete without a selection of celebratory cocktails, a number of which are presented here. The hot honeyed vodka and mulled cider will certainly top off a festive evening, and the good news is that there are even recipes for Cuban Cure Black Bean Soup and “Jewish penicillin” - which, Nigella claims, provide hangover relief.

Now is the perfect to time to greet the holiday with Nigella Christmas and keep this cookbook on your shelf well after the gifts have been opened and your family and friends have retreated back to their homes.