pregnancy

The cookbook every pregnant woman and her partner needs to know about.

There are a lot of rules when you’re pregnant. Give up the booze. Hands off the soft cheese and salami. And for the love of god, don’t even try to fit into your old faithful jeans. It’s not a lot of fun, is it?

Well there is one shining beacon of hope for women who are up the duff, cranky and bloated up the wazoo.

Former Masterchef Aaron Harvie’s glorious cookbook: The House Husbands’ Guide.

Listen: Aaron shares what inspired him to write the book on the latest episode of This Glorious Mess.

The book is an anthology of recipes that dads-to-be can cook for their pregnant wives.

Harvie says he was inspired to write it when he saw “the look of terror on my wife’s face when she figured out just how much food she had to eat every day… and what she couldn’t eat.”

Fortunately, being married to a chef, she wasn’t going to go hungry anytime soon. The reality TV chef went above and beyond, not only coming up with an arsenal of yummy dishes but compiling them in a cookbook that hands down earns him Husband of the Year.

But if you’re expecting it to be filled with foul concoctions to fulfil the most bizarre pregnancy cravings, you’ll be relieved to find there are no orange juice omelettes or pickle flavoured ice cream recipes to be found.

Instead, it’s a round-up of the most mouthwatering creations that tick all the boxes – they’re pregnancy-safe, nutritious and genuinely delicious. You’ll be adding them to your repertoire long after your baby has grown up.

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Seriously, how good does this fig salad look!? Image: A House Husbands' Guide, New Holland Publishers.

"At the end of each chapter I've put in a cravings section which is some naughty little treats you can have, because you can't be good all the time," he says.

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So desserts aren't off limits. Phew!

And if you're thinking, 'that's nice, but my husband couldn't even nail baked beans without setting fire to the kitchen,' fear not. Harvie says the recipes are fool-proof (i.e. husband proof) and not just for chefs like him.

It's "the fear of the kitchen" that stops men from cooking, according to Harvey. So the book aims to take some of that intimidation away and making cooking accessible to even the biggest Deliveroo devotees.

But the best part of both pregnancy and the book is undoubtedly the ending - when the baby is out and all the rules finally fly out the window. Hellooooo brie!

The new dad included a section of hospital foods that his wife could gorge herself on guilt-free.

"I snuck out and made her a spaghetti carbonara with an egg-based sauce and brought it into the hospital so she had something to break that diet in a major way," he says.

If you want to earn some brownie points with the pregnant woman in your life, you can buy Aaron Harvie's cookbook here.

Listen to the full episode of This Glorious Mess here:

Go to iBooks at apple.co/mamamia, where you can also subscribe to all our other shows in one place.