my favourite cookbooks: a gift guide

This is just one section dedicated to cookbooks in my home….

I thought this would be a useful post to do this time of year, as a good cookbook always makes a wonderful gift for the foodie in your life.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that cookbooks are something I adore and devour as enthusiastically as I do food itself. I have found myself revisiting a lot of my favourite food writers throughout 2020. Dystopian fiction was quickly put away in favour of the poetic prose of Nigella Lawson or Nigel Slater, their words conjuring the homely festive spices of gingerbread and fruit cake, the yeasty smell of bread rising, or the sight of a gloriously golden cheesy crust on a pie. It was the perfect escapism for much of this crazy year.

Every now and then I will tire of my usual dinner repertoire (if you’ve been following my 2020 Dinners stories on Instagram, you’ll know what I mean!) and want to try a few new things. I scan my shelves quickly and pull down whichever volumes look most appealing, and sit myself down with a cup of coffee, a pile of cookbooks and a notepad and pen to hand to meal plan and pick new recipes to try. It’s my idea of bliss.

While I love reading about food, I find myself in the bizarre situation of rarely making the actual recipes of some of my favourite food writers (the two aforementioned Ns being an example). So when cookbooks come along that I both enjoy reading AND end up cooking from, that makes for a very impressed Phil indeed.

So, these are the cookbooks I have loved reading and have cooked from the most in 2020, and some of the recipes have become absolute staples in our house that I now cannot imagine life without. Some of them were released this year or last year, others are a couple of years old. But they’re all fabulous!

Family by Hetty McKinnon

I think this is probably my most-used cookbook of the year. Without fail, every recipe I’ve tried has been astonishingly good. I keep a vegetarian home and so it was to my great delight that I discovered all of Hetty’s recipes are meat-free. After trying a few of the recipes in the pasta section, I decided I would make it my mission to try every pasta recipe in the book. Achievement unlocked! And they are all magnificent. If you’re a confident home cook who enjoys hearty and healthy vegetable-based meals, you will fall in love with this cookbook and its great ideas without a doubt!

Hetty has a new book out this year - To Asia With Love - which may be, I have on good authority, waiting under the Christmas tree for me…

My favourite recipe: I have loved them all but it is a tie between the One-Pan Sweet Potato Mac and Cheese on page 149 (great weeknight meal) and the Pasta with Miso Brown Butter Sauce (special occasion meal) on page 129. Just get this book, you won’t regret it!

Green by Elly Pear

I own all of Elly Pear’s books but I think this one is her best yet, by far. She writes imaginative, healthy vegetarian and vegan recipes which are bursting with flavour and surprises, but that are achievable in your likely limited kitchen around a busy life. She has ideas for weeknights and meals you can freeze, as well as weekend recipes where you might have a little more time to potter around the kitchen and make something delicious. She sounds like a cook after my own heart - she abhors waste and shows you how to use everything up and repurpose leftovers. But her food is also a celebration of seasonality, flavour and very creative too.

My favourite recipe: The Pumpkin Gnocchi with Brown Herb Butter and Kale Almond Pesto (p.30-35). I was surprised by how easy it was! I hate faff as you all know, but this was so quick and easy, and quite meditative to put together. I felt like a real pro seeing the trays of gnocchi laid out and ready for the pan. And it looked and tasted like something I’d order in a restaurant!

A Basket By The Door by Sophie Hansen

I don’t remember how I came across this book. I think a few people I follow on Instagram mentioned making Sophie’s passata during the first week of autumn - a golden time really, before everything changed. I found this book such a comforting read during the rest of autumn when Hobart was in its version of lockdown and we went days without leaving the house at times. I had an abundant garden with produce to use, and it was a great way to show family and friends I cared during that time - we couldn’t visit but I could leave a jar of apple butter on the doorstep with a note. I ended up getting another copy for Mum for Mother’s Day, I loved it that much and found myself taking it to bed with me most nights. The idea of making preserves, pies, cordials, biscuits and comforting food was deeply reassuring and prevented too many sleepless nights.

This is not a vegetarian cookbook but there are plenty of meat-free recipes and many of the meaty recipes are easily adaptable.

My favourite recipe: the Olive and Walnut Pesto (p.159) is magic - it tastes so rich and delicious and I’ve found many uses for it. The Apple Butter (p.198) was also made many times with windfall apples left on my doorstep by my parents. It’s heavenly stirred into thick Greek yoghurt for breakfast and I am already looking forward to autumn and making it again!

Deliciously Ella Quick and Easy, Deliciously Ella: The Plant-Based Cookbook and Deliciously Ella with Friends all by Ella Mills

I am hard-pressed to say which of these books is my favourite because I cook from them all quite regularly - or have certainly got some new ideas from them which I’ve then adapted to my own tastes - so I heartily recommend all three to you!

I am not new to plant-based eating as you know and it is rare to find vegan cookbooks that have new and interesting ideas and recipes rather than the same old things that get trotted out time and time again. All of these books have excellent recipes and ideas for delicious vegan (and in many cases gluten-free) cooking. The latest one, Quick and Easy, also features wisdom from the DE podcast, which I also highly recommend and enjoy on the regular.

My favourite recipe: from DE with Friends it would have to be the Garlicky Black Beans (p.190), I make that ALL the time and it’s fabulous either as a wrap filling, a baked potato topping or just with steamed rice. From The Plant-Based Cookbook, the Apple and Banana Spelt Muffins (p.47) get made pretty regularly around here. And from Quick and Easy, the Spanish-Style Rice (p.241) and the Spinach and Chickpea Curry (p.154) have had rave reviews and gone down a treat.

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi

This is Yotam Ottolenghi’s second cookbook and it came out in 2010 - so not a new cookbook, but personally I think it’s his best and it’s my favourite of all his books. Anyone who loves food and cooking will be familiar with his work, and his innovative, original flavours and ways of making vegetables absolutely shine. If you love vegetables, cheese, spices, fresh herbs and a bit of a kick - be it from lemon, chilli or both - this is the book for you!

My favourite recipe: Where do I start? It would be a tie between the Spicy Moroccan Carrot Salad (p.14) which I have made countless times and am still not sick of; and the Caramelised Garlic Tart (p.38) which I made for Christmas lunch a few years ago and will be making again this year!

Special Guest by Annabel Crabb and Wendy Sharpe

What a treat this book is! When we first moved back to Australia, I borrowed it from the library and once I started leafing my way through it, I knew I was going to have to buy my own copy, or risk getting splatters all over the library copy (poor library etiquette of the highest order right there).

As the name suggests, these recipes (all pescetarian or vegetarian - and also very mindful of other dietary requirements like kosher or halal) are ideal for entertaining and parties, and for occasions when you’re going to a party and need to bring something that will be a crowd-pleaser. I’ve loved everything I’ve tried and while there’s not been much entertaining at our home this year (obviously) I am hopeful of a summer where we can have special guests around once more.

My favourite recipe: While my family have loved (and have requested again this Christmas) the Salted Caramel Crack (p.198), my favourite recipe from this book is the Fennel, Walnut and Sundried Tomato Pappardelle (p.49). Absolutely exquisite! I feel like making it RIGHT NOW. Probably wasn’t a good idea to start writing this blog post at dinner time….

What are your favourite, most-used cookbooks? I’d love to hear your recommendations!

deep breaths

I’m not usually awake before the alarm (or Tom) but I was today. I left my phone where it was, charging in my study.

I went straight outside to my garden and meditated, without the app, without the timer. Deep breaths.

I did my morning pages. Had a coffee and watered the garden. Marvelled at the new leaves and pods that two days of heat has produced in my garden. No podcast, no music, no distractions. Just the relative peace of my street waking up for the day. Birds cackling to themselves in the trees. Deep breaths.

I just wanted to savour whatever window of time I could snatch where I didn’t know what had happened and anything could still be possible.

I think I’d like to start every day like this. Only without the gut-churning anxiety!

Sending a huge hug to everyone who needs one today.

seeds of spring

It is officially spring here now, which means it’s time to start planting my garden again!

Over the last 18 months I’ve had to relearn Tasmanian seasons, soils and planting calendars - it shouldn’t have surprised me that crops I had great success with in London were not as good here but, equally, things that failed miserably in London grow beautifully here! In London with only a little garden, I found I didn’t have to be as methodical or organised. Here, I have to study the sun, prepare soil and get things in the ground within a certain window of time if they’re going to reach their full potential.

Growing things has become a great passion of mine. Books take years to come to fruition, but gardening can give you gratifying results from your efforts in mere months. Though, of course, you have to play the long game with gardening as well. The very act reminds me that if I plant seeds and tend them with care, the end result can be something to be very proud of.

But equally, sometimes things won’t go to plan, despite all your careful planning and reading and tending. Perhaps the weather will be bad or the caterpillars will swarm in biblical proportions over your kale and cabbages, and there won’t be much you can do about it but learn from it and try again.

When I was a child I never used to understand why my parents were such keen gardeners but I do now. It’s meditative, it’s physical (so important when you spend so much time in your head and/or sitting down), it’s rewarding, and you’re creating something beautiful.

Most of all, gardening has taught me so much about life. That it’s better when you work in harmony with nature. That you can plan and invest time, money and energy in having a garden that makes you proud and happy, and should luck be on your side, fantastic. But ultimately, you have to relinquish control and let things be what they are.

When the Stay At Home order was in full force here in March, April and May, it was deeply comforting to be able to walk a few metres outside to my garden and pick vegetables for our meals rather than have to face the supermarket. COVID or no COVID, there’s nothing better than creating a meal where all the ingredients have been grown by your own hand.

I am looking forward to an abundant spring, summer and autumn, regardless of what’s going on outside of my own backyard!

a little nostalgia

I realised this morning that today was the day back in 2005 that I created a blogger account, selected this cutesy pink colour scheme and wrote my first ever blog post. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. That small action changed my life forever, in numerous ways.

And that means I have now been writing online for fifteen years!

I deleted my first blog a long, long time ago - but this morning I put the URL into an internet “time machine” to see if it brought it up … and it did (see screenshot above). Let that sink in, even if you deleted your website in 2007, it’s very likely that bots have crawled it and it’s saved somewhere!! Gosh, hasn’t web design come a long way since then? My first template was an SEO nightmare!

It’s really quite mind-blowing how much life has changed since that day. The 24-year-old girl who started that blog in 2005 was blissfully naive and had no idea what was coming, how hard her crash landing would be, how much courage she really had, and all the amazing experiences and people that were waiting for her.

But as she began to write and bare her soul to the world through this tiny little corner of the internet, somehow she could feel the reassuring hand of her future self on her shoulder.

eavan boland: the lost art of letter writing

Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay 

THE LOST ART OF LETTER WRITING

The ratio of daylight to handwriting
Was the same as lacemaking to eyesight.
The paper was so thin it skinned air.

The hand was fire and the page tinder.
Everything burned away except the one
Place they singled out between fingers

Held over a letter pad they set aside
For the long evenings of their leave-takings,
Always asking after what they kept losing,

Always performing—even when a shadow
Fell across the page and they knew the answer
Was not forthcoming—the same action:

First the leaning down, the pen becoming
A staff to walk fields with as they vanished
Underfoot into memory. Then the letting up,

The lighter stroke, which brought back
Cranesbill and thistle, a bicycle wheel
Rusting: an iron circle hurting the grass

Again and the hedges veiled in hawthorn
Again just in time for the May Novenas
Recited in sweet air on a road leading

To another road, then another one, widening
To a motorway with four lanes, ending in
A new town on the edge of a city

They will never see. And if we say
An art is lost when it no longer knows
How to teach a sorrow to speak, come, see

The way we lost it: stacking letters in the attic,
Going downstairs so as not to listen to
The fields stirring at night as they became

Memory and in the morning as they became
Ink; what we did so as not to hear them
Whispering the only question they knew

By heart, the only one they learned from all
Those epistles of air and unreachable distance,
How to ask: is it still there?

- Eavan Boland