When the seasons change, my cooking shifts too. In the spring for example, this means lighter cravings, fresh produce returning to the market, and a stack of cookbooks back in rotation. Not coincidentally, seasonal cookbooks tend to have a strong focus on vegetables and fruit, which makes most of them vegetarian too. In this blog I share 3 seasonal cookbooks plus 3 recipes we loved!
The Modern Cook’s Year by Anna Jones
This is wonderfull seasonal cookbook from Anna Jones. She divides the year into six seasons rather than four. Perfect for spring, since she has no fewer than three spring-ish chapters: Start of the Year, Herald of Spring and First Warm Days. Each seasonal chapter also includes sweet recipes for baking and desserts. And as you’d expect from Anna Jones, the book is full of extra tips, flavour maps and little guides scattered throughout.
Easter Egg and Spring Veg Tart
- A perfect brunch dish for Easter and Mothers Day too!
- There’s loads of secret flavour in the mustard creme fraiche cream below the vegetables.
- Double podding the broad beans is the only slightly laborious task in this recipe.
Also read this review of Anna Jones’ cookbook Easy Wins
6 Seasons by Joshua McFadden
This was, to my knowledge, one of the first cookbooks to introduce the concept of six seasons. Rather than splitting spring into three chapters as Anna Jones does, American chef, farmer and cookbook author Joshua McFadden divides summer: Early Summer, Midsummer and Late Summer. What makes this book particularly wonderful is that within each season, recipes are organised by vegetable. So spring for example has mini-chapters on asparagus, peas and radishes. The variety is enormous, and it’s the kind of book you genuinely never ‘finish’.
Beet Avocado Salad
- The colours jump off your plate, a stunning side dish!
- Oven roasting the beets and pan roasting the sunflower seeds is the only real work in this recipe.
- I only wish I had peeled the beets before roasting them: contrary to the recipe but that way peeling seems much easier.
Greenfeast Spring Summer by Nigel Slater
You may know Nigel Slater from his kitchen diaries – three hefty volumes that follow the year and the seasons, written in prose so beautiful it reads like poetry. His Greenfeast cookbook duo distills that spirit into something more compact. There’s an Autumn and Winter volume and a volume on Spring and Summer, so there’s plenty to cook from as the weather changes. Rather than organising by season, the chapters are structured by how you eat or cook: In a Bowl, In the Hand, In the Morning, On the Grill and so on. Most recipes can be on the table in 30 minutes, each with suggested variations. Typically Nigel: easy recipes for real people.
Peppers Olive Feta
- These will brighten up every meal, picnic or pot luck!
- A super simple variation on stuffed vegetables, that are usually much more work.
- Stuffed with super accessible ingredients: cherry tomatoes, olives, feta cheese and pesto (use store bought for an extra short cut).
More seasonal cookbooks
- Diana Henry – A change of appetite. See a short review here. It’s organised by season and each seasonal chapter comes with suggested dinner party menus.
- Gill Meller – Time: A Year and a Day in the Kitchen. Recipes move through the course of the day ánd the seasons.
- Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – The River Cottage Year. One of the earlier books to champion seasonal, local eating in the UK.
- Also by Joshua McFadden – Grains for Every Season. It applies the same seasonal logic to grains rather than vegetables.
