Meat-Free May with Anna Jones “Easy Wins” In the Cookbook club

It’s going to be easy to add a punch of vegetarian flavours to your cooking during meat-free May with Anna Jones “Easy wins” this month in the cookbook club.

It’s May Day today, and that means the start of a new cookbook month in the Lambs’ Ears Cookbook Club. With this month’s cookbook, Easy Wins by Anna Jones, we will be sharing a meat-free May, delivering on suggestions for more vegetarian cookbooks in my Facebook post of a few months back – don’t say I never listen to you! 

I first came across Anna Jones’ work 10 years ago when I reviewed her book A Modern Way to Eat. I was struck by her truly refreshing take on vegetarian food – her focus on food that looks and feels good, is quick to prepare, and that delivers punchy flavours.

I know you’ll find all that and more in her latest work Easy Wins. Here, she focuses on 12 different flavour profiles, then shows us how to use them in dishes that will sing with vibrancy and flavours. These are the flavour ingredients she uses most in her own kitchen, and are widely loved by all cooks. She has devoted a chapter to each ingredient, and offers lots of different ways to use them.

I’ve already made a couple of things from “Easy Wins” and have been blown away with the ease of prep in the recipes and the exceptional flavours in the dishes. Vegetarian cooking is not something that I’ve ever been particularly drawn to, but with Jones’ help meat-free May is already looking delicious.

What Did We Cook In April?

April was a free-range month where I asked cookbook club members to pick just one of their own books and share exclusively from that. I love how many of you took the opportunity to explore cookbooks that you’ve had sitting around for ages, books that you might have neglected, or books that have inspired you in the past. Here’s just a small selection of the many dishes that were shared.

 

So Tell Me About June

It was with no small measure of shock that I discovered this year marks 25 years since Jamie Oliver published his first cookbook, The Naked Chef – where did my life go?!!

That spotty young lad is now a mature man, the father of eleventy hundred kids, and the food mentor of countless cooks and chefs. He’s inspired squillions of us (as you can see, I have a very solid grip on maths) to get into the kitchen and to cook for our friends, our families and ourselves; to demand more from food authorities and to take control of our diets in a fun, practical and delicious way.

Obviously, that made my cookbook selection for June dead simple. This month I’d like us all to explore Jamie’s beginnings and his culinary evolution. In June we will be having a look at just how well The Naked Chef has stood up to time, and also checking out where it has carried Jamie, and us as domestic cooks, by exploring any of his other 35 (yes, you read that correctly) cookbooks.

However, back to this month. I’m not expecting everyone to go completely vego for the month of May but, with Anna Jones help, I think we can certainly be adding some seriously delicious vegetarian dishes to our repertoire – and maybe even discover that a meat-free May is something that could become more of a habit.

So far, 2024 is looking a little like this –

The whole year cookbook is The Food Saver’s A-Z – The Essential Cornersmith Kitchen Companion by Alex Elliott-Howery and Jaimee Edwards

May – Easy Wins by Anna Jones
April – Your choice from any ONE book you have
March – Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking by Danielle Alvarez with Libby Travers
February – Any recipes from the late Bill Granger, either from his books or online
January – Kindred by Maria and Eva Konescny

YOU CAN BUY ANY OF THESE COOKBOOKS AT ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS, OR ONLINE AT BOOKTOPIA USING THE LINKS IN THIS POST. (IF PURCHASED VIA THESE LINKS, YOU WILL GET A GREAT PRICE AND I WILL RECEIVE A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE COST.)

Details for last year in the cookbook club are all here.

 

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