It’s time to start cooking for 2026 in the Lambs’ Ears Cookbook Club. Here’s our first cookbook selections, and the whole-year cookbook.
Happy new year 2026 to all of my wonderful Lambs’ Ears Cookbook Club members. It’s time to start cooking and sharing for 2026 and, in a similar vein to January 2025, we are kicking off the new year with the fabulous flavours and fresh, seasonal food of Salata, by Michael Rantissi and Kristy Frawley.
Sydney folk will be familiar with Rantissi and Frawley, whose Kepos Street Kitchen has been sharing fresh Mediterranean/Middle Eastern flavours since 2012. The rest of us (yes Sydney, there is life west of the Great Dividing Range) may know them from their earlier cookbook Falafel For Breakfast.
Salata takes this couples’ affinity for the flavours of the Middle East, combines it with magnificent Australian seasonal produce, and draws on Greek,French, Italian, and Spanish culinary traditions to produce a total essence of the entire Mediterranean region.
There’s a huge range of salad recipes in this book, many of which are stand-alone meals. When it’s time to start cooking, think flank steak salad with pecans and charred peaches, chermoula prawn Caesar salad, or a delicious oregano-flavoured octopus and potato salad. I’m convinced that Salata will join the growing ranks of fresh salad cookbooks (actually, we cooked from Alice Zaslavsky’s marvellous Salad for Days at exactly this time last year) which are inspiring us to cast aside boring lettuce and raise our expectations of our fresh food dishes.
Remind me – what did we cook in December?
It seems that I might have miscalculated our passion for seafood with my December cookbook selection – either that, or you were all too busy to get around to sharing any photos of your creations. However, many members were keen to share their #throwbackthursday and year round cookbook dishes.
Pan-roasted snapper with cherry tomatoes, zucchini and basil, from the Australian Fish and Seafood Cookbook – and Carolyn Miles
Sooo Christmas – a festive chocolate mousse from Chloe Haseltine
Caramelised onion and potato stacks from Donna Hay Christmas feasts and treats, from Sherry Mackay
What’s happening in February
For many of us, it’s just not time to start cooking for summer until we’ve cracked open some of our favourite Donna Hay cookbooks. This February we will be cooking from her latest offering, Sunshine, Lemons and Sea Salt. Hay is the well-known and hugely popular author of 27 bestselling cookbooks, and this latest is full of the sunny, bright flavours we’ve come to expect from her.
This is a cracker of a cookbook, with almost 100 vibrant, bright recipes, from breakfasts, light lunches, snacks, treats, and party menus. I really can’t wait to explore it fully.
IF YOU HAVEN’T JOINED THE LAMBS EARS COOKBOOK CLUB YET, YOU WILL FIND ALL THE DETAILS HERE.
Here’s how 2026 is shaping up so far
January – Salata by Michael Mantissas and Kristy Frawley
February – Sunshine, Lemons and Sea Salt by Donna Hay
Please note, this post contains links to online Australian bookseller Booktopia. If you purchase via one of my links you will get a great price, and I will get a very small commission.
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What Can I Bring was the month-long book for the club in November 2024. Any chance of allowing people to cook from a book not done before?
I picked this one because I noticed members keep going back to it, so I thought we’d explore it more.