Today, we will be discussing Best Seasonal Cookbooks as it is always good to have fresh fruits and vegetables over ones that are stored and available throughout the year for the following reasons:
- Seasonal fruits and vegetables are fresher and tastier
- They will be more affordable
- It helps you boost immunity
- It enhances digestion
Optimizing your diet with every coming season can help you with such benefits, so let’s see the seasonal cookbooks:
- Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables
- Slow: Food Worth Taking Time Over
- Time: A Year and a Day in the Kitchen by Gill Meller
- Preppy Kitchen
- Seed to Table
- Via Carota
- The complete autumn and winter cookbook
- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, one year of seasonal eating
- Coming home to Sicily
- The Hand
Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden
Joshua McFadden is now a writer and owner of a restaurant in Oregon. He was a chef earlier and has worked in multiple restaurants in the USA and even Rome.
Six Seasons starts by mentioning Joshua’s early career days when he got a boost and was exposed to the best kitchens in Oregon. This exposure made him realize that the journey of good food doesn’t start in the kitchen but on the farms.
With that understanding and knowledge, he started finding ways to get to the roots to understand things better, and at the same time, he got a job working for Eliot Coleman on a four-season farm in Coastal Maine.
The author also describes his experience writing Six Seasons book and the knowledge he gained while writing it. He then explains what you can expect from the book and provides a few basic ingredients and how each adds value to your dish.
The book has been bifurcated into seasons:
- Spring
- Early Summer
- Mid-Summer
- Late Summer
- Fall
- Winter.
Every dish has a small note from the author, mentioning either the dish or his experience with it. This is followed by the ingredients, steps to prepare, and a section called “more ways”, which tells you different ways to present and prepare the dish.
Slow: Food Worth Taking Time Over By Gizzi Erskine
Gizzi, well known for her TV shows and cooking skills, has written multiple books over 15 years. Today, we will discuss one of her books on seasonal foods: Slow.
Seasonal cooking is an act of slow living. It is an opportunity to connect with mindfulness and creativity in the kitchen. It comprises a lot of slow-cooked and time-consuming dishes, but the first bite of every dish will make you feel that the time you invested was worth it.
The content of the book is as follows:
- Soups and Stews
- Poach and Steam
- Braise
- Bake
- Roast
- Dough
- Basics
In my observation, the dishes in this book have more prolonged procedures than the rest, hence the book’s name: Slow Cooking. Every dish has a story attached to it, which makes it even more interesting, along with ingredients and a picture of the dish at the end.
Authors fav. dish from the book- Beef Stew with potatoes, a very simple dish but nowadays people don’t prefer it. She wants to convey that spending extra time in the kitchen can result in a restaurant level and an emotion added to the cookery process.
Quote by the author- “Everything worth doing takes it”
Time: A Year and a Day in the Kitchen by Gill Meller
Gill Meller is an award-winning writer, food stylist and chef. In the last 8-9 years, he has given us 8 cookery books. Time is a 320-page-long seasonal food book.
Gill Meller starts the book “Time” with a very personal question: “What do you think of when you think of time?”
The author explains what it means to him and the minute details of his life, from childhood to adulthood. Later on, he connects this question to food and the importance of food and cooking in his life.
The author has breakdown the book into:
- Morning
- Day
- Night
Each part of the day has seasons, so it becomes easier for you to switch between a morning meal in spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Every recipe in the book has a picture of the final dish, ingredients, and procedure for making it. Don’t forget the little story attached to each recipe in the book.
Preppy Kitchen by John Kanell
A maths and science teacher who started following his passion started his journey with Preppy Kitchen. Blogging and working on his project got him into writing books. He started with a bang: Preppy Kitchen got on the list of NYT BestSellers.
Preppy Kitchen has been divided into 4 parts:
- Fall
- Spring
- Winter
- Summer
Every part has 2 sub-parts: Recipes and Special Projects.
John Kanell starts the book by telling how Preppy Kitchen began and what changes in his life brought him to a stage where he thought of leaving his job and following his passion.
Every Part like “Fall” has an intro to it that how did the author found that season followed by another index of that part mentioning all the recipes in that section.
Like every other book recipe section has an image, ingredients, procedure along with a few tips and tricks but the “special project” mentions about how to set the table and garnishing the dishes according to each season which makes it unique in its own way.
Seed to Table by Luay Ghafari
Luay Ghafari has a vision of helping anyone on the food journey, from gardening to preparing food. He is himself a gardener, garden educator, and recipe developer.
Last year, he launched his book Seed to the table in 2023. The unique thing about Seed to Table is that every dish has a QR code; if you’re a visual person, that would excite you.
It is not just cookery but more of an educational book because it teaches you how to grow vegetables, herbs and the food essentials by yourself including:
- Growth pattern
- Growth technique
- Growing difficulty level
- Suitability for small spaces and balconies
- How to preserve
- How to dry herbs
- How to make refrigerated pickles
- How to make fermented Hot Sauce
- Learn about type of soils and hardness of soils
The content of the book goes as follows:
- Garden to Table
- Crop Guides
- Garden to Table Recipes & Preservations Techniques
- Garden Planning
- Growing Techniques
- Fundamentals of Soil
- Seeds, Seedlings and Planting Guide
- Seed Starting for Beginners
- Garden Maintenance
- Season Extension and Winterization
The complete autumn and winter cookbook by America's Test Kitchen
The famous TV show America’s Test Kitchen, which has more than 25 seasons, has launched, and it tells the audience how to make regular recipes better and tastier.
They have launched a big library of books covering almost every category when it comes to cooking and kitchen.
The beauty about their recipes is that before they get on the book, they get researched by the team and then tried by the home cooks in the country to ensure that the recipes added can be created in any kitchen.
This book has 500+ recipes, not just recipes, but trains you on when to start shopping if you’ll be the host of an upcoming event—ways to use leftover food and followed by menu according to seasonality.
Every dish has time mentioned “Make Ahead” before serving which is different from rest of the books in the list, it also mentions serving size, procedure, ingredients and an image of the dish.
The content of the book goes as follows:
- Soups, Stews and Chilis
- Weeknight Dinners
- Weekend Braising and Roasting
- Centerpieces for a Crowd
- Vegetable Sides
- Grain and Bean Sides
- All things apple
- Everyone loves pumpkin
- Appetizers and Starters
- Festive Drinks
- Brunch
- Breads
- Cookies and Cakes
- Pie, puddings and fruit desserts
- Food gifts
- Cooking charts
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, one year of seasonal eating by Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara is a famous prize winning American novelist, essayist and poet. She has published 30+ books and animal, vegetable; miracle is one of her most famous books.
The book talks about how things have changed in today’s fast life. We expect everything to be done almost instantly but food has to an exception it might do more damage than you can think off.
Taking charge of your own food can be one of the best decisions one can take towards healthy life so did the writer of the book took by creating a rule that they won’t have anything that has been outsourced away from a certain radius from their home.
The book has a very long index, one chapter dedicated to each month.
Coming home to sicily by Fabrizia Lanza
Fabrizia Lanza is a 63-year-old writer born into a famous Sicilian winemaking family. She has been in and around this food and wine world since childhood. She has written 3 books and released Coming Home to Sicily in 2012.
The content of the book goes as follows:
- Winter
- Spring
- Summer
- Fall
Every season has further breakdowns when you get onto that section. The book is not just about dishes but a lot more about the season in Sicily and the author’s story and life experience alongside it.
If you’re from the place you might feel that you’ve probably given suggestions at the time to writing the book because it explains things so well that every local will be able to relate with it.
Every dish page has an image, a small story from the author, ingredients and procedure.
The Hands-On Home by Erica Strauss
The founder of Northwest Edible Life, Erica Strauss, writes blogs around urban homesteading and gardening and teaches how to live a sustainable life.
She published The Hands-On Home in 2015 and started blogging in 2011. She starts the book: The Hands-On by explaining the seasonal approach: the importance of changing your habits with the season and nature.
It tells how having seasonal food and growing our edibles can save us from unwanted add-ons to our food. It tells how to set up a seasonal kitchen. While moving forward, she explains how to preserve and use leftover foods.
She also tells about seasonal décor and homemade gifts. The content of the book goes as follows:
- Basics and Techniques
- Year Around
- Spring
- Summer
- Fall
- Winter
Conclusion
It is always good to be conscious and know what you take inside your body, and having seasonal food is even better as it will be fresh and boost your immunity and digestion. I am sure you will learn something new, and reading this blog will give you an awakening towards improving your life. Eat fresh and stay healthy.