Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014
Text copyright © Anna Jones 2014
Photographs by Brian Ferry, except image of The Really Hungry Burger
Designed by Sandra Zellmer
Anna Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780007516704
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2014 ISBN: 9780007516711
Version: 2017-09-11
For John
no words suffice, how lucky I am
Foreword by Jamie Oliver
It gives me great pleasure and pride to write this foreword for dear Anna, one of my first year students at Fifteen London. Here she is, eleven years later, publishing her very own, beautiful, well-thought-out cook book. This book deserves a home in any cookery collection because it shows you how to celebrate vegetables, something we should all be doing. It has a clear sensibility about eating well, balance and embracing the seasons, all of which gives you, the reader, a real sense of how Anna puts delicious, simple, doable meals together. You’re going to get lots of opportunities to see the family tree of how you can take something from the same humble beginning to all sorts of totally different endings, and that’s what cooking is all about – responding to what’s around you, what’s in season, how you feel and who you’ve got to feed. It’s all very well saying that, but you need someone to explain it and get you to visualise how you can tweak, evolve and perfect any recipe, just like Anna’s done so effortlessly in these pages. Well done, Anna – this is a great cook book and I’m super proud.
copyright
a modern way to eat
what gets me up in the morning
food for filling a gap
a bowl of broth, soup or stew
satisfying salads
easy lunches and laid-back suppers
hearty dinners and food to feed a crowd
vegetables to go with things
sweet endings
cakes, bread and a few other things
things to drink
jam, chutney, stock and other useful stuff
list of recipes
list of searchable terms
acknowledgements
about the publisher
I’d like to make a few promises about the food in this book:
· It is indulgent and delicious
· It will make you feel good and look good
· It will leave you feeling light yet satisfied
· It will help you lighten your footprint on the planet
· It is quick and easy to make and won’t cost the earth
· And it’ll impress your family and friends
The way we eat is changing
We demand so much of our food nowadays that the idea of meat and two veg every night for dinner seems prehistoric. We want food to be delicious, healthy, local, fast, cheap and good for the planet. This book shows you how to make easy meals that will impress and, more importantly, nourish your friends and family, quickly and simply.
Today, almost everyone you meet, of any age, is becoming super-conscious of what they eat and the effect on their health. They also understand the importance of a home-cooked meal more than a couple of nights a week to stay healthy and on budget. Alongside that, our awareness of provenance, quality and sustainability has come so far that if we look back at what supermarkets sold ten years ago and what we can buy now, the change is astounding. Interesting varieties of vegetable are the norm, and more unusual herbs, interesting and different grains, spices and ingredients from afar now line the aisles. So with all this choice available to us, where do we go now?
All my friends, whether or not they are vegetarian, want to eat more simple, seasonal, vegetable-led food. As the number of vegetarians in the UK slowly creeps up, the number of people reducing the amount of meat in their diet is sky-rocketing. We all know that eating lots of meat may not be the best for our bodies or the planet. For me being vegetarian is easy and how I live; for you it might be different, a few nights a week without meat maybe. However it works for you, I think we all need some new ideas.
We are reaching a middle ground, bridging the gap between heavy cheese- and stodge-laden vegetarian restaurant offerings, and the nutrition-led green juice diets. We want the best of both worlds, mind-blowing flavour that does us good: a stacked-high burger that is super tasty but also healthy, a brownie that is devilishly chocolaty but boosts our energy too, a breakfast pancake that feels like pudding but is packed with nutrition.
But I also believe that eating should be joyful and as soon as rules, pressure and diets are linked in with eating we lose track of that joy. While I eat healthily almost always, I also feel strongly that eating is one part of our brilliantly fallible humanness. So there is a place for the odd too-good-to-pass-up chewy salted caramel brownie alongside a clean bowl of grains and greens.
I want to eat in a way that satisfies but leaves me feeling light and happy at the same time. Too much healthy food leaves me miserably hungry but equally I don’t like to rely on a lot of heavy carbs or dairy to fill the gaps. I use spice, texture, flavour and easy-eating grains to satisfy without heaviness.
So