Food from Plenty: Good Food Made from the Plentiful, the Seasonal and the Leftover with Over 300 Recipes, None of Them Extravagant [Hardcover]

I quote from the book 'Leftovers are at the heart of this book. For example, you'll find delicious roast dinners followed by an abundance of ideas for things to do with the cold meat the next day. Diana's delicious recipes from all over the world, from Sicily to the Sahara, turn 'going without' on its head and make it a pleasure.'

This book is about taking more notice of our approach to food, how we use and how we waste it, and doing it in a delicious way. Diana has a lovely writing style; approachable and not at all preachy. Diana starts with an interesting introduction, encouraging us all to approach food in a caring, thoughtful way which can only serve to increase the pleasure we get from it. I feel I have an idea of what she's getting at here; there is a distinct satisfaction in having a roast dinner, turning the remains into a soothing risotto and boiling the carcass for soup. Don't start thinking that the book is all about eking the last bit of nutrition out of every potato peeling though, plenty of the recipes are standalone, and none of them feel overtly frugal. For me the recipes draw on influences all ready present in Diana's previous books - Moroccan, English, French, Asian - this really is a book that takes a bite of world cuisine. Virtually all the recipes come with at least 2 thorough variations.

Chapters and a few recipes are:

The roast and 'les restes':

Simple roast chicken with herbs - and 7 variations on roast chicken from Corfu roast chicken with sweet potatoes and cayenne, to Malaysian roast chicken. Recipes follow on chicken leftovers - Restorative chicken and parsley risotto, Vietnamese chicken with Nuoc Cham (a sauce), Chiang Mai chicken noodles, West Country chicken and ham pie; Greek chicken, pumpkin and feta pie; Chicken and toasted bread salad with raisins, pine nuts and capers, and Chicken, wild rice and bluberry salad. There is a similar theme through the other roasting meats.

Vegetable love - Herbed ricotta with summer veg; Courgettes with raisins, pine nuts and mint; Turkish carrots and lentils with herbs, Moroccan spiced roast squash and chiokpeas with minted onions, Sicilian braised vegetables with saffron pine ntus, raisins and capers.

Racing pulses - Lentil, redppeper and goats cheese salad, Spanish white beans with black pudding and chorizo, Split pea puree with Greek lemon and oregano chicken.

Good grains - Persian herb chialu; Sausage, radicchio and red wine risotto, Coconut rice pudding with candied limes, Spanish rice with pork and spinach.

Fine fish - Spanish baked bream, Fish pie with leek mash, Gurnard on crushed potatoes with olives, parlsey and lemon, Moroccan fish cakes, minted cucumber salad and hot sauce; roast mackerel on potatoes, lemon, garlic and thyme; Baked salmon with Scandinavian cucumber.

Choice cuts - Thorough descriptions of which cuts are best for which style of cooking. Lamb, black pudding and mustard hot pot, Crispy pork belly with potatoes, eggs and gribiche dressing; Mexican tinga poblana, Ham hock with parsley sauce and cabbage.

Soup, beautiful soup - Ethiopian spiced pumpkin soup, Parsnip and smoked haddock soup, Swedish spinach soup with egg butterballs.

Where the wild things are - Pheasant with beer, carrots and honey, Rabbit with mustard and tarrago, Elderflower and berry jellies, Blackberry and brown sugar loaf.

Sweet fruitfulness - Strawberry and lemon curd cake, Cherry and almond croutes, Gooseberry pots, Gooseberry meringue pie, Pear, almond and red wine cake.

Crusts and crumbs - Southern Italian cauliflower with dried breadcrumbs, capers and anchovies; Spring panzanella, Brown bread and whisky ice cream, wine-soaked autumn pudding.

Eggs is eggs - Alpine souffles, Menemen, Smoked cheddar and apple omelette, Peach and lavendar honey clafoutis.

Littered throughout with beautiful non-gloss pictures, this book is as much of a delight to read as the recipes are to cook. Dinner tonight was smoked haddock brandade with spinach and poached egg - delicious! Thank you Diana for another lovely book!

I love cookery books and my shelves groan under the weight of Delia, Nigella, Jamie, Nigel Slater et al. But if I could only keep one of my cookbooks it would inevitably be by Diana Henry, because her books are full of inventive, interesting and delicious food. She has lots of Wow! dishes for when you are cooking for friends and want to give them something fantastic, but where she reigns absolutely supreme is as a writer for the everyday cook, who has to put food on the table day in, day out. Food From Plenty is the perfect companion when you are looking for something different to cook - a twist on an old favourite, a completely new dish, or an interesting way of using leftovers. You will want to reach for it every day, because it is overflowing with inspirational ideas that take the grind out of everyday cooking. It is beautifully laid out with gorgeous pictures. Buy it now!

"Food from Plenty" is a veritable mangnum opus, a compendium of recipes "made from the plentiful, the seasonal and the leftover". This weighty, beautiful book contains over 300 recipes, and we are reassured that none of them are extravagant.Diana Henry is best known for her Sunday missives in the food section of the "Stella" Telegraph magazine.She has a philosophy of cooking which I share with all the students at the cookery schools I teach at, and, also, in my own home. Leftovers are sacrosanct, they should be used up the next day, and Diana gives us several examples of how each recipe can then be turned into something else. Parsimony is the new holy grail, so buy quality meat and fish, for example, but lesser quantities. Stock, both chicken and vegetable, is so simple to make and so very vital for soups, risotto, sauces and many, many recipes. Diana does not preach nor admonish, albeit pointing out the many sustainability, wastage and health problems facing a nation that needs to re-connect with food, its provenance, preparation and enjoyment.

This book transcends the general genre of "cookery book", as it is didactic in so many ways. Within its pages you will travel on the flight of Air Simple Gastronomy. You have arrived in Vietnam with Chicken with Nuoc Cham, a sauce made out of garlic, chilli, salt, lime juice, fish sauce and a little sugar. Next, you are sitting in an Italian garden, feasting on Pinzimonio vegetables, maybe dipped in a herby ricotta and olive dip. Mind the heat in your Mexican foray, with spicy Tinga Poblana. Diana has done a great deal of research, and her references are not just drawn from different cultures, but also across history. Ribollita, my favourite bean, cabbage and bread soup is a recipe as old as the Tuscan hills themselves, but "Scottish pear and raspberry trifle" seems to me a bang-up-to-date rendition of its more traditional cousin. There is a 1929 cookbook recipe, "Dorothy Allhusen's Cherry Salad", taken from "A book of scents and dishes". "Paradise Jelly", taken from an old American cookbook, is this season's winning recipe: a crimson jewel quince, apple and cranberry jelly that looks as good as its name implies. The very first recipe I am going to try has to be "Barley, parsley and pomegranate salad", it looks so enticing, minutely pretty and crunchy.

The styling and composition is homely, rustic and warm, featuring the best needlework linens and crackle ware pottery I have ever seen. Home cooks have had enough of the endless stream of transient celebrity cooks who are plugged into the oxygen tank of hype, fame and tweets. It is so life-affirming to read the work of a professional, serious, Mamma cookery writer who has stood the test of time by putting really good, conscientious dinners on the table, by caring about cooking and taking pleasure in its comfort. Her words ring timely and true: "What it boils down to is taking more care. We need to value our planet, our bodies, the people who produce our food, the animals who provide it, and those we feed every day. It makes for a much happier life".