Sophie Grigson's Country Kitchen: 120 Seasonal Recipes [Hardcover]

With over 120 delicious recipes, `Sophie Grigson's Country Kitchen' will have you running to your nearest farmer's market, hunting for seasonal ingredients............or getting your own hands dirty in no time.'

246 high quality, shiny pages split over seasonal chapters:

Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter

sandwiched between an introduction and a concise index.

Photography from William Shaw throughout including ingredients and a high percentage of recipe shots.

Useful one-page notes on seasonal items are littered throughout, from the more common such as 'Sorrel' and 'Asparagus', to the least, such as 'Samphire', 'Tamarind', or 'How to Cook A Giant Puffball'.

Each recipe has a relevant informative narrative written in the typical SG style that is so endearing, e.g. from page 152,

'Apple and Bacon Mash':

'There's a magic moment in the early autumn when the first of the garden's main crop potatoes and the first of the apples coincide. The children disappear outside to gather produce and earthworms, and soon a basket of potatoes, topped with a few sour cooking apples, appears on the kitchen table. Occasionally the earthworms are included, but it is not something I encourage!..............'

e.g. from page 218:

'A Very Good Cauliflower Cheese'
The idea is simple and familiar - cauliflower baked in a cheese sauce - but it is the execution that counts. Casual inattention is the death knell. Vigilance and respect are the passwords to success. This is a fabulous dish, worthy of main course status when it is cooked well.......'

A small taste of the other recipes contained within:

Grilled Trout with Horseradish, Mint & Lemon Cream
Rich & Sinful Baked Bay & Honey Custards
Daffodil Cake
Summer Lasagne with Goat's Cheese
Tagine of Chicken, Chickpeas & Apricots
Lemon Barley Water
Maple Roasted Carrot & Ginger Soup
Pheasant Pate
Spiced Venison & Chestnut Stew
Double Cheese Flatbreads
Daube of Beef with Parsnips & Red Wine
Rhubarb & Apple Crumble ('serves 6 unless you are all very greedy!')
Vanilla Pain Perdu with Quince Jelly
Christmas Tree Biscuits

'Murrambridgee Cake - I don't care for Christmas Cake. I don't hate it either, but I really wouldn't mind if I never tasted one again. As a result I have never cooked one, either. Instead, we make this Murrambridgee Cake, which is nothing more than a big mass of mixed whole glace fruits and nuts, glued together with the minimum of batter. Far nicer, if you ask me.'

I love this book, and use it a lot. As it uses local, seasonal produce it's excellent for those of us who live miles away from lovely ethnic delis. I loved the pages specifically dealing with ingredients we might feel intimidated to try otherwise. But really this is wholesome comfort food, with the emphasis entirely on great flavour.

I took this book out of the library many times before finally buying my own copy. This is beatifully laid out and well written. Sophies way of writing persuades me every time that I just have to try new foods and recipes.
Last autumn I moved into a more rural area and was amazed by the abundance of damsons and elder berries and buckets full of windfall quince and cooking apples. Thanks to this book I will know what to do now when those things are set before me once more.

I am really looking forward to trying her elderflower cordial and have a long list of other must try recipes . A lovely book that doesn't try to baffle you with fancy ingredients or make you feel silly for not knowing how to do complicate manouvres. It simply reminds you of the beauty of the changing seasons and encourages you to get out and see what's out there.
Even if you live in the city there are many recipes that can still be made use of. A benefit of this book is that it is one of those recipe books that make good bedtime reading.

This is my first ever sophie grigson recipe book and I know it wont be the last.