GET ready to cook with the Community Larder’s new cook book, Round House Recipes, which will officially be on sale at the Food & River Festival next month.
The team behind the book – Adrienne Westbrook, Lisa Ellis and Pat Aves, have created a cook book of recipes using produce found in the Larder.
Adrienne Westbrook said, “It is really exciting! The three of us decided it would be a really good idea to have a recipe book. Lisa Ellis has been absolutely superb; Pat and I have thrown a few ideas in but Lisa has gone ahead and done it and it looks brilliant. We are going to sell it at the Food & River Festival.”
Some of the people who use the Larder often ask questions about what they could make with the produce.
Adrienne said, “We also put some stuff online that people said was fantastic. We had gluts of bananas and gluts of potatoes and other ingredients and we thought well, we ought to do something about it.”
Inevitably, says Adrienne, banana bread could be a favourite in the book. Other recipes that feature include recipes for breads and jams, plus more.
Lisa Ellis, who put the book together said, “Having spent a number of years in a past life art directing several magazines, I really enjoyed dusting off my publication skills to design this recipe book and I found myself working on it daily for the past month. Whilst it had me hungry and wanting to dash off to the kitchen to make some of these recipes, I fear my cooking skills leave a lot to be desired.
“My favourite dish is a good grilled cheese sandwich dunked as soldiers in tomato soup, but I confess that I loved the idea of a healthy Big Mac salad. These recipes are meant to be quick and easy, even for me, and not fussy with too many ingredients.
“The Larder has been a great motivation for producing this book because of the unique challenges: using up certain foods that would normally go to waste, how to store food to last longer, and fill a small garden with leftover fruits and vegetables that can regrow from the scraps.”
The book aims to help residents cook healthy, creative and cheap food, whilst fulfilling the Larder’s mission of reducing food waste, Pat said, “The Larder was set up to prevent perfectly good food, collected each day from local supermarkets, from ending up in landfill.
“The idea behind the book was to suggest economical, healthy and tasty ways of using the foods that we have the most often at the Larder – bread, fruit and vegetables, and garden and allotment produce – with recipes of the cheap and cheerful variety. As well as being a useful cookery book, we hope it will be fun to read and maybe even encourage readers to think more creatively about how they can help eliminate food waste. “
The book will retail at £5, with half the profits going back into the Larder. It will be on sale at the Food & River Festival on 2nd and 3rd September, then can be purchased from the Community Larder thereafter.
