Autumn and Winter: Cooking with a Veg Box

by Guy Watson, Kirsty Hale, Anna Colquhoun

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food

304 pages, Hardcover

Reviews

[Bianca]

Autumn and Winter by Guy Watson is a delightful, practical cookbook that makes the most of seasonal produce—and it’s a true hidden gem. You may know Riverford Organic Boxes in the UK for delivering organic food at reasonable prices, but this book is an unexpected bonus for anyone who’s signed up. I received it when I first joined, and I’ve been impressed by how well it’s structured and how much useful information it packs in.

What stands out the most is the way each vegetable or ingredient is introduced with a wealth of practical details. Not only do you get information about when it’s in season in the UK, but you also learn the best ways to store and prepare it, whether raw or cooked. It even suggests complementary flavours—whether that’s nuts, meats, spices, or acids—so you’ll always know how to pair ingredients effectively. This informative approach is what really elevates the book. Even without a picture for every recipe, the wealth of knowledge about each ingredient makes it easy to imagine what you’re cooking, and the lack of pictures feels like a minor trade-off for such valuable details.

I love how the book breaks down whether a recipe is quick and easy, vegetarian (and most of them are), and offers guidance on how versatile each dish can be. It’s the kind of cookbook you can dip into for weekday meals that don’t break the bank or require hunting down obscure ingredients. Most recipes are simple enough that you won’t need to spend hours in the kitchen, and the focus on seasonal ingredients means that the meals are affordable and accessible.

For me, Autumn and Winter is a go-to for everyday cooking. The recipes are perfect for those days when you want to eat well without the hassle of sourcing hard-to-find ingredients or spending too much. Whether you're new to cooking or just looking for practical, seasonal inspiration, this book is a lovely companion to help you make the most of what’s available in the cooler months. It’s a wonderful resource that I’d recommend to anyone who appreciates fresh, organic ingredients and simple, wholesome cooking.

[Cidney]

I have the spring summer cookbook when I joined Riverford veg boxes some years back and saw this one and thought I have to have it!! It's a hardback book and I really like the front cover. This new book on a selection of autumn vegetables by Guy Watson is in glorious colour which was enough to make me rush to look inside! There is a big variety of different veggies to cook, have only tried a few recipes so far (well I do buy some of the recipes and veggies to go with them from his food boxes) but haven't had the book for long and there is a lot of helpful advice on how to cook certain vegetables and store them, and and have already earmarked out the recipes I want to cook first! I don't know why I'm looking at the storage I am a gardener's daughter. Purple sprounting broccoli has only been around in the shops in this town for the last couple of years and it doesn't seem to be too popular as I have trouble finding any. I know I, should be able to grow it, but I don't have green fingers, only black, and I am lucky if anything actually grows... I do have a large collection of different weeds though, which are thriving.

The book is 304p long which is the same length as Yumna's feel good foodie cookbook, but where as Yumna's for some reason weighs an absolute ton and makes your arms ache holding it, Guy's book although the same number of pages, is surprisingly quite a lot lighter?! So it's much easier to use, which is especially useful when you are wrestling with a recipe and a book.

I was interested to come across purple sprouting broccoli as in the late 60s/early 70s when my dad went down to his allotment and in the hut there they were selling some purple sprouting broccoli to cultivate, my dad bought some, and discovered later that we would happily eat this stuff because it was purple (I had a purple school uniform, yes I know). When I went to school and said I had eaten some purple vegetables nobody believed me, so I got some from the garden and took it into school the next day and attracted quite a crowd to this amazing futuristic colourful vegetable. I am a big fan of the purple stuff.

And after my dad had begun to grow it in our enormous back garden, he had people coming to the front door asking if it was true he really was growing purple vegetables?! Well it was a real novelty in those days, one of our neighbours having been given some by my dad to try, stared at it and said it looks as it's been delivered by aliens from outer space. I can still see my dad, trying hard not to look as if he was standing next to a lunatic. However he did start a trend of neighbours growing this and even got a small comment in the local paper about gardener growing purple vegetables and starting a new trend. Well in those days there wasn't much entertainment really...