COVID-19 life is a see-saw ride of restrictions, reduced restaurant capacities and isolation, meaning we are all at home more without the luxury of eating out as often as we would like. So it’s time to use that extra time to overhaul your recipe bibles, find the best cookbooks that will inspire you and use some of those ingredients you just don’t know what to do with.

If You Panic-Bought Too Many Beans…
Beans are trending – lots of us are discovering the diverse textures, flavours, and applications of legumes that used to sit abandoned on dusty pantry shelves. Now’s the chance to grab those cans off the shelf, un-bag those dried legumes or grab some fresh produce and test out one of these 125 bean-centric recipes.
You will be so glad you did.

Your Last Tin Of Coconut Milk Is Taunting You
One of the best cookbooks for these times is Jessica Elliott Dennison’s Tin Can Magic, which contains dishes from nine different canned foods, including coconut milk, anchovies, tomatoes, and sweet corn. Each recipe is easy to follow, requires few fussy ingredients, and yields dishes that look like something from your favourite farm-to-table restaurant. Time to get creative!

Meat-Free Monday’s Are A Thing
More by Matt Preston is all about making vegetables the ‘Hero’ to any meal. With more than 100 delicious recipes to choose from, with more of everything: flavour, texture, colour, this is a great addition to your collection. Maybe you want to eat more vegetables, or less meat, or try cooking some tasty vegan meals to broaden your repertoire and still put a broad smile on the faces of those you are feeding?
A book destined to be well thumbed from day one.

Moving Salad to The Centre
Community, by Hetty McKinnon moves salads firmly to the centre of the plate, injecting colour, life and flair into everyday vegetables, and showing you how to achieve exciting flavours and hearty main meals with simple, nourishing ingredients. Hetty’s passion for vegetables aims to inspire others to use these colourful, vitamin rich foods in every meal, everyday. Perfect for vegetable garden inspiration as you harvest your first COVID 19 Winter crops.

Family Food & Feelings
Family Food & Feelings by Kate Berry takes you through the year, school term by school term. It’s often hilarious, sometimes dark and full of recipes that satisfy kids and adults alike. More than a cookbook, this is life-affirming, warm and incredibly real. Family, Food & Feelings will be your friend on the shelf for good days and bad, and everything in between. We have all been there, and we’re not alone.

Living off the Land – Australian Native Foods
From Warndu founders Rebecca Sullivan and Damien Coulthard comes Warndu Mai, or “good food” in the Adnyamathanha language. This cookbook inspires Australian’s to use the native ingredients of the land and recognise indigenous knowledge and custodianship. It deserves a place in every Australian kitchen and we get more adventurous and enjoy native foods like never before.

Taking Cooking in the Wild to the Next Level
Sarah Glover brings you rich flavours in the great outdoors – evoking sight, smell and the taste of the Australian Wilderness. Weather it be on the edge of a windswept cliff, in a clearing in the forest, or on a sandy stretch of beach, this book helps you discover how easy it is to create a stunning four-course meal with a few pots and one fire. Her recipes are simple and straightforward-often involving only a handful of ingredients-and her instructions are easy and clear. And right now she has an outdoor kids cook book in the works….we are standing by for that one.

Recipes for the Quintessential Garlic Lover
We all know that Garlic is a superstar ingredient unlike no other, so we absolutely love this Garlic Feast cookbook by Janice Sutton. Whether roasted, fried, pickled, fermented, smoked or any other way, garlic is the cornerstone of cuisines throughout the world. And its very easy to grow, so maybe this is the start of your vegetable garden.

The Iconic Australian Cookbook
No Aussie household would be complete with this classic cookbook. The Complete Margaret Fulton Cookbook is the biggest and most comprehensive cookbook yet. The 500 carefully chosen recipes cover a broad spectrum of cooking techniques, meals, snacks, hors d’oeuvres and desserts. They range from the simple to the elaborate and include comprehensive sections on stocks and sauces, herbs and spices, soups and egg dishes, meat, poultry, pasta and cakes and bread. A must for an Aussie Kitchen!