Review: Grow Cook Eat

In late 2014, Michael Kelly got in touch to see if I’d like to review his new book; Grow Cook Eat. So I owe him an apology for taking so long to get this review done. Sorry Michael!

Mind you, it’s about the right time of the year to start considering growing your own food. I know that the weather is cold, it may be snowing where you are, but in food-growing terms many of us who like to grow our own food are busy tending to our crops that last through the Winter, and have started to chit potatoes, and propagate seedlings for the Spring.

Grow Cook Eat is laid out in chapters, divided by month. This makes it clear and easy to figure out what needs doing each month in your plot/garden, what’s good to harvest and eat. In each chapter you’ll find suggestions like Top Jobs, Things To Do, Veg Of The Month and suggestions for other activities like foraging, preserving seeds etc (Monthly Insight).

As if all of this sound vegetable (and fruit) growing advice wasn’t enough, Michael gathered recipes from some of Ireland’s top food writers to round off each chapter. These recipes have been specifically chosen with the produce that is in season each month. You may be disappointed that some of these recipes do appear elsewhere, but I think that having them allocated against the right season is a very sensible thing to do, and makes you more likely to try them out.

When Grow Cook Eat landed on my doorstep my husband promptly put it into his work bag and read it cover-to-cover in December. I wasn’t even allowed get a look in. We would have a number of food growing books on the shelves but this book has been read cover to cover by both of us. Not something that happens very often when we get a reference book.

Regular readers will know that we’ve been growing our own food for over 5 years now, and 2 years ago started to rear free range pork. It was Michael’s book; Tales From the Home Farm: Live More, Spend Less, Grow Your Own Food

Buy this book, for the easy to follow layout, and simply explained tips that will get you growing, cooking and eating every month of the year.

My father-in-law has now put in a request to borrow it next and we will be lucky to get it returned at the end of 2015!

All proceeds of the book go towards GIY, a registered charity in Ireland. It can be purchased from the GIY International website. Just click on the image of the book below to be brought to the site.

Disclosure: I received a copy of Grow Cook Eat from Michael Kelly for the purposes of this review.

As to what we’re up to at the allotment, I’m doing little of the physical work at the moment but plenty of the planning. With a little help from friends (much love to K & N), family (ye know who you are) and lots of hard work from hubby there have been some changes and improvements made. I’ll do a full blog update very soon!

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