Plenty: Good, uncomplicated food

The book arrived very quickly, in excellent condition and exactly as described. I have had a soft spot for this author since Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons and am happy to have this volume in my collection. I have not cooked any of the recipes yet but will pull out one or two to try when I get some free time.

Yes, it is the same as Plenty, but that's a good thing if you want a kindle copy of this fantastic cookbook by a great writer. Thanks to amazon and Hachette for making it available to U.S. cooks with metric and U.S. weight measurements.

Diana Henry's books are always beautiful, filled with simple, nourishing recipes that are well crafted and tested.

Any books by Diana Henry are amazing.

I'll be honest, this cookbook sat almost untouched in my house for a few years -- then COVID stay-at-home orders started, and I picked it up and started cooking from it.I found that pretty much any recipe in here is a winner! It's been very rewarding over the past year, I've gotten so many great meals out of this, and then can keep flipping through and finding more new ones to try.I agree with other reviewers that this isn't the "simplest" cookbook -- I wouldn't buy it for an absolute beginner -- but the recipes vary a lot in complexity, so you can start with some of the simpler ones and work your way up. It has also taught me quite a few key cooking techniques along the way and really built up my kitchen confidence. And I appreciate there are more complex recipes that I can also expect to be good, and move on to when I'm ready.I also really like that many recipe pages have 2-3 short alternative recipes at the bottom -- so again, once you've nailed down a certain cooking style or dish, you can expand and modify.Bottom line, it's the quality, reliability, and uniqueness of the recipes in here. I know if I flip through and land on something new that intrigues me, and I haven't seen elsewhere or even eaten before, I should give it a shot!

This book is one of the most cherished home style cookbooks I have ever owned. Any thing Diana Henry cooks I love to cook in my kitchen. I have all her books and if she writes more cookbooks I will buy them too.

Well-written, creative recipes with hood photography. Lots of great ideas.

I guess I was expecting something more from this. It's a good book, nice pictures, plenty of variety. Just not enough regular type items.

Verkauft wird ein fehlerhafter Scan des Buches, der auf dem Kindle völlig unbrauchbar ist: Kaum zu lesen, kein Inhaltsverzeichnis , viel zu kleine Schrift - weil halt nicht für den Kindle gemacht.Sehr ärgerlich, empfinde dieses Vorgehen als reine Abzocke und möchte daher Andere vor dem Kauf warnen.Inhalt 5 Sterne , Kindle 0, macht aufgerundet 3 Sterne.

I quote from the book 'Leftovers are at the heart of this book. For example, you'll find delicious roast dinners followed by an abundance of ideas for things to do with the cold meat the next day. Diana's delicious recipes from all over the world, from Sicily to the Sahara, turn 'going without' on its head and make it a pleasure.'This book is about taking more notice of our approach to food, how we use and how we waste it, and doing it in a delicious way. Diana has a lovely writing style; approachable and not at all preachy. Diana starts with an interesting introduction, encouraging us all to approach food in a caring, thoughtful way which can only serve to increase the pleasure we get from it. I feel I have an idea of what she's getting at here; there is a distinct satisfaction in having a roast dinner, turning the remains into a soothing risotto and boiling the carcass for soup. Don't start thinking that the book is all about eking the last bit of nutrition out of every potato peeling though, plenty of the recipes are standalone, and none of them feel overtly frugal. For me the recipes draw on influences all ready present in Diana's previous books - Moroccan, English, French, Asian - this really is a book that takes a bite of world cuisine. Virtually all the recipes come with at least 2 thorough variations.Chapters and a few recipes are:The roast and 'les restes':Simple roast chicken with herbs - and 7 variations on roast chicken from Corfu roast chicken with sweet potatoes and cayenne, to Malaysian roast chicken. Recipes follow on chicken leftovers - Restorative chicken and parsley risotto, Vietnamese chicken with Nuoc Cham (a sauce), Chiang Mai chicken noodles, West Country chicken and ham pie; Greek chicken, pumpkin and feta pie; Chicken and toasted bread salad with raisins, pine nuts and capers, and Chicken, wild rice and bluberry salad. There is a similar theme through the other roasting meats.Vegetable love - Herbed ricotta with summer veg; Courgettes with raisins, pine nuts and mint; Turkish carrots and lentils with herbs, Moroccan spiced roast squash and chiokpeas with minted onions, Sicilian braised vegetables with saffron pine ntus, raisins and capers.Racing pulses - Lentil, redppeper and goats cheese salad, Spanish white beans with black pudding and chorizo, Split pea puree with Greek lemon and oregano chicken.Good grains - Persian herb chialu; Sausage, radicchio and red wine risotto, Coconut rice pudding with candied limes, Spanish rice with pork and spinach.Fine fish - Spanish baked bream, Fish pie with leek mash, Gurnard on crushed potatoes with olives, parlsey and lemon, Moroccan fish cakes, minted cucumber salad and hot sauce; roast mackerel on potatoes, lemon, garlic and thyme; Baked salmon with Scandinavian cucumber.Choice cuts - Thorough descriptions of which cuts are best for which style of cooking. Lamb, black pudding and mustard hot pot, Crispy pork belly with potatoes, eggs and gribiche dressing; Mexican tinga poblana, Ham hock with parsley sauce and cabbage.Soup, beautiful soup - Ethiopian spiced pumpkin soup, Parsnip and smoked haddock soup, Swedish spinach soup with egg butterballs.Where the wild things are - Pheasant with beer, carrots and honey, Rabbit with mustard and tarrago, Elderflower and berry jellies, Blackberry and brown sugar loaf.Sweet fruitfulness - Strawberry and lemon curd cake, Cherry and almond croutes, Gooseberry pots, Gooseberry meringue pie, Pear, almond and red wine cake.Crusts and crumbs - Southern Italian cauliflower with dried breadcrumbs, capers and anchovies; Spring panzanella, Brown bread and whisky ice cream, wine-soaked autumn pudding.Eggs is eggs - Alpine souffles, Menemen, Smoked cheddar and apple omelette, Peach and lavendar honey clafoutis.Littered throughout with beautiful non-gloss pictures, this book is as much of a delight to read as the recipes are to cook. Dinner tonight was smoked haddock brandade with spinach and poached egg - delicious! Thank you Diana for another lovely book!

"Food from Plenty" is a veritable mangnum opus, a compendium of recipes "made from the plentiful, the seasonal and the leftover". This weighty, beautiful book contains over 300 recipes, and we are reassured that none of them are extravagant.Diana Henry is best known for her Sunday missives in the food section of the "Stella" Telegraph magazine.She has a philosophy of cooking which I share with all the students at the cookery schools I teach at, and, also, in my own home. Leftovers are sacrosanct, they should be used up the next day, and Diana gives us several examples of how each recipe can then be turned into something else. Parsimony is the new holy grail, so buy quality meat and fish, for example, but lesser quantities. Stock, both chicken and vegetable, is so simple to make and so very vital for soups, risotto, sauces and many, many recipes. Diana does not preach nor admonish, albeit pointing out the many sustainability, wastage and health problems facing a nation that needs to re-connect with food, its provenance, preparation and enjoyment.This book transcends the general genre of "cookery book", as it is didactic in so many ways. Within its pages you will travel on the flight of Air Simple Gastronomy. You have arrived in Vietnam with Chicken with Nuoc Cham, a sauce made out of garlic, chilli, salt, lime juice, fish sauce and a little sugar. Next, you are sitting in an Italian garden, feasting on Pinzimonio vegetables, maybe dipped in a herby ricotta and olive dip. Mind the heat in your Mexican foray, with spicy Tinga Poblana. Diana has done a great deal of research, and her references are not just drawn from different cultures, but also across history. Ribollita, my favourite bean, cabbage and bread soup is a recipe as old as the Tuscan hills themselves, but "Scottish pear and raspberry trifle" seems to me a bang-up-to-date rendition of its more traditional cousin. There is a 1929 cookbook recipe, "Dorothy Allhusen's Cherry Salad", taken from "A book of scents and dishes". "Paradise Jelly", taken from an old American cookbook, is this season's winning recipe: a crimson jewel quince, apple and cranberry jelly that looks as good as its name implies. The very first recipe I am going to try has to be "Barley, parsley and pomegranate salad", it looks so enticing, minutely pretty and crunchy.The styling and composition is homely, rustic and warm, featuring the best needlework linens and crackle ware pottery I have ever seen. Home cooks have had enough of the endless stream of transient celebrity cooks who are plugged into the oxygen tank of hype, fame and tweets. It is so life-affirming to read the work of a professional, serious, Mamma cookery writer who has stood the test of time by putting really good, conscientious dinners on the table, by caring about cooking and taking pleasure in its comfort. Her words ring timely and true: "What it boils down to is taking more care. We need to value our planet, our bodies, the people who produce our food, the animals who provide it, and those we feed every day. It makes for a much happier life".

Diana Henry's books are my most used recipe books by far. She has demonstrated a knack for creating and collecting fabulous recipes, in Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons: Enchanting Dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa and Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul, presenting simple but amazing dishes in Cook Simple: Effortless Cooking Every Day, and collating many delicious gastropub recipes in The Gastropub Cookbook (though the follow up book The Gastropub Cookbook: Another Helping was admittedly a bit of a letdown).This eagerly awaited new publication therefore comes as a bit of an anti-climax, as unlike the earlier works, the recipes on the whole fail to scream out from the page demanding to be cooked. The recipes are simple in the main but unlike the aforementioned Cook Simple they do not seem to explode with flavour, being more towards the plain rustic end of the spectrum of cuisine. There are a handful of potential interest, such as caramelised onion, pear and blue cheese tarts with walnuts and rosemary; sausage radicchio and red wine risotto; lamb kofta with cherries and yoghurt; beef and carrots in stout with parsley and horseradish dumplings; blackberry and ricotta hot cakes with honey; cardamom, honey and orange roast apricots; blood orange and cardamom jellies; and peach and lavender honey clafoutis. But they are a bit thin on the ground in what is actually quite a thick tome by cookbook standards.Any supposed seasonal cooking theme within this book is a bit nullified from the point of view of usefulness because of the book's arrangement by type of ingredient rather than by time of year. Similarly I don't really get any sense at all of how to use this book for using up leftovers or seasonal gluts as claimed in the blurb.Had I been flicking through this in a bookshop unawed by Ms Henry's great reputation hitherto, I would almost certainly not have purchased. I sincerely hope that she is not losing her knack.In short, if simple rustic food is your thing, this book is definitely for you. If like me you like your food a bit more complex in its flavours, perhaps it isn't.3.5 stars.

Delicious food made using these well written, clear and easy to follow recipes!