Book review: Everyday and Sunday – Recipes from Riverford Farm

Three years after the award-winning Riverford Farm Cook Book, Guy Watson and Jane Baxter have written the long-awaited follow-up.

Everyday and Sunday – Recipes from Riverford Farm features more of chef Jane’s wonderful seasonal recipes, interspersed with informative and interesting introductions about produce and growing from Guy, the owner of what is now the largest organic box scheme in the UK.

Many of the recipes will be familiar to visitors of the farm’s highly regarded on-site Field Kitchen restaurant and they are arranged month-by-month, which will be particularly useful to anybody who cooks dishes depending on what is in their weekly veg box or what is available at their local farmers’ market.

As the book’s title suggests, these are a combination of quick dishes for busy weekdays and more involved meals for leisurely family weekends.

There are some cracking recipes in the book. The dishes in the April and May chapters alone make me want to get straight into the kitchen and start cooking – for example: orecchiette with purple sprouting broccoli; wild garlic pesto; spiced chicken with spring greens; asparagus, egg, prosciutto and Parmesan; triple garlic frittata, and rhubarb and cinnamon cake.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet Jane a few times and these straightforward, unpretentious recipes reflect her down-to-earth approach perfectly, but also capture her infectious passion for really simple food with big flavours.

The first Riverford cookbook was impressive but this manages to be that rare thing - a follow-up volume that is even better than the original. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Everyday and Sunday – Recipes from Riverford Farm is published by Fourth Estate on May 2. The hardback costs £24.99 and the paperback is £18.99 (and only available from Riverford).