Back in the mists of 2007, Katherine Bird, Leah Holscher and Rachel Pitts got together over breakfast to discuss making a small cookbook as a gesture to friends and family at Christmas. They wanted to offer loved ones something handmade, to begin a project together to celebrate the togetherness of the season, and create something that shared the particular skills of each contributor. Leah would take the photos, Katherine would do the design, and Rachel would write the recipes.
'The Hungry Girls Cookbook' went on to become a Melbourne sensation, running to three installments and featuring in Australian design and foodie blogs in Australia and all over the world. These small handmade, screen printed and hand bound cookbooks started Rachel Pitts on a lifetime journey into food writing, urban veggie farming, and a focus on the kind of DIY publishing that so captured Melbourne’s heart back in 2007.
The Fruitful Kitchen Cookbooks are the brainchild of Rachel Pitts, and are direct descendants of The Hungry Girls’ approach to food writing: A focus on the simple and seasonal, with a healthy dollop of adventurous international flavour.
This series of four seasonal cookbooks is a wonderful way to celebrate the spirit of each season, with each cookbook featuring your new favourite thirteen recipes that roam the globe and make the most of Australia’s seasonal produce. Each (mostly) vegetarian cookbook begins with breakfast and ends with dessert - which sounds to us like a delicious weekend challenge!
‘Summer’ features:
Tomato and tofu stir-fry from Cambodia | Green bean, coconut and yoghurt salad from South India | Greek stuffed tomatoes | No-churn plum ice-cream | Apricot pie to make time stop for a moment.
‘Autumn’ features:
Figs with Nepali coconut semolina | Tomato sambal to stash in the freezer for the best stir-fries | A pumpkin pizza you may not have met before | Sri Lankan beetroot curry | A three ingredient ‘cake’ of apples and limes.
‘Winter’ features:
Pan-fried silverbeet and feta flatbreads | Chipotle potato tacos | Pasta with cauliflower and olives | Okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake) with homemade sauce | Real raspberry jelly slice.
‘Spring’ features:
Greens and barley soup with asparagus, peas and a lick of green garlic | Fried turmeric fish with dill and noodles from Vietnam | Artichokes for pizza, paella … | Broccoli mallum | Egyptian rice with lentils and vermicelli | Strawberry and coconut cake.
Words and photos: Rachel Pitts.
Design and illustration: Nicole Stewart.
Format: Softcover (Printed in Melbourne on recycled paper).
Language: English
Pages: Varies (each book contains 13 recipes with full colour photography).
Dimensions (cm): 21 x 16
Weight (kg): 0.1
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