(Food writer) Anna Jones - One pot, pan, planet : a greener way to cook for you, your family and the planet

4th Estate
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This eBook edition published by 4th Estate in 2021

Text copyright Anna Jones 2021
Photography copyright Issy Croker 2021

Cover design by Ellie Game

Anna Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780008172480
Ebook Edition March 2021 ISBN: 9780008172497
Version: 2021-01-05

Contents

To Dylan, you outshine everything

This book is a celebration of food, cooking and togetherness; of the principles that ground how we live, cook and eat; of showing love to those we hold dear, to our communities and to ourselves.

When I started writing this book in late 2018, the world was a different place. But now we are at a turning point, in a moment of crisis and great opportunity. The events of 2020 have proven that collective action can lead to radical change, both in ideology and behaviour, and I hope that we can move forwards armed with the knowledge that a different world is really possible. Many of us do not want to go back to the old patterns. This is a chance to be part of the urgent shift that needs to happen, especially helping to slow climate change.

My books have previously been gentle in their approach to putting plants at the centre of your tables. And while food and cooking, for me, are absolutely about the joy and the connection and beauty of sharing a meal, I feel now its time to stress the changes we need to make. I want to make it clear that how we eat can actually help to shift the world we live in.

All the information on the climate crisis, and what we as individuals can do, can feel overwhelming. While we need to be real about the seriousness of whats going on, I think its important to focus on one manageable step at a time. We make 35,000 decisions a day; thats a lot of potential for making a change. What we need, of course, is a systematic change in our food system led by our governments; but each small choice we make matters and it is up to us to make different choices as well as demanding action from those who hold the power and purse strings.

Our food system has the single biggest impact on the climate. It affects every inch of our planet and every creature on it. If we want to help slow, and one day (hopefully) begin to reverse, climate change, it is widely agreed that the most powerful thing we can do is eat fewer animals and more plants. For you, that might mean one meal a day without meat, or it might mean fine-tuning your vegan diet. However it looks, start from where you are and dont look back. Change comes from what we do next. Try to make sure as many of the food decisions you make line up with how you want the world to look.

We are all learning; I am learning too. While I try to live as sustainably as possible, I make mistakes. Sometimes I buy plastic-packaged goods and flown-in treats. If you look back over my books you will see a shift in the ingredients I use to cook and, while I have always cooked seasonally, I have slowly moved away from some ingredients which have a bigger footprint. In my mind we should celebrate our successes not focus on what we have not done.

The food we eat quite literally builds and fuels the bodies which we walk around in every day. The food and farming systems we support likewise determine the kind of world we live in. Food is the one thing we ALL have in common, that we all engage with three times a day. Its an important thing to focus on, inform ourselves about and celebrate.

We need to bring some connection and kindness back into the way we support our farmers and those who grow and harvest our food, the way we shop (from supporting local to reducing packaging), the way we store, prepare and waste food and the way we honour our bodies and our families with the food we put into them. It is all a web of infinite connection. Lets put kindness and joy at the heart of how we cook and eat.

How this book can help

This book is, I hope, where thought meets practical action, and where theory is grounded in reality. I want to show you a way of eating which WILL help the planet.

I could have made this book more radical, asking you, for instance, to buy only food from sustainable agriculture or biodynamic farms, and to eat more wild and foraged ingredients, and to eat 100% seasonal, British-grown produce. And whilst I think we can and should aspire to all of these things and move towards a climate-friendly diet, this book takes more manageable, but equally important, steps.

I hope that for many of you this book will sit in a sweet spot between the time you can devote to shopping and cooking, ingredients that are accessible to you and you can afford, and a way of eating which is kind to the planet.

None of us is perfect and the science is complicated. At times it feels hard to make the right choices. But every small change adds up.

It was proven to me over the months of the pandemic that we can make the time to cook, that we can waste less and we can be creative with recipes and ingredients. I think the past year has changed us all as cooks. We came to value food for the miraculous life-giving stuff it is. If we had been told in the months before the coronavirus crisis how much appreciation we would come to have for a simple bag of flour or an egg, I doubt any of us would have believed it.

Pot/Pan/Quick/Tray

The recipes in this book are grouped by what they are cooked in. Stews, soups and curries fill the One Pot chapter. Fritters, pancakes and crispy-edged veg make up the One Pan chapter. Easy all-in-one dinners and desserts are in the One Tray chapter. And Ive included a collection of quick recipes for when time and your willingness to stand at the cooker are in short supply. There are a few slightly more complicated recipes which I have included as they are things I love to cook for friends you will find those at the end of each chapter.

I have simplified the recipes, cooking and ingredients as much as possible, to save you time and money, as well as reducing the washing up and the energy used (more on that ). I am a working mother of a young child so meals these days need to deliver on flavour without taking up too much time and energy. Limiting the pans and processes used keeps things quick and easy but still, I hope, knock-out delicious.