Favorite Recipes from Simply in Season: We Want to Hear from You

Guest post by Avery Peters, project manager for revised Simply in Season.

It’s fitting that the cookbook Simply in Season starts with spring. It is the time of new beginnings, and the growing season starts afresh. It’s also the perfect time to reflect on your favorite recipes and anticipate another year of cooking with the seasons, and we want to hear all about it from you.

We’re excited to announce that there will be a revised edition of Simply in Season coming out next spring (2015). This will be the second revised edition in the World Community Cookbook series; the new edition of Extending the Table will be out this spring (preorder until April 30 for the prepub discount of about $5 each). This entire cookbook series is published by Herald Press and commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee.

But we need your help to tell us about your favorite recipes; we’ll make sure that the most favorite are in the revised edition, along with new photographs throughout the cookbook. Fill out this survey to let us know your favorites (by May 1, please).

These are two of my staple recipes from Simply in Season. The Apple Lentil Salad was one of the first recipes I made and brought to a church potluck. I took home an empty bowl.

Simply in Season was my first cookbook when I moved out for university, so I know it well. This cookbook has taught me so much. The guide to the vegetables and fruits and their handling and preparation has been invaluable to me as I have grown my cooking skills and my gardening knowledge. When something at the market inspires me, I know that I will be able to go home and find a simple, straightforward recipe that will showcase the uniqueness of each vegetable or fruit.

I had to take a photo of this gnarly celeriac. I had no idea what to do with the root, but the guide from Simply in Season helped me out!

The recipes inspire me and keep me coming back to the same recipes over and over. It’s still the first cookbook that I turn to, even as my cookbook collection is growing. For many recipes I don’t even need to follow the ingredients or amounts anymore. Sometimes I just open it to the page for the familiarity of it, for the comfort of previous splatters or to add to them. I’ve grown more confident with the recipes, and many times I experiment or add new ingredients depending on what’s in my fridge.

I mostly make the Chicken or Tofu Stirfry with tofu. It is another staple in my home that I change up depending on what I get from the farmers’ market.

But it’s more than the recipes that keep me coming back. It’s the philosophy and the care that the authors, Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert, put into the shaping of the cookbook. It set the tone for my lifestyle and how I cook. It got me in touch with what is growing and when.

There is so much pleasure in waiting for a new season to begin and the fruits and vegetables that come with it. And there is just as much pleasure that comes from laboring to preserve it in delicious meals or for the winter.

I’m sure you have your favorite recipes that you go to again and again with excitement for each new season. I know I can’t wait to make my first or maybe my only batch of “Spring Celebration Soup” when the asparagus is out and the first bulbs of garlic arrive.

One summer, I couldn’t resist the first strawberries, so I bought a whole flat and made Strawberry Bread and Chilled Strawberry Soup.

I’m eager to hear what you have to say so we can take your favorites and showcase them in the new edition of Simply in Season. There will be a whole new layout with helpful color photos and stories. It’s a celebration of our favorite splattered recipes and a cookbook that so many of us hold dear: a celebration of a cookbook that shapes more than what we eat and helps us live out our faith in our kitchens.

For all those who fill out the survey, you will receive a special 30 percent discount code on the revised edition that will be coming out in Spring 2015. Please fill out this survey out by MAY 1, 2014. You will also be entered into a drawing to win one of three gifts related to seasonal foods.

 Avery Peters is project manager for the revised edition of Simply in Season. She currently lives in Toronto and attends Toronto United Mennonite Church (fondly known as TUMC). She is sad to be leaving Toronto but looking forward to moving this summer to the town of Wolfville, in the heart of Nova Scotia’s agricultural region and along the Bay of Fundy. She is a freelance editor and writer specializing in cookbooks and nonfiction.