Hemsley’s 'leftovers' recipe book to Ebury

A new cookery book from Melissa Hemsley, Eat Green, featuring everyday, flexitarian recipes to help people "shop smart, cook with ease and help the planet”, will be published by Ebury in January.

The deal for world all language rights was done by the Penguin Random House imprint’s publishing director, Lizzy Gray, directly with the author. Hemsley’s fourth book, it will contain more than 100 recipes, with photography by Philippa Langley shot at Hemsley’s home, and focuses on celebrating leftovers and avoiding food waste. It will be published in January in hardback with an r.r.p. of £20.

Ebury said: “This stylish cookbook is for everyone who wants to enjoy delicious food that’s good for you, simple to make and affordable to cook every day, but to also helps reduce our impact on the planet...Eat Green celebrates vegetables as the star ingredient. Good quality dairy, fish and meat can be added in, or left out, and local British produce is prioritised. It’s packed with everyday hacks, leftover makeovers and seasonal swaps for real life - Melissa’s USP.”

Hemsley said: “I’ve wanted to write this book for a long time. My Mum was born in the Philippines and she and my Army Dad bought the family up on military bases so between them, one of the number 1 house rules was that food was always to be respected and never ever wasted.”

“My friends know me as a lover of leftovers and I’m a big fan of making time and energy in the kitchen really count so in Eat Green, I’ll be showing how to get ahead with cooking for busy weeknights and packed lunches, my favourite suggestions for batch cooking meals with shortcuts and store cupboard ingredients and how to turn often wasted veg trimmings, like stalks and stems into something delicious.”

She revealed how she has started volunteering with The Felix Project in London, cooking food saved from supermarket bins into “hearty, tasty” meals to feed the residents and staff of a London homeless shelter.  “The recipes in Eat Green will be based on the 12 most bought and most thrown away UK grown vegetables and I’ll be sharing lots of tips for how we can get the most from our shopping and cut down on throwing food in the bin, saving us money and doing our bit for the planet.”

Gray: “In Eat Green, Melissa offers smart flexitarian recipes that can be easily adapted to suit non-meaters or meat-lovers but ultimately help us all reduce our intake of meat and fish, shop and cook thoughtfully, and help us make small changes that will add up to make a big difference.”

Hemsley is one half of the Hemsleys (along with sister Jasmine), bestselling authors of The Art of Eating Well and Good + Simple (both published by Ebury) with London café HEMSLEY + HEMSLEY at Selfridges.  Her first solo title, Eat Happy (Ebury), focused on fast, delicious recipes for busy nights in 2018.