The Self-Care Cookbook: Easy Healing Plant-Based Recipes

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Add the leek, celery and carrot and continue cooking on a low heat for about 5 minutes, until they soften.

This is where her passion for mood foods really began, but cooking has always been a big part of Gemma’s life. Growing up in a big family, as the youngest of five, everyone had chores to do around the house, so Gemma’s mum taught her to cook. I was in the mental health sector for 15 years, working in the NHS with women with serious drug and alcohol issues,” says Gemma. That’s something I’ve been doing the past few years, saying no to things that I don’t really want to do – or if I do them, then it’s going to mean that I’m tired. It’s about choosing to do things that serve you and your family, rather than doing stuff to please other people.” Broke Vegan (Picture: Supplied) Broke Vegan: Over 100 plant-based recipes that don’t cost the earth by Saskia Sidey With over 60 delicious recipes including fiery bean stew for the days we feel under the weather, calming miso pasta to give your gut flora a super boost and indulgent chocolate pud because YOU deserve it, The Self-Care Cookbook is for anyone who needs some extra TLC. Read more Details

Eating well is a vital part of good health, and yet so many of us are not fuelling our bodies in the right way. Presented in 4 parts: Recovery, Replenish; Staying Well and Supercharge, with a wellness toolkit, this beautiful book outlines how to harness the power of plant-based eating to recover from illness, and create a strong foundation of long-term health. The gut plays a vital role in our health,” Ogston writes, “by helping control digestion and assisting our immune system. There is also a lot of recent research showing that our gut health has a direct link to our emotions and mood. As many of us know though, as much as we can have good intentions with self-care, so often busy schedules take over and we just seem to not have enough time. Gemma’s response to that? Prioritise it.

What’s it about? A recipe and self-care book rolled into one, this is the first of its kind. With over 60 delicious recipes including fiery bean stew for the days we feel we need some comforting, calming miso pasta to give your gut a boost and indulgent chocolate pud for those days you need a treat. This is a recipe book for anyone who feels they need some good mood food to replenish and restore – the type of food that takes away guilt and makes you feel good inside and out. I grew up the youngest of five kids, with not much money, and was cooking for my family from the age of eight. Later, I was always the one at parties cooking at midnight. I did a degree in addiction counselling and a good way of encouraging people to turn up was by offering free food. Again, I found myself in the kitchen because no one else wanted to cook and people were often more relaxed around food. Stir the tamari, thyme and parsley through the pulses mixture and spoon it into a large pie dish (remove the bay leaves if you can find them!). Partly due to hard work, but my first book has really helped. Penguin said The Self-Care Cookbook would never go out of fashion and it was right; I was on Saturday Kitchen recently and the book sold out everywhere. I do a lot of work with Soho House, including pop-up kitchens at Brighton Beach House. I share recipes with brands like Sweaty Betty and create energy-boosting menus for corporate meetings. I’m aware that there’s some scepticism around plant-based eating, so I developed a bean burger and a plant-based lasagne that are so good you don’t miss the meat. I’m not a fan of processed vegan food and I’m certainly not here to dictate what anyone should or shouldn’t eat. There are no rules. But the ultimate act of self-care is, of course, listening to your body and what it needs. “It’s alright to have a bit of chocolate cake if that’s what you want!” Gemma notes. “It’s about giving yourself permission to do that, rather than getting sad about it, and beating yourself up.”

Spread it out evenly and top with the mash. Run a fork through the mash and bake for 35–40 minutes, until the edges of the mash are crispy. So many of us go about our busy lives without eating wholesome food. Yet without giving our body what it truly needs to fuel us through the day (and night), we get ill, feel low, and have trouble sleeping. Reading more about Gemma, I learned that she turned to a plant-based diet after a number of miscarriages. “I had to have all sorts of tests. I tried acupuncture, and then I started looking into diet and how food can help,” Gemma says. “I didn't go totally vegan, but I started eating much better – way more plants and whole foods, and now I have my two babies. I was having treatment at the time as well, but it just helped with my mood and made me feel better.”