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

Your first book, The Self-Care Cookbook: Easy Healing Plant-Based Recipes, which was published by Penguin in 2019, is focussed on what we might now call “conscious eating”. Were you always a fan of food that nourishes and nurtures? Ogston, cofounder with her husband of Gem's Wholesome Kitchen, debuts with a guide that is intended to give a holistic approach to cooking. In particular, Ogston aims to help readers focus on self-through through food. The personable introduction includes a guide to pantry staples as well as a pantry cleanse that goes beyond food to philosophy. Recipes are uniquely organized into chapters, such as Restore, with meals including calming miso pasta and overnight oats, along with a section called Rebalance, featuring dishes like smoky stuffed eggplants and creamy sweet potato soup. Home cooks will enjoy the variety of meals, from breakfasts to mains to desserts. The photographs are colorful, bright, and beautifully displayed making even the humblest dish become mouthwatering. Interspersed throughout are sections on lifestyle intended to help readers embark on a self-care path. The index thoroughly covers the recipes, ingredients, and lifestyle sections. VERDICT This approachable book will appeal to self-care enthusiasts, vegan cooks, and many readers looking to start practicing a healthier lifestyle. —Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Inst. of Technology, Portland Unusual to have a cookbook as a goodreads book. But this one had a lot of interesting information on wellbeing, including restore, rebalance, reflect and renew and I read it from cover to cover. The recipes look simple and tasty. 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. Feeling the effects of an especially indulgent festive period? Us too. And with the new year – and indeed, the new decade – just beginning, there’s never been a better time to think about restoring the balance.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.

To help support the growth of healthy bacteria,” she continues, “we need to eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fermented foods.” The best part? A batch will keep up to three months when frozen, so you can always have some close at hand. No late-night scrolling! We all know the blue light emitted from electronics can affect sleep, but social media can sometimes spark negative thought processes, too. You want to go to bed feeling calm and content. Don’t worry if you’re not getting as many hours each night as you think you should, but do take a look at ways you can introduce more moments of rest into your daily life and at improving the quality of the sleep that you do get. Maybe set aside one night a week to go to bed early or let yourself nap in the afternoon on the weekend if you’re tired. Even just slowing things down a notch or two as you go about your day, allowing yourself to pause for a quiet moment or making the time to do absolutely nothing for a few hours every so often so you can relax and unwind will help you feel all the more rested.Create a calming sleep environment•Let your bedroom breathe. Open the windows and get some fresh air in every day. Invest in some new bedding. It doesn’t need to cost a fortune—you can get some on sale—but it really makes a difference. 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. The Self-Care Cookbook (Picture: Supplied) The Self-Care Cookbook: Easy Healing Plant-Based Recipes by Gemma Ogston