Get Cooking

The case for it: The argument for clean eating is thousand-fold, and shocking revelations every other day only add to the horror — hormones in your meat, injections and implants on cows, bleached garlic from China, fraudulent seafood, honey that’s not honey. A plant-based, whole foods diet is not just a preference anymore, it’s almost a necessity.

The book you need: Dining in: Highly Cookable Recipes is by the former editor of Bon Appetit and

BuzzFeed, Alison Roman, who’s known as much for her wry humour as her incredible Insta-food. From a comfort meal to impress-the-in-laws dinner, this book has it all, and Roman’s acerbic voice will entertain you as much as teach you.

Uniting home cooking and simple dishes with quickie techniques, the vegetable-forward meals with standout flavours like garlicky walnuts and lemon labneh marry the traditional and thrilling. Roman has no appetite for posh fussy cooking. She gives us busy ones trending ingredients and plenty of make-ahead options. Wholewheat pasta with mushrooms and buckwheat, chickpeas-chorizo baked eggs, brown butter cake with cocoa... it’s a cornucopia of tastes.

This is one food writer who can actually write.