🍂Fall flavors + authentic Japanese cooking for all 🍜

Our favorite chive recipes

Cooking for the changing season

Mid-September is a time of change. Summer is still vivid in our memories. Some days still hold its warmth, the farm and garden are still bountiful. And yet winter is now on the horizon. How do we make the most of autumnal plenty, eating well for the season, and preserving some of that bounty for the sparser months to come? Focus on the current harvests, and brush up on your jam-making and pickling skills.

This collection of recipes for Autumn’s Finest Fruit looks to apples and pears, blackberries and figs. Try Pears in Chianti, or this Blackberry and Lemon Pavlova. Autumn’s Vegetables Harvest brings the joys of mushrooms, root vegetables and squash, and a wealth of warming dishes.

Source a butternut squash for this Squash Tatin with Harissa Butter. Crisp up a classic with Baked Parsnip Chips with Spiced Bean Relish. Or feed the family with this vegan Beetroot and Lentil Lasagne.

For the sweeter side of preserving take a look at our Autumnal Jams & Preserves. You’ll be glad you did when you have some Blackberry Jam to spread on your crumpet for your mid-winter breakfasts. Or try this Golden Pear-Vanilla Jam. If you have a taste for pickles and savories, explore this collection for Preserving Autumn’s Bounty, and find everything from Pickled Beets to Mushroom Ketchup.

Look here for some more Autumn inspiration

Pictured above: Squash Tatin with Harissa Butter from Prue: My All-time Favourite Recipes by Prue Leith

Let’s Cook Japanese Food!

American food writer and editor Amy Kaneko spent two years living in Japan with her Japanese husband, and has learnt Japanese home cooking from her mother-in-law, friends and family. In her book Let’s Cook Japanese Food!: Everyday Recipes for Authentic Dishes – which we are delighted is now live on ckbk – she brings her knowledge of what Japanese people really eat at home to Western readers and their kitchens.

With an extensive front section that guides the novice Japanese cook through equipment, ingredients and methods, the recipes are then divided by five ingredient types that are key to this cuisine. For example, in addition to a section on Vegetables, there is also one on Tofu & Eggs. The recipes themselves are carefully explained and easy to follow.

Try okonomiyaki (“As You Like It” Savory Pancake), or some ebi no chiri so-su (Shrimp in Mild Tomato Chilli Sauce). Try family favorite sukiyaki (Paper-Thin Beef, Green Onions & Vegetables in Sweet Soy Sauce), or the beautiful simplicity of kurumi soba (Cold Soba Noodles with Sweet Walnut Dipping Sauce) Let’s Cook Japanese Food is a book packed with authentic recipes you will want to try!

Find all 66 recipes in Let's Cook Japanese Food

It’s British Food Fortnight

From September 20 to October 6 we mark British Food Fortnight, an annual celebration of the diverse and delicious food the UK has to offer, now in its 23rd year. To enjoy great British food, search across ckbk, including this collection of British Specialties. Serve some Bubble and Squeak – a kind of potato and cabbage hash that is more than the sum of its parts – with your Lancashire Hot Pot. And how about an old school Jam Roly-poly for pudding?

If Great British Baking is more your thing try some Classic British Baking – find Rich Fruit Scones, the essential Victoria Sponge, and more. And with the new season of The Great British Bake Off kicking off this month, there’s no better time to learn a few tricks from the grand dame and Bake Off Judge herself, Prue Leith. Take a look through Prue: My All-time Favourite Recipes – who could refuse a slice of her Apple Caramel Cake.

Ingredient focus: chives

Chives are the smallest, and most delicate of the onion family.

Their long, fine, hollow leaves provide a vibrant green and subtle onion flavor.

The flavor is gentle enough that they work well raw as a garnish, on top of salads, or dips.

Chives also work well when cooked, for example in dumplings, savory bakes, quiches or soups.

Try Baked Eggs with Fresh Chives, Mushroom and Chive Dumplings, these Chive Parmigiano-Reggiano Popovers or any of the recipes in our collection of 12 Ways with Chives.

6 of the best apple recipes

September 21 is International Eat an Apple Day. We all know that an apple a day is good for you. But given they are also very tasty we don’t mind! Here are six smashing apple recipes for some apple-eating variety.