cooking & eating sustainably with megan davies

Eating sustainably is something we’re all super passionate about at Dip & Doze, so we’re always looking out for new tips and recipes. Lately, we’ve seen a big increase in those of you welcoming a more conscious way of living, too. However, we know that trying to be more conscious with eating habits has been slightly more challenging recently.

Influenced heavily by nostalgic meals & cooking for loved ones at home over the years, we’ve loved cooking up beautiful, wholesome dishes from Home Bird by Megan Davies. The new  cookbook couldn’t have come at a better time.

As well as Home Bird being full of delicious recipes, Megan also shares all the inspiration you need to run a more sustainable home kitchen, from invaluable tricks on how to make ingredients stretch to turning leftovers into a new meal.

how did your love of cooking first start?

I think it was just the fact that I was surrounded by lots of wholesome food when I was younger, I’m from a big family and there are 9 immediate cousins all within about 8 years of each other. So, there was a lot of mass feeding going on! My Grandma Mouse was a real matriarch and constantly had some sort of feast on the go for family, friends, treats for her WI meetings or open garden – I learnt pretty quickly that food brings people together.

what inspires your recipes?

Definitely a combination of nostalgia (I love wholesome, nourishing, sharing food even better if there’s a story or memory attached) along with making most of what you have got at home/what needs using up, which is really important.

can you tell everyone a little bit about your new book home bird?

Yes! Home Bird is my first cookbook, it came out this June… which was a very weird time to release a debut cookbook, but it also is an amazingly relevant tool, considering what everyone has been going through this year.

The book shares a collection of recipes that all pretty much have some sort of nostalgic relevance to me and focus on great, bold flavours with a big focus towards minimal wastage cooking. Every recipe has 2 notes at the bottom, ‘swap-ins’ and ‘leftovers’, giving you personalised tips on both those things.

what are your top tips for running a more sustainable kitchen & reducing waste?

My attitude towards being sustainable in the kitchen and reducing food waste isn’t about becoming a master at fermenting or pickling everything in sight, it’s just about being flexible.

If you want to make a recipe, but don’t have all the right ingredients… jiggle things around and swap some stuff in that you HAVE got, or equally if you have ingredients that need using up but you had other plans, reschedule your meal plan slightly and you’ll save money and waste less! This comes naturally to some people and (as I say in the book) can be really overwhelming to others, it’s that intuition that I try and teach, or at least help develop in Home Bird… that’s why I added the swap-in and leftovers notes onto every single recipe, it’s my favourite element of the book.

what is your favourite weekend brunch recipe?

Hmmmm I mean, I would be lying if I didn’t say the breakfast for an army – However, the bacon and maple sesame bagels are also a firm favourite. As long as there’s bacon I’m happy.

what is your favourite seasonal ingredient right now?

I’m still loving tomatoes even though it’s almost over, I can’t get enough of them. Pumpkins are kind of starting to come through though and the delica pumpkin is just so delicious. Autumnal/winter food is my favourite, hands down.

You can find Megan’s book stockists here.

Home Bird by Megan Davies, published by Ryland Peters & Small (£16.99)
Photography by Clare Winfield © Ryland Peters & Small