Mira Rajput Instagram – I love to cook. And love to cook instinctively, quickly and with minimal reading. Normally I glance through a recipe and come up with my own version because often the ingredients are not locally available and more so because I lack the patience for long, measurement bound recipes. That’s why I turned away from baking couple of years ago. Being a vegetarian all my life, I was always disappointed with the books available, and found it hard to make substitutions when they didn’t even exist. Here are 4 books I have recently bought and absolutely love, because they speak to the kind of cook I am. Short flavourful recipes that put vegetables and good produce front and centre, diverse enough to have varied menus and appropriately simple to follow and be inventive with. For me cooking is about having fun, connecting with oneself, and having shared memories around the table. The world is moving towards being more plant-based and it’s not just about vegan cheese and meat substitutes, but about honouring each vegetable and fruit, enjoying it for its inherent flavour and having fun with it in spontaneous ways. I love each book for its own reasons but I’ll save that for another post! This post better not be like a recipe I skim through! Clockwise : 1) Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi 2) Fresh India by Meera Sodha 3) Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi 4) The Complete Vegan Cookbook by Chloe Coscarelli