Component Cooking

In cooking, full recipes are usually my last resort. I like improvisation behind cooking and challenging myself to do this completely changed the way I cooked. Sure, I share quite a bit of recipes but I've also tried to extend what I'm doing to include the idea of improv. There is nothing better than going to the market, seeing what is fresh, and creating a meal based on those beautiful ingredients.

My second book was a branch, sharing 50 base recipes for playing in the kitchen. In it, there are 50 recipes from you could use almost any combination of produce you have on hand. These back-pocket recipes are the ones I use day to day, with lots of variation.

From there, I created the ingredient and pantry section to hopefully reduce food waste with leftover ingredients. There's nothing quite like buying an ingredient for one recipe and never using it again. However, by searching for a recipe through that particular ingredient, whether produce or pantry, you can find many different recipes to try.

Now, I'm introducing a new weekly series that involves one of my favorite ways to cook: components. The idea of component cooking is to make a big batch of something and use it in different ways throughout the week. I have a list of a few dozen components I use frequently and over the course of the next year, I'll be sharing a recipe for each along with variations and recipes. It's like leftovers, but better. The goal each week is to batch prep a few of these components and use them in a few different ways. Sometimes combining, sometimes using as is.

The end goal is to feel inspired and ready to tackle a week of cooking instead of looking at it like a chore no one wants to do!

 All Vegetarian component cooking recipes