the trap of cooking the same things on repeat; find new recipes, get the right ingredients and try them out.
Up your skills from time to time with videos and books. Improve your knife skills with videos on YouTube. Use any of the amazing online tools, or a collection of cookbooks, to store up recipes to try in future. You can use post-its to mark the pages with recipes you want to try!
There’s always something new to master, whether it’s basics like getting vegan béchamel nailed or advanced baking with aquafaba. This new, plant-based way of thinking about food has so much freedom for innovation, so you’ll be constantly improving.
Keep fruit and veggies on hand (or on ice) at all times!.
A fridge full of fruit and veggies is not only good for your pocket, but they’ll also keep really well. Onions, garlic and potatoes are best kept out of the fridge in a cool, dry place.
Got lots of fruit left over? Stick it in the freezer and use it to make morning smoothies. Peel and chop the fruit into bite-sized chunks and put it into a Tupperware container for easy use later. We have a constant store of frozen bananas, apples, berries, spinach, kale and watermelon ready to combine for a deliciously nutritious smoothie at any time of the day.
Bought too many veggies? That’s OK: freeze them and use them later. Made too much pasta sauce? Pop it in a Tupperware or a freezer bag and keep it ready for a quick meal.
Keep your kitchen and pantry well organised to make life easier.
Organise your pantry well and you’ll always have meals ready to cook – check out for key ingredients to keep in stock. We go full nerd with sticky labels to highlight the right places for things. It makes cooking so much more satisfying and efficient because we’re not constantly searching for ingredients in the cupboard.
We tend to organise our pantry shelves into sections like ‘sauces & syrups’, ‘oils & vinegars’, ‘herbs & spices’, ‘flour, sugar & baking’, ‘grains, rice, pasta’, plus the essential ‘tea & coffee’ shelf. Figure out a system that works for you. Trust us, knowing where things are makes fast cooking much easier.
Finally, organise your spices in a way that’s easy to browse. We prefer smaller tubs of spices since they tend to be a consistent size and they usually have labels on the top. Plus, big bags of spice are harder to store and spices tend to go off if they’re left on the shelf for too long. You’ll soon discover which herbs and spices you get through quickly and which are worth buying in bulk – try decanting them into jars and adding your own labels on the lid.
EQUIPMENT.
The equipment you find in your typical kitchen is going to work just fine for the recipes in this book. There is nothing super fancy or technical about what we do in our kitchen; we like to keep things simple. But, if we were going to design a cost-effective kitchen from scratch, here’s how we would do it:
Essential items.
These should be your go-to items. We use these every day to make great BOSH! food.
High-powered blender. (like a NutriBullet, Magic Ninja or Magimix).
A good, sharp knife (and sharpener).
A selection of chopping boards that look great on the side and inspire you to cook.
A kitchen timer or your mobile phone to get the timings right.
Neatly stored spices, all in one place so you can find them quickly.
A varied selection of preferably non-stick saucepans.
Large spoons and tongs that work with your pans (don’t use metal on non-stick!).
Measuring tools, like a measuring jug, weighing scales and measuring spoons.
Nice-to-have items.
Get these if you like. They will speed up your cooking, but they’re optional.
Keep a clean tea towel in your pocket as you cook and you’ll feel like a pro.
Large-bowl food processor or hand blender.
Oven-to-table dishes (for lasagne and pies).
Garlic crusher.
A grater to zest or grate dairy-free cheese.
A good rolling pin.
Completely optional, but very cool items.
These come in handy from time to time in our kitchen, so get them if you wish.
Pizza stone for better cooking and a crispier crust.
Waffle iron.
Toasted-sandwich maker.
Slow cooker for long, slow, melt-in-the-mouth curries.
Tiny dishes (soy sauce dishes) for measuring out spices before you start to cook.
Sealing clips to keep opened packets of food from spilling everywhere.
Tupperware or storage jars to keep your cupboards organised and store leftovers.
Tofu press to make it even easier to cook with tofu.
INGREDIENTS.
The chances are that you already have most of these ingredients in your cupboard or your fridge. What we hope this book will do is unlock the potential in your store cupboard, and help you turn that humble tin of chickpeas into the most awesome falafel, or transform your usual pasta dish into something you’d be proud to serve at a dinner party. Get stocked up!
Essentials.
If someone were to ask us what we keep in our kitchen cupboards, this would be the answer. We use these ingredients all the time and always keep them in stock so that we can whip up a quick meal without having to go to the shop first.
Pasta, in all its many forms, will answer your hunger prayers.
Having rice in the cupboard means you’ll always have something to eat.
Noodles are a great base for speedy, nourishing and satisfying meals.
Olive or groundnut oil, to use sparingly when frying or roasting.
Sea salt and black pepper to season to perfection and bring your food to life.
Garlic, because it’s the best thing ever, used by nearly every cuisine in the world.
Tinned chickpeas give you the wonder beans with which you can make hummus and falafel, plus aquafaba, an incredibly useful substitute for egg and dairy in cooking.
Various tinned beans will ensure you get your protein whenever you need it.
A stock of tinned tomatoes means you always have a base for sauces.
A selection of spices for essential flavour – never underestimate their power.
Fresh