— Havelock Nelson

So I wanted to hit the rewind button and tell you that 14 years ago, one of my very first plant-based cooking classes was given by Jeff Novik, the registered dietician who works with the McDougals. And he's been published everywhere, and he's just a font of knowledge. And we all those years later, stay in touch and we talk about everything from plant-based food to TV shows that we like. So here's what I learned from Jeff, and, uh, this is, this was such a great foundation to have because it made all of this seem so easy. So, um, a green, a green and a legume of some sort. So let's say that you are in a super quick hurry. You're going to go to the frozen food aisle of your favorite grocery store, and you're going to get, um, a bag of mix. Let's say you're gonna get a bag of Italian vegetables, so it's gonna have zucchini, carrots, onions, and something else. So that you're gonna get that. And then you are going to buy a box of success. Rice. That's the rice that's precooked. It comes dry, it's in a bag, it cooks in like three minutes. And so you have a vegetable and you have a rice. So let's say that you want to divide that in half because you wanna make two different meals that taste entirely different. So if I were going to make it Italian, I would have some grated onions or some granulated onions, rather. I would of course have granulated garlic. I probably would use fresh garlic because I love fresh garlic, and I might have some bas, some dried basil leaves, or if you have fresh, that's even better. And I have, uh, a grinder of Italian seasoning. So my first dish is going to be Italian. I cut that, I take the, I mix the vegetables and the rice together, and then I divide it in two. And one of it is going to be Italian easy peasy. It's probably going to serve two people or one very hungry person, a salad, maybe a side of beans. You could throw some beans in here if you wanted. Maybe some lupini beans or some garbanzo beans, or some can beans. So that will work perfectly. So the other half of that same mixture of frozen vegetables, and you've cooked the successor rice, you decide that you have a hankering to make some Indian food. So you've got the garlic from your first dish. You've got the, this is the garlic that was granulated onion. And then I have to personally say that my Indian cuisine skills are not very good. So I might have some curry on hand. And of course I have some turmeric, which I always find very helpful and I add to a lot of foods. But my new shortcut is, um, this Indian spice by a small company in Philadelphia called Moji Masala. Uh, moji means mother. Um, and this woman named Shereen Walsh has taken the ingredients from her mother's Indian spice box, and she has created them into delicious Indian spice packets. So I would use this in the other half, and then I would have two delicious dishes. So I think that it's looking at your spice base and it's looking at your favorite grains. And remember that you wanna mix your grains up, or maybe instead of using rice, you might wanna switch to a seed like quinoa, which as you know, is so rich in protein because it contains all of the nine essential amino acids. So the other thing that you might wanna do is always have on hand chopped up in your refrigerator is the essentials of the three aromatic vegetables that make up a mere POIs, which are carrot, celery, and onions for most cuisines. 'cause it can vary. So if you have that in the fridge, and I have seen them in the grocery store where people, um, buy them precut, if you're absolutely in a hurry, um, I don't like them because the cuts aren't good cuts, but that's just my quirkiness as a, a plant-based chef. But there are ways that you can sort of expand upon that. If you make the Italian vegetables, you could forget the rice and serve it over a bit of pasta. So it's all about, uh, doing what you like, uh, cooking what you like, and then making easy, simple creative meals. Now with summer bounty here, I would definitely take advantage of all of the fresh vegetables that are coming into season, whether you have a garden or not. And what's jumping off the top of my head right now is all the zucchini that is in my yard and how much we're going to be eating zoodles for the summer. So either the Indian sauce or the Italian sauce, uh, will be a perfect summer dish. So do what you love and it will make eating and cooking so much more fun. And, uh, I I hope that little tutorial, um, was interesting and it's one of the mainstays of how I teach cooking, because remember that, um, oftentimes I'm working with people who have lived off takeout or who have never cooked or other things like that. So having a good basic foundation, I think is a good way, and I hope havelock that, uh, this, uh, has been helpful for, for you. And I will be curious to see exactly what it is that you're going to put into your kitchen, uh, to start off small, you know, as, as they say, keep it simple. And then from that, the best is yet to come.