— Annelies Verjauw

The first principle and maybe the The Guiding Light here is what we call batch cooking. And especially in our plant-based courses we touch upon this concept and the the premise of batch cooking is to cook or you know prepare staple food items and whatever that means, you know is going to be a unique to your situation. It could be a grain. It could be a bean or a lentil it could be vegetables. But the idea is to prepare those staple items in larger quantities at the beginning of the week. And for a lot of people that's going to be on a say Sunday afternoon looking ahead to the Monday through Friday work week and then to draw from that that inventory throughout the week or it could be just two or three days worth of cooking that you do is going to be up to you but the idea again is to prepare your staple ingredients in a larger quantities. so that you can more quickly compose dishes when mealtime comes and you know, if you've got two or three or four stable items that you prepared, you know, you can easily change the seasonings the flavorings, you know via fresh herbs or spices as well as the condiments and other sauces that you might use to create different flavor profiles and different dishes that can be enjoyed as a bowl. So to speak or in a wrap, you know to make a taco or in added to a soup or a stew and so there are different ways than that. You can create very different meal experiences, but using the same three or four or five let's say staple food items. And you know, sometimes we will cook that staple food 100% you know, for example, if it's a grain, you know, go ahead and simmer it until it's cooked to the degree of dentist that you want and then drain it in store it or you can even store it in its liquid. That's fine. If you're wondering what the difference might be give it a try both ways and do something some comparing and see what works best for your situation. Okay other times we might par cook an item or partially cook an item and this is where we might oh, it could be blanching. But often it is par cooking. Let's say a root vegetable that we then will finish at the Meal Time by sauteing or maybe steaming and that, you know provides us a freshly. Looked item as it comes out of the pan. And so again, it's just going to be a matter of for you to think about a few items to get started with and then from week to week. You can change those staple items, you know, as you try out different recipes or different preparations in the coming week. All right, so hope that's helpful for you. Thank you.