Quite a few years ago I met a couple of ladies who made really good salads. It was interesting that their salads came across my plate at the same time, the reason being that they caused me to make a leap in my learning as a home cook, and this in turn, caused a development in the way I run my kitchen and pantry. It was clearly a very good a leap, because it has stuck for many years, and I expect, for many years to come.

Listen, these were next-level salads! Not just delicious and satisfying but interesting! I was amazed that salads could be a whole meal, with mixed textures and surprising pop’s of flavour. That they filled your stomach and sustained you for hours. These salads had my attention and I found myself really looking forward to the next time I got to feast on them! I copied these salads in my own kitchen, many times, over and over and over again. From the repetition, I learned what I could from their recipes and eventually found ways to make them my own.

As with anything you repeat many times over; it starts to absorb you. Not in a way that it consumes you, but you, your life takes over it. By this, I mean that your habits both good and bad, local ingredient accessibility, your taste preferences, all these take effect until the dish becomes quite different from the original recipe. This process is both important and necessary for you to win at conquering the kitchen. If you lean into it, it can grow you as a cook.

I found I could build shortcuts. Because I needed them if I was regularly going to make these elaborate salads. Pre-cooked grains thrown in a bag and frozen for later, vegetables roasted the evening before, and premade Salad sprinkles.

Yes, salad sprinkles! Or at least this is what I call them. A mix of toasted seeds and nuts, sometimes some dried fruit. Always salt. A pinch of cumin or something similar.  The recipe varied but I knew the requirements; something crunchy, something sweet, something salty, and something to add a touch of flavour. All tossed together and toasted in a frypan and stored in a jar that I could reach for at any time I needed to boost a salad. Applied to any salad, simple or otherwise, it lifted the meal to another level. A homemade dressing to boot and the salad could be lettuce alone and still feel like a dish.

Okay, maybe the lettuce thing might be a slight exaggeration. The point was, I started to realize the value of keeping a jar of this stuff on hand. And that’s when my kitchen started to evolve from a place, I used to cook a list of recipes in, to a place I could design to support me in meal making.

Previously I had relied solely on following recipe after recipe and finding myself with an ever-growing pantry overflowing with jars and bottles that I had only used a few tablespoons of! I do remember these overflowing my laundry at one point. I was enjoying the life of a cook back then, so it didn’t trouble me, but I’ve learned to narrow down the pantry quite significantly since then. This had an added benefit to my food budgeting too.

There’s certainly a wisdom that grows in the kitchen over time. I have dismissed making many delicious recipes because they require ingredients, I know I will never use again, this is a good development for the kitchen of a busy woman. We develop our kitchens and pantries over time to suit our lives. Again, this is a natural process and a good process! The more you cook the more it will happen.

As with that- cooking recipe after recipe process above, I also found downsides to other people’s meal plans. It’s that you need to carve out your life around their plans. Sometimes this works well, but not always. Building a pantry that supports me means; when my meal plans fall apart, I have a range of items in there to fall back on, and this has helped me greatly.

I will never claim to be a master of any of this, I can honestly say I view myself as a ‘forever student’, there is always something more to learn. And with each new season of life, there is a new set of challenges to adjust to, new frustrations to work through, and exciting things to discover. I’ve certainly not started this blog to set myself up as a kitchen guru or some great fountain of knowledge, but to pass on what I have learned, to those a step or two behind, and to share with those who are keen to walk together through the growing process. I have learnt amazing things from brand new cooks and shared pockets of wisdom with people who have been cooking longer than I have been alive. We all have something to add to the table!

Over the next few weeks and months, I want to start by passing you some recipes, particularly of those pantry staples (like salad sprinkles), address some of the frustrations we face in the kitchen and breathe a little hope into a space that often becomes worn down and tired…. or at least leaves us feeling that way.

I’m looking forward to building this space into a resource, aa well a place we can all come for a little perk up when we need it.

Hope you can join me x

Shem