When I went vegan,
bulk cooking saved the day.

Of course, these days it's called "meal prep" and it's still the name of the game.

So I wrote a cookbook this summer...

Nearly ten years ago I went vegan. And I was at a loss in the kitchen. Mostly because my husband was the primary cook in our house at the time. He jumped in and continued cooking for us when I started eating vegetarian but when I proclaimed, "I'm vegan!" he said he wasn't equipped. And so there I was, trying to navigate my way around a new way of eating while dusting off the mediocre kitchen skills I had set on the shelf for years.

I quickly learned that advance planning was going to keep me on track. Not meal planning, per se, but rather simply preparing food that would be ready to roll during the week. Most of us know this as "bulk cooking" or "batch cooking" and that's what I did every Saturday or Sunday. I would cook a pot of seasoned beans and lightly flavored grains and just reheat and eat during the week or repurpose for salads or sandwich wraps. It worked.

From one home cook to another...

Eight years later, after writing several cookbooks and assuming a faculty position in a culinary program, I launched the Colorado Springs Vegan Cooking Academy, designed for home cooks and local food industry folks dabbling in vegan cooking. The number one issue most of my students share is this: They are too busy to cook. But they really want to get back into the kitchen. 

And that's why - for years and years - I have encouraged my students to bulk cook, just like me, and that's been a big focus during each cooking class, regardless of the topic.

These days people are returning to the kitchen but still want to get in and out because they are still busy. What to do?

Enter Vegan Meal Prep: Ready-to-Go Meals and Snacks for Healthy Plant-Based Eating.

In my latest cookbook, I have taken the concept of bulk cooking and turned it into a "method" for meal prep. With very - I mean very - simple recipes and a twist of flavor instruction to flex your culinary muscles, I'm helping you set up meals for the week. Over the next few weeks, leading up to the book release, I'll be sharing meal prep tips with you in my newsletter to help you get started. (The first tip is in this week's newsletter, which you can read here.)

In the meantime, a Vegan Meal Prep community is building right now on Facebook: join us! And please consider pre-ordering Vegan Meal Prep right here, right now!

I will be sharing meal prepping tips over the next several weeks via my newsletter so SIGN UP TODAY!