Sarah Graham began her career in food with her blog, Bitten, in 2010. Since then, she’s written six cookbooks, and starred in her very own cookery show. Her new cookbook, Good + Simple, is a return to simple, old-fashioned cooking. She chatted with Lauren Mc Diarmid about simplifying our approach to cooking, the stories behind the food we eat and how anyone can get around a busy schedule and prepare nourishing and tasty meals.

‘It can sometimes be a challenge to put out a tasty, nourishing meal night after night.’

Our intuition comes into play so much when we’re cooking. It means whipping up more than just a meal. It inspires us to listen to our body and give ourselves – and those we’re cooking for – the love and care we truly deserve through a healthy, nourishing dish. It can nurture our heart and mind, too, evoking memories of where we were when we last enjoyed that dish, and with whom. It reminds us that food is a three-dimensional thing that has the ability to completely change the way we feel.

I love the stories and the emotions behind a recipe. It’s helps give context to why something’s been prepared the way it has, and why it’s a favourite. I’ve dotted stories like these throughout my new cookbook, Good + Simple; stories from my own treasure chest of memories that inspire me and add a dash of colour to the recipes, such as my great aunt’s 3-ingredient cheese muffins, which have been a tea-time treat in my family for as long as I can remember. I hope that by sharing these snippets from my own life, I’m encouraging my readers to reach inside their own memory bank, and hopefully inspiring them to create new unforgettable moments with food ideas they’d love to try out themselves and share with the people who are most special to them.

My style of cooking is mostly plant-based. One of my favourite food writers Michael Pollan said in his book In Defense of Food, ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants’, and I completely agree with that. It comes back to old-fashioned principles of eating food that is simple, colourful, so you get a variety of nutrients on your plate, and as close to its natural state as possible. From the earth and close to the earth.

With Good + Simple I really wanted to include recipes that focus on celebrating vegetables and the abundance of nature. I wanted each one of them to be as simple as possible; to inspire the everyday cook to see ingredients in a new light, but, at the same time, make them accessible for anyone who’s just interested in a more plant-based diet. The book is filled with the recipes and ingredients that I love, which has always been my mandate for deciding what gets included: food that I love to eat and that I want to share.

Of course, with that said, it’s hard to pick favourites! One of the dishes my family and I enjoy most weeknights are what I call ‘bounty bowls’. They are a simple mish mash of wholegrains and yummy salad ingredients, that are super quick and easy to throw together. My kids also love a frittata for dinner, which is also really simple, but such a lovely healthy family supper. And of course, pasta. Pasta is definitely my first love, and a pesto pasta especially is always a very welcome friend in the house.

The words ‘good’ and ’simple’ really epitomise my approach to food. One of my favourite little habits is simplifying recipes. I love to take a recipe that has ten steps and see how I can bring it down to five, using one pot instead of three. It slots in perfectly with my goal of dialling back and slowing down. In the last few years, I’ve gotten so over being busy for the sake of being busy, feeling overstretched and cooking food that’s just overly complicated.

But, as a busy mom, it’s never straightforward. There’s always loads going on! Time is of the essence, and no matter how simplified the process, it can still sometimes be a challenge to put out a tasty, nourishing meal night after night. I’ve got have two main techniques to try get around this.

The first is planning a menu. It can take you 15 or 20 minutes to sit down and write it out for the next week (or whatever time period works best), but then you are done with the stress of coming up with dinner ideas. It also means you only have to do the shopping once a week, with an organised shopping list, as opposed to panic-buying on your way home from work. It just makes things so much more relaxed and enjoyable – and saves you loads of time! A bonus to this is that you’ll also save on food costs.

My other time-saver is batch cooking. I’m a huge fan of batch cooking, possibly because I grew up on a farm, and my mom couldn’t get to the shops every day, or even every week. I have a motto that I like to use, which is, ‘Cook once, eat twice’. If I’m going to make a bolognaise, and it’s going to bubble away for three hours and take lots of love and effort, I’m going to make a huge bolognaise so that I can freeze extra for those days when it’s just too challenging to get to the stove.

That said, I still adore spending time in the kitchen, and having the time to potter around and experiment. There are few things quite as enjoyable to me as cooking without the rush – even if it’s something simple like baking a loaf of bread – and coming up with new ways to tackle old favourites. Then, of course, sitting down to feast around a full and happy table.

Ultimately, my love for food has brought me to where I am today. I couldn’t have imagined back in 2010, when I started my food blog, that I would be here now, coming out with my sixth (!) cookbook. It’s been one of my greatest, yet most rewarding, challenges, and it’s been seeing my recipes inspiring people to get cooking that has made it the most worthwhile journey. Simple.

Good + Simple is out now.

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This article was originally published in The Penguin Post, a magazine from Penguin Random House South Africa. 

Categories Cookery Lifestyle Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Good + Simple Penguin Random House SA Sarah Graham The Penguin Post