How I went from taking 3 hours to make a batch of corn fritters to cooking without recipes and becoming a Kitchen Coach

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I wasn’t born a ‘good cook’. I thought garlic was from a jar. I could make spag bol and that was it. I cooked it every Tuesday for WAY too long. My other go-to meal was bacon and eggs or popcorn. That just about sums up my cooking repertoire for way too long – like most early 20 year old right?

How did I end up here, cooking without recipes? Launching a catering business and teaching people healthy sustainable habits around feeding themselves and cooking simple healthy meals. And taking the self confessed ‘terrible cooks’ or the ‘recipe white nucklers’ and teaching them to cook without recipes.

In this video I’m sharing the full story of how I went from taking 3 hours to make a batch of corn fritters to cooking without recipes and becoming a Kitchen Coach.

 

 

Watch the video: How I went from taking 3 hours to make a batch of corn fritters to cooking without recipes and becoming a Kitchen Coach

 

Read the notes

PS: these are dot point notes. The full version is in the video.

It all started at 21 with a cancer diagnosis

I was not a healthy person. Sure I ate salads but my journey started at 21 and let’s name a 21 year old who is ‘healthy’.

When I decide to learn something I do it. This was made easier by a health scare and I do believe this has made it easier because my why is HUGE. Although I’d be lying if the journey was easy or in a perfect straight line. 

You don’t need a health scare as your why. Yours might be: budget, modelling healthy behaviours, you love food, you want to be creative. There are many reasons to eat well and to hone your cooking skills. One of them being – you’re a human and you need to eat to live.

 

A trip to Vietnam changed everything

I realised our lives in Australia were upside. We had all our priorities misaligned. And shopping once a week at the supermarket wasn’t doing us any favours. 

 

I moved to London with my boyfriend (now my husband). 

I thought we were going to be there for a long time. But that Vietnam trip changed so much. I realised what I wanted to do and I knew I needed to be ‘home’ in Sydney to make it happen. 

In my work lunch break i’d walk to Wholefoods and search ingredients. Then I’d Google them and find a recipe. And cook it. 

I made a lot of terrible meals. It was a giant science experiment. I don’t remember caring too much if others didn’t like them. I learnt from every meal.

I eventually became better.

 

We moved home

I started Lunch Lady Lou. Delivering homemade healthy lunches around the Sydney CBD. There was nothing like it. 

I kept cooking. I got better.

I found it so hard to split my time between cooking, marketing and testing recipes. 

I looked back over my years of experiments and realised that underneath everything i cooked was a foundation format / template / matrix. And if I took the bare bones of the foundation i was trying to create. I could apply anything to it and it’d work. 

What I needed to make this happen was:

• Cooking techniques 
• Ingredient knowledge
• Flavour knowledge

I saved SO MUCH TIME.

I’d shop in the morning. Cook that day and deliver.

I rarely used a recipe, unless I was reusing a previously made meal. 

The right clients loved this approach. And they trusted me to cook for them without knowing what i was creating. To me, this is the way food should work. You know whats good, cook it for me. 

I used to get emails at all hours of the night and early morning from clients STILL working. Thanking me for my meals and that it was the only meal they’d had all day. 

 

After an injury and dealing with chronic pain, I decided to pause my catering business for a while. I began teaching people this method of cooking.

I launched Kitchen Saucery. My first online cooking school. At the core, Kitchen Saucery taught you to cook without a recipe. It was a broad curriculum covering a lot.

I also launched; VeggieRebel (to prioritise veggies on your pate), Prep Before You Pop (a postpartum freezer meals course), Shut Up and Cook (the first steps to take when cooking) and so many more.

Since my maternity leave I’ve scaled my offerings back as I adjust course slightly. To the Epic Salads recipe ebook, a meal plan, working with me privately and of course Ditch the Recipes. The course where I teach you how to cook without a recipe for your everyday weeknight meals, so you can save your time, money and the mental load that comes with cooking. 

And that’s how I went from taking 3 hours to make a batch of corn fritters to cooking without recipes and becoming a Kitchen Coach.