Your magic ingredient is...STAR ANISE!
STAR ANISE is fragrant, warming, and perfectly formed.
And so are your cooking talents!
You are a confident cook, you love recipes and have high standards. You have a well equipped kitchen, lots of cook books and stacks of recipe notes. You value and enjoy good food and always strive to improve your cooking skills. You secretly wish you were more like your favourite chef. But... reality gets in the way. A home kitchen can never measure up to a pro.
You love good food, but find it exhausting to keep on top of your recipe plans day in day out. You love trying new things in restaurants, but trying to recreate the recipes at home is often frustrating. You really want to cook well and cook right but it can be hard to keep it up, sometimes you feel discouraged before you even put the pan on the stove. You'd love to experiment more but special ingredients are hard to get and you don't always have time to try new recipes.
In the age of celebrity chef culture, food porn, competition cooking, foodie reverence and oversupply of recipes we easily forget that preparing food to nourish ourselves and our loved ones is an innate human instinct.
If we could only turn down all the noise, brush aside all those shoulds and have-tos, and simply focus on taste and nourishment,cooking naturally becomes a lot less stressful and a lot more fun!
It only takes a small but powerful shift in mindset, a bit of practice (and a good pinch of star anise!) to fall in love with cooking again!
It's time to redefine your kitchen confidence!
where you're winning already
- You already are confident in your kitchen
- You value the time & effort going into home cooked meals.
- You are open to new ideas and taste experiences.
what might be tripping you up
- Overthinking or over-planning everyday meals.
- Lack of trust in your own (substantial!) kitchen skills.
- Investing in solutions that don't solve the problem (e.g. glossy recipe books and expensive foodie gadgets).
COMMON STUMBLING BLOCKS
- Relying on recipes more than your senses to guide your cooking.
- Prioritising looks over flavour.
- Approaching home cooking from the perspective of a celebrity chef.
Nigel Slater
EFFORTLESS COOKING IS ALL ABOUT CONFIDENCE, NOT RECIPES
Unleash the cook within... delight and nourish with ease.
start where you are
- You already know a lot about cooking - put it to use!
- Get started with improvising variations to the recipes you are most familiar with.
- Cook with what you have.
- Use all your senses (including common sense!)
TRUST YOUR TASTE
- Become receptive and observant.
- Pay attention to the food & pan in front of you - all you need to know is right there.
- Notice what exactly you like or dislike about a food or dish (and why).
- Observe the many layers of flavour, and how they complement and contrast each other.
change your perspective
- Approach recipes as a toolbox rather than an instruction.
- Appreciate cooking is a journey not a destination.
- Boost your kitchen confidence, not your recipe file.
- Be a cook, not a foodie.
Samin Nosrat
START HERE
THE 3 STEP TEMPLATE
Follow this simple 3 step formula to create any number of deliciously simple one pot meals with anything you have in your kitchen.
SPOT THE PATTERN
The vast majority of recipes follow the same handful of patterns. Learn to see them and unlock the endless possibilities of swaps & variations!
SPICY SECRETS
Everything you cook will taste so much better with some added herbs & spices! Get all the secrets to using spices intuitively.
Mark Hyman, MD
Have we met ?!
I'm Katerina!
I've tried on a lot of hats on over the years... from ethnomusicologist to radio producer to concert manager to shopkeeper (and a few stops in between).
Through all this time I've had one constant love for as long as I can remember: my love of cooking. My home has always been where my spice rack lives. If you have ever shared food at my kitchen table you would know that I like my food unfussy and delicious - I'm a proud home cook, not a chef. I have no culinary training or foodie aspirations yet few things get me more excited than talking, cooking and eating good food.
In countless fascinating conversations about food and cooking over the years, I discovered that despite the abundance (oversupply?) of recipes, ingredients and celebrity chef role models, many people feel stuck, uninspired and bored in the kitchen. What a shame... for sharing good food with our loved ones is one of the greatest joys of being human. This realisation sparked my passion for helping others to find ease and confidence in the kitchen without the need to rely on recipes and rules.
My intuitive approach is down to earth, common sense and perhaps a touch unconventional. I teach exactly the kind of cooking I do at home every day: no fuss, no stress, 100% delicious.
If that's what you are hoping to do too, you are in the right place!
MORE RESOURCES
THE WORKSHOP
Join me for a hands-on virtual workshop designed to take the pressure off meal times. Easy meals without recipes!
THE BOOK LIST
Browse my book shelf: the definitive book list for the aspiring intuitive cook!
THE FLAVOUR CHEAT SHEET
Cook. Taste. Think. What is missing? What needs a boost? What's off? The flavour cheat sheet makes adjustments easy!
WHAT'S NEXT?
We're just getting started: I’m not just going send you away with a bunch of tips, tell you to get cooking and then leave you hanging.
I’m here to help you become as confident, easy-going and imaginative in your kitchen as you wish to be.
Keep an eye on your inbox (do check your spam/promo folders too): I’ll be popping in with more recipe-busting ideas, tips and free resources to boost your confidence, feed your inspiration, and set free the chef within!
P.S. To keep the conversation going let's exchange emails. Maybe you've already shared yours, but if not, click below. I'll be in touch, and so can you! (I respond to every single email)
P.P.S. We will never pass on your information. Obviously. And you can unsubscribe anytime. Of course.