In addition to planning my menus, I have been doing more and more batch cooking these past few months.

The idea of batch cooking is to block out time one day of the week to prep or cook a bunch of ingredients in advance, which you can draw from and combine for low-effort homemade meals the rest of the week.

It is the shortest path to feeling like a kitchen superhero, saving you brain juice and money along the way.

And today, I am offering you the vegetarian batch cooking plan for summer I’ve created and test-driven with great success: 1 hour of prep work for easy 6 meals on subsequent days.

• Meal #1: Ratatouille and Rice Bowl — the beauty and simplicity of an in-season roasted ratatouille, served over rice to mop up the juices.
• Meal #2: Bell Pepper and Chickpea Green Salad — a simple stir-fry of bell peppers, onions, and chickpeas over simply dressed greens drizzled with tahini sauce.
• Meal #3: Ratatouille Wraps with Eggs and Tahini — inspired by a delicious sandwich from Miznon in Paris!
• Meal #4: Zucchini Pasta with Olive and Almonds — super easy pasta dish ready in the time it takes to cook the zucchini.
• Meal #5: Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Olives and Almonds — the same topping brings zest to roasted sweet potatoes.
• Meal #6: Everything Salad with Avocado and Eggs — turning bits and bobs from the previous meals into a lovely salad so the process is entirely waste-free!

Below you will find:
– A shopping list (of which you can get a free printable) — everything is available from the organic store or supermarket (they cost around 30€ ($34) in my store; your mileage may vary),
– Your instructions for the prep work — allow for about 1 hour of active time, and 1 1/2 hour in total,
– Your instructions for each of the six meals — active time ranges from 5 to 15 minutes, time to table from 10 to 30 minutes,
– Suggestions of variations to adapt the plan to various dietary constraints.

If you’re new to batch cooking, this plan is an easy and lovely way to dip your toes in and see how deliciously freeing it is. If you’re an experienced batch-cook, I hope it provides some ideas to enrich your current practice. And please share your best tips with us!

And if you find this first plan helpful and useful, I will offer you a new one at the start of each new season; let me know how that sounds.

In passing I recommend these French-made glass containers for storing your preparations (I have two sets; they nest perfectly and take up very little room) and this dual kitchen timer to keep track of two preparations at the same time!

Without further ado, here’s your vegetarian batch cooking plan for summer!

This is what you’ll make during the 1-hour prep time.

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I attended the Omnivore festival in Paris last week, a fabulous three-day event during which inspiring chefs climb up on stage to demo dishes and talk about their cuisine, and the sentiment that was expressed by several of them mirrors my own: we are currently going through the toughest time of year for the produce-oriented cook.

It no longer feels like winter, and certainly we’ve had our share of cold-weather vegetables, but spring is not quite there, and the bounty it promises has yet to be delivered. We are stuck in this limbo of non-season, having to make do with what’s left of the winter months — which isn’t actually very much — as we dream of pea shoots and strawberries.

Recently, this limbo of non-season has made me pine for — of all things — cherry clafoutis.

Fruit is especially hard. The apples and pears are all from storage, and the citrus is a wan version of itself — all pith and little flavor — so we’re mostly left with exotic or frozen fruit.

Recently, this state of affair has made me pine for cherry clafoutis, and more specifically this clafoutis, which I’ve had bookmarked for seven years, ever since it was first published. I planned to make it with frozen sour cherries, which can be easily procured from the all-frozen-foods grocery store the French love so.

It is a slightly unorthodox clafoutis, in that the egg whites are whipped to create a mouthfeel that is moist and fluffy, rather than the more classic, flan-like texture. It is delicious.

Instead of using regular wheat flour, I chose to make my clafoutis with the chestnut flour I brought back from Corsica. I intuited that it would go well with the flavor of the cherries, much like hazelnut flour flattered them in this loaf cake; I am happy to report my intuition was spot-on.

As for the cherry pits, it is up to you to keep them in or out: tradition leaves the cherries unpitted — supposedly this adds a hint of almond flavor — but having to maneuver the pits around your mouth can be a severe hindrance to your enjoyment, and certainly if you’re serving this to young children, the pits need to go. (The frozen sour cherries I used are already pitted, so that was that.)

Join the conversation!

Are you experiencing the same lull in seasons where you live? How do you deal with it? And do you ever make clafoutis ?

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Our spring has been less than exemplary, with record low temperatures and downpours. And in a country that loves (loves!) to complain about the weather, the season has turned into a total moan fest.

I usually try to steer clear of such discussions — is there anything less constructive than griping about something no one can control? — and just nod non-noncommittally whenever bad-weather comments are made. But in this instance, even I have to admit that boy, this May has felt a lot like a November.

The lovely thing about pot-au-feu is that is it meant to be served in two installments: first the broth, with fresh herbs and good crusty bread, and then the meat and vegetables, with more of the broth, strong mustard, and perky little cornichons.

And so, in order to bridge the gap between the expected season and the actual one, I decided to make a springtime pot-au-feu. It would combine the comforts of this epitomic cold-weather beef stew with the vibrancy of the first sprightly vegetables that have bravely managed to sprout and grow despite the unseemly meteorologic conditions: pencil-thin new carrots, baby fennel bulbs, green peas, and waxy little potatoes.

For a really good pot-au-feu, you need to cook the meat for a goooood loooong time — four hours is just about right — and you need to make it the day before you intend to serve it: this allows the flavors to deepen, and gives you a chance to skim some of the fat from the broth, making the whole dish lighter and more refined.

The classic wintry pot-au-feu typically includes leeks, carrots, turnips, celeriac, and potatoes, and sometimes cabbage, which are added to the meat as it cooks until they become very very tender. In my version, since the vegetables I wanted to feature were quick to cook, I first stewed the meat with the odds and ends I keep in the freezer for stock-making purposes, such as leek greens and fennel tops, to produce a flavorful broth in which to cook the star vegetables at the last minute.

The lovely, lovely thing about pot-au-feu is that is it meant to be served in two installments: first the broth, with fresh herbs and good crusty bread, and then the meat and vegetables, with more of the broth, strong mustard, and perky little cornichons*.

Pot-au-feu is ordinarily a dish that I would cook for company, but this time I decided to make it just for us, with good meat I had purchased through the Ruche qui dit oui!. We got three splendid dinners out of it during a very busy week when it was a blessing to have our evening meals ready to reheat in minutes. (I will also note, if case you have a young child at home, that my one-year-old took to the dish like a duck to water; this currently holds his record for most food-related enthusiasm.)

* You can even wedge in a third attraction by cooking marrow bones (one section per guest) in the broth for 30 minutes, and serving them with toasted bread after the broth and before the meat, sprinkled with fleur de sel and black pepper. Marrow bones may also be roasted in the oven at 200°C (400°F) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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In honor of International Sweet Potato Week (yes, it’s a thing!), let me share my life-altering recipe for sweet potato flatbreads, seasoned with an “everything” spice mix.

This is originally inspired by a reader named Jo, who commented on my 40 Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes post, saying that she made such flatbreads and sold them from her market stand along with other breads. Such a simple, brilliant idea stuck in my head, and I vowed to try it soon.

Making grain-free sweet potato flatbreads

Jo generously explained that she makes her sweet potato flatbreads with a 1:1 mix of puréed sweet potatoes and all-purpose flour, but for both color and flavor, I decided to lean more heavily on the sweet potato and used a 2:1 ratio instead.

I also chose to make my sweet potato flatbreads with cassava flour (farine de manioc in French), which I’ve been experimenting with lately. Cassava is the tuberous root from which tapioca starch is extracted, and it is ground into a grain-free (by definition), gluten-free, paleo-friendly* flour that is quite extraordinary: it is a much better binder than other gluten-free flours, and it yields beautifully pliable flatbreads or tortillas.

Want to see just how pliable?

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