“We have a confession to make… Whenever we write ‘We love this recipe’, it doesn’t automatically mean that it is something we continue to cook at home.”
Wait, what?
The superstar vegetarian bloggers behind , David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl, have just released their fourth book, Green Kitchen At Home. In it, the pair share their all-time favourite dishes (aka what they actually eat and cook everyday). True to form, it’s inspiring, practical and so good-looking, and jam-packed with easy, healthy food you actually want to make.
The pair explain in their introduction to the book that because food and recipe development are their jobs, they are constantly trying new things. “So, even if a recipe is delicious and a real favourite on the very week we are publishing (online, in a magazine or in a book) it isn’t always cut out for our family’s needs and habits." The couple have three small children, so what they cook these days is very different to what they were making when they first started their now hugely popular blog.
So their latest book is about helping any busy working person get good food on the table, by sharing “our best ways to eat well even when the fridge is half empty and our kids are banging the table, chanting they are hungry”.
We chatted with David Frenkiel, from his home in Sweden about the global influences that inform their cooking, and how easy nutritious cooking is when you have a few hacks up your sleeve.
For readers new to your books, can you tell us a bit about yourselves, and your approach to eating and cooking?
I am Swedish and have lived in Stockholm for most of my life. I used to work as an art director for interior and food magazines, but I left this profession a couple of years ago to work full time as a food photographer, recipe developer and freelance designer. I have been a vegetarian for the past 20 years, but it wasn’t until I met Luise - it will soon 10 years ago - that I learned to eat a more balanced and healthier diet.
Luise is Danish and has a diploma in nutritional therapy. In Denmark, she worked within social psychiatry, but since coming to Stockholm, she has focused on recipe development, teaching workshops and learning more about how the food we eat affects our health and wellbeing.
We try to encourage people to eat real food – focusing on vegetables, whole grains, fruit, seeds, nuts, beans, lentils, eggs and fermented food. Variety is key and eating seasonally is an easy and natural way to do that. Our focus is healthy vegetarian recipes, but we don’t forbid unhealthy food from our lives, we simply try to aim for a balance.
Green Kitchen at Home is your fourth book and billed as the recipes you really do cook regularly. What is it about these dishes that make you come back time and again?
I guess it’s a combination of simplicity, great taste and the fact that many of these recipes are the building stones of our cooking. Also, our children like most of these dishes and ask for them again and again.
We know they’re all your go-tos, but is there one or two that people just have to try?
We are very fond of our basic crêpes and the many possibilities they offer. We usually make them with spinach in the batter and a variety of fillings. Our broccoli flatbreads are also pretty epic (watch their YouTube video on making these colourful flatbreads below, and get the recipe on their website ) and a great way to get more vegetables into every meal. But we also love the simple Mediterranean tray bake with halloumi chunks. None of these are super fancy or advanced, they are just good and simple.
You’ve designed the book for folks who are short on time. How long does the average dish take?
We have a whole chapter dedicated to quick weeknight dinners. Cooking times vary between recipes, but many of the meals can be ready within 30 minutes.
What’s your advice for people trying to make healthy weeknight cooking a reality?
I think one issue many people face is a lack of energy to first decide what to make and then see if they have all ingredients at home, before finally starting to cook. Meal planning is great in that sense, as you only have to think everything through and shop for groceries once. When you actually start cooking, there’s no thinking involved.
We also believe in weekday shortcuts. It can be something as simple as just peeling and cutting vegetables ahead of time or cooking quinoa, eggs or brown rice and storing them in glass containers in the fridge. We also often have jars of roasted roots, a tomato sauce, our vegetable flatbread, a good pesto or hummus and some chia pudding. These can be combined into a lot of different healthy meals in no time or added to a salad or soup to make it more nourishing.
It might sound like a lot of prep work, but we rarely plan ahead. Instead, we have made it a habit to double the amounts whenever we cook, roast and peel.
Can you describe an average cooking day at your place, and how you divide tasks between members of the family?
Luise was pregnant with the couple's third child when the new book was being written. Source: Hardie Grant Books
Usually, we’ve prepared overnight oats in the evening when the kids have fallen asleep so it is ready when they wake up. In the morning, they like to help set the table and in the meantime one of us is scrambling eggs for everyone or mixing up a smoothie. We don’t have any clear roles: whoever isn’t busy with the kids takes care of the cooking. If we made a smoothie, we pour the remains into mini bottles that we bring when we are picking up the kids from school and preschool.
We often prepare a quick lunch salad bowl during work days, made from dinner leftovers or a mix of all the glass containers filled with precooked lentils, beans, quinoa, steamed or roasted veggies, raw veggies, lettuce, fermented cabbage, tahini dressing or pesto.
We have two different styles when it comes to dinner. I love to try new things, but need to plan out a recipe in detail before starting and often also go to the store first, so my dinners take a lot longer than Luise’s. She is fantastic at improvising dinner from just a quick look in a seemingly empty fridge. We have shared all our favourite dinner recipes in the book. The green pea, broccoli and mint soup with puy lentil topping from the book was on the table tonight.
David and Luise's (spinach quinoa ‘meatballs’) are light but comforting.
Source: Hardie Grant Books / David Frenkiel
What are your indispensable pieces of cooking equipment?
Our food processor is great for making hummus, nut butter, pesto and all the spreads that we use as a base for many meals. The blender is obviously great for smoothies, but also for mixing soups and making crêpe batter. A good knife, a peeler and a box grater, too.
As you've gotten older and busier, you've gravitated away from hard-to-find ingredients and complicated cooking techniques. What are your constants today?
Just really basic stuff. We are big fans of broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes and pesto. Some fresh herbs in our kitchen window. Dried lentils, canned chickpeas and other beans. Coconut milk. Nuts and lots of seeds. And instead of exotic superfoods, we fill our freezer with local berries.
We tend to choose grains with shorter cooking times, which is why we cook quinoa or millet more often than rice – they are twice as quick. We also steam or blanch vegetables over the same cooking water that we use for pasta or grains.
For people who have young children like you, which dishes are a must-try for kids?
Our spinach crepes are a huge favourite with the kids. Any food that they can eat with their hands and also pick and assemble themselves usually works well. They have always liked oven-roasted vegetables with yoghurt or other sauces and of course savoury muffins, too.
In your second book, Green Kitchen Travels, you shared recipes inspired by your travels. How have these global adventures influenced the food in Green Kitchen at Home?
Some of our favourite places are India, Vietnam, Thailand, Israel, Morocco, Italy, Spain, California and Australia. It’s always very inspiring to visit new places and eat the local food. It broadens our perspectives and makes it easier to be creative in the kitchen. Our cooking is definitely influenced by our travels, but we rarely do authentic local dishes. Instead we just pick and mix flavors, dishes and methods and turn it into our own.
Italian inspiraton: , from the new book.
Source: Hardie Grant Books / David Frenkiel
Did you have memorable food experiences in Australia?
So many! We spent a month in Melbourne and a month in Sydney, and were blown away by the interest in food and the many great cafes and restaurants. I guess we expected that Australians would be mostly interested in barbecues, but you had avo toasts, flat whites, chia parfaits and quinoa salads long before they were popular in Europe. We found the style of cooking very colourful, fresh and focused around good quality ingredients, which is exactly the style of cooking we like. We can’t wait to go back!
Finally, can we expect another book from the GKS team?
Oh, we actually don’t know yet. We have been quite busy these past years writing books while at the same time raising small children, so we are taking some time now to see where Green Kitchen Stories is heading. But we do have lots of ideas and fantasies, we just need to figure out where to start.
Most pumpkin recipes and sweets are served warm, but these are almost like ice-cream bars, which makes a nice contrast to the warm and sweet spices. When eaten directly from the freezer they have a proper ice-cream texture, and when left an hour at room temperature the inside gets more caramel-like. The perfect texture is achieved somewhere in between.
Source: Hardie Grant Books / David Frenkiel
One-pan meals allows us to spend more time with each other and still have a delicious and wholesome meal on the table in time for dinner (and little to wash up). This is one of our (and our kids’) favourite versions, with mixed vegetables, Mediterranean flavours and squeaky haloumi chunks.
Source: Hardie Grant Books / David Frenkiel
This one is great enjoyed with friends – one fries the pancakes while another chops the vegetables, then you all sit and roll and eat together by the table. They also pack well in a lunchbox.
Source: Hardie Grant Books / David Frenkiel
More healthy eats from the Green Kitchen
Portobello peach burgers
