I'm Not a Regular Recipe, I'm a Cool Recipe

A cookbook of recipe frameworks dedicated to easy and adaptable cooking

Yes, I borrowed the tagline from Mean Girls.

At its core, a recipe is just a recipe—whether carefully measured or scribbled down while following your grandmother around the kitchen. However, presenting recipes as a framework encourages creativity and adaptability in the kitchen. Instead of focusing on what goes into a dish, frameworks emphasize how to make it, allowing ingredients to shift based on personal preference, availability, or dietary needs.

I’m excited to launch my second newsletter, which explores recipe frameworks from our cookbook, Mix It Up!

What is a recipe framework?

Mix It Up contains frameworks for recipes that can be adapted based on preferences, making each framework a canvas for creativity. In fact, 1 framework can make an average of 40,000 variations—thus, I could make the stir-fry framework every day for 1 year and never make the same variation twice.

The framework concept is similar to how home cooks think about meals. We often have a few favorites in our repertoire that we make in rotation with slight variations that make each dish feel and taste different. For me, it is my chicken soup. I make it the same way but change out the vegetables and fresh herbs and sometimes add rice.

Equipment

Recipe frameworks are organized by cooking equipment, helping you slowly build an inventory of equipment for your home or culinary medicine program. Some recipes do not require cooking and can be especially useful for busy weekday nights or when a full kitchen is unavailable.

Ingredient Swaps

Each recipe framework organizes ingredients into categories, offering alternatives based on your preferences or availability. A Quick Substitutions guide at the bottom of each recipe will help you make conversations when needed. While ingredient lists include a few expert-recommended options, you'll find a full list in our Ingredient Swap Tables at the beginning of the book. These tables offer additional ingredient ideas and culinary and nutrition tips to enhance your understanding. Cooking involves more than just following a recipe—our tables also include tips for shopping, storing, and preparing ingredients.

Commitment to Food-First Nutrition

Recipe frameworks are focused on delivering delicious, well-balanced meals instead of their nutrient breakdown. Nutrition facts for each framework are displayed at the end of the book, giving you the flexibility to use them as you wish. We calculated these using an algorithm created by our friend that generates an average nutrient profile based on all possible ingredient choices. In short, the nutrition facts represent an average that may vary depending on your selected ingredients.

Culinary Skills Video Library

When designing this book, we made no assumptions about anyone's kitchen knowledge. Our recipes are enhanced by many step-by-step video instructions that can be accessed through the QR code found below. These videos introduce techniques, ranging from chopping vegetables to sautéing proteins, that can improve your cooking skills and/or augment what you teach students or patients to employ when they return to their homes and communities.

Recipe instructions with an icon corresponding to skill videos in our video library. Scan the QR code below for unlimited access to tutorials covering a range of techniques. Note that while these videos demonstrate cooking techniques that apply to a given recipe’s directions, they may not feature the exact ingredients listed in that recipe.

Get your copy of Mix It Up and follow along for the first framework dropping next week!