How to Bring People Together with Good Food: Pro Cooking Hacks & Kitchen Confidence

Rosie, you are our product developer and you have a wealth of experience across the food industry, developing products that really bridge the intersection between flavour and health.

You've made some amazing products for us here for our ready to go range, developing products that mean customers and people you're hosting don't need to choose between flavour and health benefits.

So you're also the keenest of hosts and it sounds like most weekends I'll find you in the kitchen making dinner for friends or family that you're having over that evening.

I guess to kind of kick off the main kind of topic of this podcast, can you get us going with kind of the beginning of the process so you're inviting people for dinner how do you decide what type of dinner you're going to host um and what food you're going to cook

yes also a very lovely introduction thank you jessie um i would say yeah so love hosting dinner parties hosting friends family um obviously key thing you need to work out to start with is how many people are coming that's obviously crucial And then I think in terms of working out what to cook, I tend to go by a bit of a formula.

So we'll have one protein dish and then sort of two to three veg dishes.

Within that, I love to have always have like a green salad or a green veg dish.

And then one to two carbs, obviously scale it up or down depending on how many people are coming.

And then in terms of what to cook, I just tend to sort of get out on my recipe books.

Obviously, Instagram's also a great source.

Try to sort of mismatch things that are going to go together well, take from different places.

And obviously, what's in season is also a really good place to start as

well.

So, yeah.

And what I always find when trying to choose a menu, obviously the number of people, as you said, very much dictate what you're going to cook.

You might obviously choose something a little bit more complicated if there are less of you around the table.

But what I also find challenging is when someone has a dietary requirement.

And I know I get asked a lot from people who are hosting and they have... one member of the party who has a specific dietary whether that's vegan or gluten-free how do you then make your life easier and how do you cater for their needs at the same time

I personally think it's kind of great to then create a menu that's appropriate for everyone just so you don't have to, like, spend effort and time creating something wholly different.

So, for example, I've got a couple of friends that are gluten intolerant, generally maybe staying away from, you know, pasta or, like, an Italian heavy menu just so, yeah, you don't have to create two things.

Similarly, if you were, you know, hosting a vegetarian, vegan event, than maybe hearing vegetables yeah

I think that's there and also I think dietaries when they're presented to you can sometimes be a little scary if you're not used to dealing with them and then actually there are so many elements of so many cuisines that are just naturally vegan or naturally gluten-free that often you won't even realize a dish you were going to make anyway fits into that category until you start thinking about it So I'd also maybe suggest it doesn't have to be as complicated as it initially seems.

I think it's also really easy nowadays to find tweaks or ways that you can adapt things so that they suit a certain dietary requirement.

Yeah, like with my gluten-free friends, I think I hosted Christmas one year and did arancini.

And it's just so easy to find gluten-free panko now.