About Traditional Plant-Based Cooking

''Welcome come in, pull up a seat, it's so nice to meet you. You're very welcome here!''

Traditional Plant-Based Cooking is a quiet, comforting homely corner of the internet where anyone and everyone who loves old-fashioned food and nostalgic recipes, and is looking for a feeling of being well-fed and well-looked after, is very welcome.

This is a place for traditional recipes re-made plant-based using every-day, easy to source, vegan-friendly ingredients. You'll find meals and bakes that belong on rustic wooden kitchen tables, and perfect for sharing with family, friends, loved-ones, and neighbours. The kind of cooking that fosters connection, love, togetherness, caring, and fills the house with beautiful aromas. Home bakes that invite the kettle to be switched on for a nice cuppa, perhaps an old-fashioned kettle whistling from the stove, and encourage you to take a few quiet moments, by settling down on a cosy comfy chair.

If you enjoy comforting meals, simple bakes, and recipes that are fuelled by memories and originate in tradition and time gone by, then you'll be very much at home here.

🍲 What you'll find here

At Traditional Plant-Based Cooking, I aim to share:

• Traditional, vintage, retro, historical British recipes re-made vegan & plant-based
• Recipes that use everyday, frugal, budget-friendly, easily-accessible ingredients
• Recipes that offer guidance on ingredient substitutions and practical tips so you can adapt the recipe to your own needs

I believe the food we eat is more than fuel as it connects us to tradition, culture, history, previous generations and family, by fostering a sense of connection and belonging. Most of the recipes I share are inspired by the meals and bakes our grandparents and great-grandparents would have cooked. Old recipes were shaped by the seasons, by thrift and frugalness, and using what ingredients were available and this is still relevant to today's home-cooking.

Seasons, traditions, and forgotten ways

Many of my recipes are inspired by old cookbooks and leaflets, newspaper and magazine cut-outs, old recipe boxes, family recipes, wartime cookery pamphlets, and the old customs and traditions that once carved our daily lives.

I especially love:

• Recipes inspired by seasonal cooking,
• Old feast days, traditions, customs, special days, folklore
• Rural food ways
• Foods that mark the passing and cycle of the year
• Recipes that have connections with historical eras
• Recipes that can be connected to fictional stories such as the foods eaten by Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings!

You'll often find references to old traditions sprinkled through the blog as I find food history so interesting and am inspired to keep it alive by sharing anything interesting with my readers. Food has always been connected to the land, the seasons, and the turning of time, and if we can bring just a little bit of this into our own lives I'm sure it will make us all the richer and satisfied.

👩🏻‍🍳 Hello, I'm Jacq

I'm Jacq and this blog is my virtual recipe box filled with my family recipes that I am privileged to share with all my lovely blog visitors and readers.

I live on the misty Isle of Skye, a Scottish Island where the constantly changing weather often dictates the rhythm of the day, the biscuit tin is always filled, and the kettle is always on the boil!

These days, I share my home with my adult daughter, who is in her early twenties, two cats, and a lively cheeky mischief of pet rats! I also have two older grown daughters and a grand-daughter. It's mostly a quiet life filled with reading books, cooking, baking, writing, and recipe development.

Although, I am currently studying to become a counsellor / psychotherapist and so I do have a few extra busy days at college. I also volunteer with a local charity, and I am currently training to become part of the Blue Cross pet bereavement support team, as having recently experienced my own pet losses, helping people through their pet loss is close to my heart.

📚 Why you can trust traditional plant-based cooking

Alongside 30 years of home cooking and baking experience, I've had a few years of training in professional cookery and worked in a local Scottish Island bakery and tea-room. I've also had quite a few years of recipe testing and developing recipes for my blog, to ensure they will reliably work in real homes.

I also hold a degree in social science and a Bsc (honours) degree in psychology, as well as a masters in psychology. As I mentioned before, I am in my second year of counsellor training so I do value life-long learning. My learning influences how I think about food and recipes as they provide comfort, connection, grounding, and care.

Despite my professional cookery training, I don't view myself as anything other than a home-cook that is continuously learning and eager to share my recipes and connect with others. All my recipes are designed for ordinary kitchens.

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☕ About My Food Journey

I became vegetarian around the age of 10 simply because I loved animals and didn't like the idea of eating them. Over time, I progressed into a plant-based way of eating and cooking as vegan-friendly ingredients appealed to me more and more. Plant-based ingredients are not new as for centuries people have cooked with what the land, seasons, and their financial means permitted, substituting meat and dairy in traditional meals and bakes with plant-based ingredients when necessary.

People often ask how a recipe can be traditional and vegan but a closer look at history evidences vegan-friendly recipes such as medieval almond milk, Victorian vegetable based sausages, and wartime cakes baked without eggs and milk.

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Over to you

My blog is here for anyone who:

• Eats vegan, vegetarian, or plant-based and misses old-fashioned food
• Eats any type of diet but would like to incorporate more plant-based meals
• Needs egg or dairy-free recipes due to allergies or other needs
• Needs egg-free, dairy-free, & meat-free recipes to feed loved ones with different dietary requirements
• Needs frugal budget-friendly easy recipes

A recent message from a reader's kitchen: 💚

'' We have pulled up your website Traditional Plant Based Cooking again as we are getting ready to make your fruit cake for Christmas, its our new tradition since having our little one. Your website is our favorite for egg free recipes! We especially love the fairy cakes! A genius recipe!!  Thank you so much for putting together such a fantastic resource.''

Merry Christmas from your fans in Melbourne Australia!! ''

📲 Contact Us

I love hearing from you so if you have a question, want to leave a review, or suggest a traditional favourite recipe that you would like a vegan version of, just drop us a message and we will try our best to feature it on our blog.

We would be very happy and honoured to help.

Our email: [email protected] and our postal address: Traditional Plant-based Cooking, Unit 65109, PO Box 26965, Glasgow, G1 9BW.

You can also leave us a comment below in the comment section.

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