Wellness by MaryAnn Your food is your medicine
Wellness by MaryAnn

A shorter list. Better food.

  • Pork
  • Tomatoes
  • Vinegar
  • Anything you cannot pronounce

What is left is not a shorter life in the kitchen. It is a better one.

Start with a recipe How I cook
A whole roast chicken resting in a roasting pan
Hands chopping fresh green herbs on a wooden board
Parsley and dill, chopped together, by the handful. Not a garnish.
What is actually left

Six things this kitchen runs on

Take away the pork, the tomatoes, and the vinegar and people assume there is nothing to cook. There is more, and it tastes cleaner.

Fresh artichokes
Artichokes · packed in water, never brine
Roasted red bell peppers in a pan
Sweet peppers · roasted, peeled, torn
Raw salmon fillets on a flat surface
Wild fish
Roasted vegetables on a metal tray
Roots, hard roasted
A shelf of spice jars
Whole spice, ground at home
Slicing fresh parsley on a board
Herbs, treated as a vegetable
The rhythm of a week

Four things on one afternoon

Sunday feeds Wednesday. This is the only system on this site, and it is the reason the rest of the week takes no thinking at all.

01

One roast

A whole chicken or a large piece of fish. Dinner tonight, sandwiches tomorrow, the carcass becomes soup on Wednesday.

02

One pot of beans

Or rice. Cooked plain with a bay leaf and seasoned later, so it goes underneath anything.

03

Two trays of roots

Roasted hard while the oven is already hot for the chicken. Eaten cold, or warmed in a pan under an egg.

04

One jar of blend

Whatever ran out that week, toasted and ground fresh. Ten minutes, and flavor stops being a problem.

Read the whole approach
One recipe, in full, no signup

Slow roasted chicken with artichokes and olives

The anchor of our week. If you make one thing from this site, make this one, then keep the bones.

Prep15 minutes
Roast1 hr 15 min
Serves4, with leftovers
PansOne

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 4 to 5 pounds, patted very dry
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon Everyday House Blend
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more for the vegetables
  • 2 large yellow onions, cut into thick wedges
  • 2 cups artichoke hearts, quartered, packed in water and drained well
  • 1 cup green olives, pitted, rinsed and patted dry
  • 6 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
  • 4 sprigs thyme and a handful of parsley

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Pull the chicken out of the fridge while it heats.
  2. Dry the chicken again, inside and out. This is the step people skip and it is the step that gives you crisp skin. Rub it with oil, then the blend and the salt.
  3. Toss the onions, artichokes, olives, and garlic with the remaining oil and a good pinch of salt. Spread them in a heavy pan and tuck in the thyme.
  4. Set the chicken on top, breast up. Roast at 425 for 20 minutes to set the skin.
  5. Drop to 350 and roast 50 to 60 minutes more, until the thigh reads 165 degrees.
  6. Rest a full 15 minutes. Do not skip this either. Stir the vegetables into the pan juices while it rests.
  7. Carve, cover the whole thing in chopped parsley, and serve straight from the pan.

Why no tomatoes are needed: the onions collapse into the chicken fat and go sweet, the artichokes brown at the edges, the olives bring the salt.

All recipes
Why listen to me
It took a year of mediocre dinners before it got good.

I am a home cook. Not a chef, not a nutritionist, not a doctor, and nothing here is medical advice. What I have is the year I spent working out how to keep real food on the table inside a much shorter list, so that you do not have to spend it too.

MaryAnnNorthern California

Fresh ingredients laid out on a kitchen counter
A kitchen shelf with jars and glassware
Beyond the kitchen

Once you start reading labels, you do not stop at food

The question that changed how we shop for dinner changed how we shop for everything. Toothpaste, shampoo, laundry soap, the cleaner under the sink. We swapped them one at a time and kept what actually worked.

See what we use