All photos from The 7-Day Basket by Ian Haste, photography by Al Richardson, is published by Headline, priced £25.
food & Drink
Chicken and feta meatballs
Haste found his own niche in an era pre-Deliciously Ella. “Tere was nothing online focusing on nice, easy, healthy home-cooking,” he remembers. “So I did a couple of videos - which were terrible, don’t watch them, ever!” Now here he is, with 70 recipes bound in print, 92k YouTube subscribers of his own and 59k on Instagram, producing sponsored content for major supermarkets to boot. But, like any shiny, seemingly perfect social media visage, there’s always more to it, and Haste’s food, fitness (he’s a total gym bunny) and eating habits are all intrinsically connected. “[I’m a] very health-conscious individual anyway, had to be,” he explains. “My wife, going back a few years ago, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, so we looked at all the aspects that are food related.” While Te 7-Day Basket isn’t a diet cookbook, wrought undeviatingly from nutritional advice, eating well, healthily and with the seasons is important throughout (it’s thoroughly cheerful though, there’s still mac and cheese and steak and ale hotpot in there). Its crux though is Haste’s 7-day basket concept: Have your cupboards stocked with essentials at home, then make a week’s worth of dinners from one basket of shopping. Te idea is to help cut household food waste, vary up meal planning, put twists on staple dishes, and encourage people to open the fridge
“HAVE YOUR CUPBOARDS STOCKED WITH
ESSENTIALS AT HOME, THEN MAKE A WEEK’S WORTH OF DINNERS FROM ONE BASKET OF SHOPPING.”
and make connections between what they’re eating tonight, and how they’re going to eat later on in the week. “I want people to be able to look at a bag of spinach and think, ‘I’m going to put that in a chicken saag for Monday, and I’m also going to tie that in with some pomegranate seeds on a Tursday with a lamb kebab’, so you’re using every last bit along the way,” says Haste. Te idea came to him while living with his mother-in-law during the six months it took to renovate his house in Hethersett, Norwich. Limited to a Tesco Metro populated largely by University of East Anglia students, he’d see them filling up their baskets “with the most random eclectic mix, and I’d see them the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and I thought, ‘Tey obviously don’t know how to join ingredients together to make more than one dish’.” Cooking practicalities aside, Haste obviously adores food - and is faithful to the cause. “I always swore for my kids that every Sunday would be a roast type meal, and I’ve stuck to
that, for seven years I’ve committed to that, whatever the weather as well,” he says with a shake of his head. Go for dinner with him and he’s likely to disappear for 20 minutes to cajole a recipe out of the chef too. His Maldivian chicken curry for instance was magpied on holiday in the Maldives (“I ate this curry five out of seven days,” he says, laughing at himself. “It was that good”), while he’s still trying to extract the king prawn pathia recipe from his local curry house. “It’s incredible,” he says, arms thrown in the air excitedly. “It’s the witches’ potion, I haven’t got a clue how he’s made it, but I can usually taste things and within reason I can make it again. [But] no, I’ve made it so stupidly hot, so stupidly limey... “I always say, if you like something a lot, compliment the chef, say to them, ‘Tat was absolutely amazing’, and also say, ‘Can I have the recipe?’ Tere’s nothing wrong with that.” And when you’re as open and affable as Haste, who could say no? Te 7-Day Basket by Ian Haste, £25. Available Now.
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