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An Update on One Ingredient Chef…

Hey! It’s been a while. I hope you’re staying safe and hanging in there with everything happening in the world these days. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted on One Ingredient Chef in a few months…

Don’t worry, I didn’t get COVID (yet!), I’ve just been taking a step back to work on a few different projects. In that process, One Ingredient hasn’t gotten the attention it deserved. I know many of you appreciate my content and I’m sorry for not being as consistent as I could have been over the last year or two. In the end, though, I think pressing pause for a few months helped me to gain a better sense of perspective. That’s what I wanted to talk about today…

This pandemic has thrown a lot of things into chaos. Some of us have been touched directly by the illness, but nearly all of us have been impacted by the reverberations. Just one example: my good friend met the woman of his dreams earlier this year, but they were in different countries when the pandemic hit and now can’t even be together because of the closed borders.

All clouds have a silver lining, though, and I think this situation has given us all a chance to reflect on our priorities and what matters most.

I recently took a little trip through Arizona to run on the trails of Flagstaff and Sedona and reflect on things. One thing that became apparent to me is how much I miss working on One Ingredient Chef, not for the money or stats or followers, but just for the connection – the opportunity to create and share my passion with you guys.

As many of us are feeling isolated more and more often, it seems essential to find better ways of creating, sharing, and connecting with each other around the things we care about. My love for plant-based cooking / nutrition / fitness is huge. I really need an outlet to share that with others, and I’m so grateful to have that here with you guys.

This isn’t an entirely new thought. About this time last year, I wrote something similar called Let’s Talk About One Ingredient Chef and I resonate with everything I said there even more strongly today than I did back then. Some of what I discussed there came to fruition (i.e. a new recipe app) and some wasn’t quite ready. It’s almost like that note was a bit ahead of the person who wrote it. I guess I needed a global pandemic for it to all make sense to me 🙂

What’s Coming Next?

With that in mind, I’ve already begun working on bringing you guys tons of new content and projects. Lately I’ve been creating with a whole new passion and focus and it feels good to be back in the  game. Here’s a preview of where my head is at right now and what I have planned…

  • More “One Ingredient” – The One Ingredient philosophy is where this all started, and I think that’s still this blog’s biggest strength. In fact, I developed that whole food plant based system before “whole food plant based” was even a thing. I believe so much in the power of this unprocessed eating plan and I want to highlight its benefits through everything else I create – recipes, writing, products, and more.
  • More Me / Lifestyle Content – Recipes will always be a big thing here, but I also have so much passion for diet, fitness, and nutrition, so I want to broaden my horizons to include all aspects of living a healthy, happy plant-based life. Along with that, I’d like to share more of my own journey as well, as the artist / endurance athlete / guy trying to figure it out along with everyone else. I’m not sure how much of that you guys want to hear, so feel free to leave me comments and let me know what’s resonating with you as we go.
  • More Creative Projects – I love building new out-of-the-box ways to help you guys live healthier, happier lives through plant-based cooking and nutrition. I’m really excited about extending the One Ingredient brand into new courses, products, services, technology, etc. to further that mission.
  • Weekly Newsletter – I’m tentatively planning on doing a weekly newsletter moving forward (rather than just sending each recipe out as I make, as I do currently). This will include my own content of the week and other helpful updates from around the plant-based world. If you’re already getting emails from me, look for that maybe as soon as next weekend. Otherwise, head to my homepage and sign up for the free toolkit to get on the list.

So! I feel like we’re about to start a new chapter of One Ingredient Chef, one that is built more on love / support / passion / connection rather than “just” a stream of recipes (though, the recipes will be there too!).

Moving forward, what I want more than anything is to give you guys the support you need to reach your goals and live your happiest, healthiest lives. So please stay in touch, share your feedback, journeys, struggles, needs. You can always contact me about anything that’s on your mind.

About Me

I also thought this would be a good opportunity to share a little more about me. I feel like 7 years of cashew creams and overnight oats resulted in my own personality getting lost in the shuffle. So, here’s me briefly interviewing myself. If there’s anything else you want to know, leave a comment below 🙂

Where do you live? Valencia, CA (the suburbs of LA), but my dream is to move to the redwoods of Santa Cruz.

What is your favorite food: Coffee.

That’s not a food… Okay, fine, pasta with a white cashew sauce like this.

What do you look like? From my run in Flagstaff this week:

How old are you? 32, but I eat a lot of antioxidants so I just tell people I’m 26 and they don’t question me.

Are you in a relationship? No, but definitely looking for the right vegan girl 😉

What do you do outside of One Ingredient Chef?

  • Trail Running. I run about 40 miles a week these days including a long 14-18 mile run through the mountains on the weekends. I’m training for the Leona Divide 50K ultra marathon which may or may not be happening in October. Running is everything to me and I get quite distraught when I’m injured or otherwise can’t run.
  • Art. Other than running, painting has become one of the most important things to me, and my alter-ego named ‘label.’ has his own thing going on. You can see some of my work here.
  • Programming. Over the years I have become more and more interested in writing code. I made the Ingredients recipe app in Flutter, an art app in iOS/Swift, and I’ve spent a lot of the quarantine studying math + Data Science + Machine Learning because it’s the future and I find it really exciting.

Can we see more of your art? 

Oh, I’m glad you asked! I made a whole collection of toast art a few years ago, which was actually inspired by One Ingredient Chef you can read a whole thing about the toast art on my art notebook.

More recently, I’ve moved into a new style I developed called “meta art” and this is my first painting in that style, called neutral gray n5. Since I can’t show this anywhere in the real world at the moment, I put up a little virtual exhibit for neutral gray n5. if you’d like to check it out:

I guess that’s everything for today. Sorry there was no food in this post! I just wanted to update you guys on my thoughts and let you know where I’ve been and what’s coming up next. Thank you all for sharing this journey with me. None of it would be possible without you and I’m eternally grateful for your support. I’ll get back to cooking now! 🙂

34 Comments

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  1. I love the meta-art. Can’t buy even a print because I have no wall space. However, it occurred to me it might be suitable to be printed onto fabric, then used to make a delightful art cushion. (for personal use, not sale) I think it would be lovely on silk.

    • Thanks, Ruchama! I’ve been curious about doing prints for this big painting, not sure how well they would turn out because it’s so detailed and random but AH I love the idea of the cushions, that would be so cool.

    • Hey Kim, I really appreciate your support – you’ve been reading for years and it means a lot. I hope you’re doing well!

  2. Ohh this is EXCITING!! I’ve always loved your one ingredient theme, as it deeply resonates with me and the way that I eat, but I also love your art, your writing is highly entertaining, and of course would love to hear more about your running ultra-marathons and such (!). Looking forward to it all!

  3. Andrew – Thanks for the updates I’ve always loved all your work and recipes on oneingredientchef as I know many other folks do as well! Excellent writing and a ton of creativity.
    Keep up the great work!!

  4. Welcome back! Looking forward to the new content. I still use a lot of your recipes regularly. Your blog was one of the first I came across when I went vegan quite literally over night. Your blog gave me the recipes and information I needed to make it work long term. I will be forever grateful.

    • Ah I’m really glad to hear that you’ve been using my recipes, Kathy. I went vegan overnight too and it can be tough, so I’m happy/humbled that I was a part of that journey for you. Thank you!

  5. Awesome news! Just yesterday I was explaining that 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to 30 olives to a coworker. People really glaze over when I tell them about it.

  6. Welcome back, Andrew! Sharing your journey through the pandemic and its influence on your goals and motivation is inspiring. Thank you for that.

    Taking your online cooking class a few years back was my transformational for me. Since then, your recipes have become staples in my cooking. I’ve shared the food, the recipes and the site with friends and family. One Ingredient Chef always felt like more than a recipe site and I look forward to the additional content you’ve described. I’m certain you will do a great job with it!

    • I really appreciate that, Jonathan. It really means a lot to hear that One Ingredient has played a part in your own journey and it’s stories like that which make me want to get back into it. Thank you.

  7. Loved your “toast art”. It made me hungry and then I saw your CREAMY VEGAN PASTA SAUCE WITH CAPERS AND OTHER STUFF. That has got to be delicious. The ingredients are now on my grocery list and we will be enjoying this meal tonight!

    • Thanks, Christine! Oh man, that stuff is so good. It was one of those recipes that kind of got lost as soon as I posted it, but personally, I’ve made 300 recipes on this site and that is one of the most delicious in my opinion. I hope you like it! 🙂

      • We just finished eating dinner and ate at least half of the pasta. We LOVED it is an understatement. I keep a binder only for what I call “company worthy” recipes and this one will definitely be in there. It was quick and easy to make. THANK YOU for sharing your recipes.

  8. Hi Andrew,

    Thanks for sharing some more personal stuff with us. I have the feeling you are kind of the male version of myself since I am a trailrunner, whole plant food nutritionist and data analyst. Only art is something I only consume

    Will look Foreward to read more posts from you!

    • Oh that’s funny! I knew you were a trail runner, but didn’t know about the data analyst part. Data for me is a very new thing, I’m just dipping my toes into it. Thanks for the comment, Carina 🙂

  9. So awesome to hear a little more about you:) I have been making your recipes for my family for many years – your pancakes are the biggest hit! Love the art too. Take care!

    • I really appreciate that, Belinda! It’s good to hear that adding a little more of myself into the mix is alright. Ah you reminded me that I haven’t made those pancakes in FOREVER, I’m glad you like them 🙂

  10. I’m alway glad to see you in my inbox. I look forward to hearing more about your everyday. I know it isn’t easy to get personal with your readers, but it helps to hear how other people are finding ways to live better. Because, you know, sometimes cooking and being healthier is hard. I just started running in March and really enjoy it. I’m definitely interested in knowing what you eat and how you train.
    Looking forward to new recipes and ideas!

    • Hi Cathleen, thanks for the kind message. I’m glad to hear you’d like to see more of my life/running… I’m definitely looking forward to working that into the mix!

  11. Great to hear from you. Your recipes are among my favorites; in fact, I was eating your Chicotta Stuffed Shells while reading your email.

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