When it comes to the kitchen, Jess Smith finds that vegetables are always a great place to start.
She’s always been a “plant-forward” eater, she said, but that interest grew even more when she started experimenting with new recipes while learning to cook overseas.
Not only was it easy to get more greens and veggies onto a plate, she found, but it was also easy to make them tasty.
That logic inspired the premise of the Overland Park native and Blue Valley North alum’s new cookbook — and its title, “Start with a Vegetable.”
The cookbook, filled with “plant-forward” recipes, came out at the end of January, and so far has been met with a good buzz, Smith said.
Smith’s love of vegetables goes back several years
Smith spent several years as a vegetarian during her college years in Virginia.
She said her time living in Thailand with her husband, Frank Smith, was also the catalyst for her interest in plant-focused cooking.
While taking cooking classes and learning about the cuisine there, she said she came to realize how easy it was to make a delicious meal out of vegetables.
“It just sort of opened my mind to eating in a different way,” she said.
Once she had children, she said, perfecting the balance of healthy and tasty recipes became even more valuable.
A decade later, it’s an eating habit that she said has stuck for her and her family.
“I was like, ‘OK, now I need to figure out how to make delicious food fast that kids might eat, while still honoring my love of vegetables,” she said. “(My kids) have kind of been on this journey with me where I’ve been focused on vegetables and how we get them into our diet while eating everything else too.”
‘Start with a Vegetable’ features 100+ plant-focused recipes
Smith’s cataloguing of her cooking journey began with a food blog — which she used, in part, to keep in touch with her family overseas while she lived in Thailand.
Today, her website, Inquiring Chef, features a wide variety of “healthyish and homemade” dishes geared toward busy weeknights at home.
Before penning “Start with a Vegetable,” Smith worked on a few smaller eBooks. She also worked for eight years as the chief recipe developer for meal planning company Cook Smarts.
So writing a book of her own came as a natural next step. Smith worked with Countryman Press to publish the book.
“I was very used to writing recipes tailored toward dinner for busy people,” she said. “At Cook Smarts, we always had a vegetarian variation for every dish that we did.”
“Start with a Vegetable” officially came out on Jan. 26, reaching Amazon bestseller status in its first week out.
The recipes highlight a variety of vegetables: corn becomes Elote grilled cheeses, spinach becomes pesto pasta, and sweet potato becomes a base for broccoli and gochujang-glazed chicken.
The book is organized by vegetable, so people can flip to the chapter centered around the veggie of their choice and go from there.
“The response has been great,” Smith said. “It really is a different experience, having always written recipes that live on the internet. To hold (the book in my hands) is very surreal.”
Smith hopes to keep promoting the book on a local level
Aside from being available on Amazon, “Start With a Vegetable” has also made its way into some independent bookstores in the area.
Last weekend, Smith, who now lives in Kansas City’s Brookside area, marked the occasion with a book-signing event at Monstera’s Books in downtown Overland Park.
“It’s been so neat being in Kansas City, where people support creators so much,” she said. “This is where I want to be.”
Going forward, she said she hopes to hold more promotional events for the book around Kansas City and potentially work with more local vendors who could carry it.
Beyond that, a second book isn’t out of the question. Particularly after watching and hearing the excitement people have about making healthy changes to their at-home cooking, she said, which has kept the spark of inspiration burning.
“Seeing it out in the world and just seeing the response, I feel like there’s definitely the potential that I would want to pursue it again,” she said. “I think people are really resonating with not necessarily making a dramatic change but kind of thinking about ways to eat a little bit less meat and maybe eat a few more vegetables.”
More arts and culture news: This Johnson County-based rapper is shooting for the stars
