Hi, I’m Jigna and the face behind Jig Eats Plants!

I’ve been in the education industry for over ten years, teaching geography to students aged 11 – 18 years old.

Jig Eats Plants is my passion project and a platform for me to share my love of cooking.

I enjoy eating lots of different cuisines, cooking various dishes, talking about it, thinking about my next meal… the list goes on. I come from a family who love to eat and am completely inspired by my mum who is a passionate cook and taught me how to cook. I was fortunate to grow up eating a range of cuisines and different home cooked meals every day. My mum makes amazing Gujurati food, this is the region my family are from (in NW India) but also cooks Italian, Mexican, Chinese and Thai to name just a few!

My first experience of cooking for one happened in the first term of completing my teacher-training (PGCE) course in 2011. I rented a room in my landlady’s house and had use of the kitchen with some of my own storage space. I had a shelf in the fridge and one shelf in the cupboard. This is where I started to batch cook during the weekend to help me out with long placement days during the weekdays. I moved to Essex over seven years ago for my second teaching post. I also bought my first home (a cosy one-bedroom flat) and had to budget carefully in my first year of being a homeowner. I therefore started batch cooking again; it saved money and time as well as reducing food waste.

Cooking is truly something I enjoy. There are times when I choose convenience and get a takeaway and there are plenty of social occasions when I’m eating out with family and friends. Cooking, for me, however, is a way to decompress after a day at work and that’s when I make a super-quick meal. Over the weekends I enjoy spending time looking through my cookbooks, recipe cutouts and social media for inspiration and will experiment in my little kitchen.

Jig Eats Plants is my platform to share a range of place-based recipes whilst busting the myths around cooking for one and helping you to reduce your food waste.

You can follow me on the following social networks: