Good food. Less waste.
Hi, I’m Elby
I’m Lindsay – Elby to friends – an Australian food blogger and the cook, recipe developer, writer and photographer behind The Tasteful Pantry.
I live in Canberra, Australia, with my husband and our three children. I created The Tasteful Pantry to share easy, family-friendly recipes made with everyday ingredients, along with practical ways to make better use of the food already in the kitchen.
The recipes here are designed for real life. They’re for busy weeknights, relaxed weekend cooking, family celebrations and the occasional baking project that uses nearly every bowl in the cupboard. If a recipe creates that much washing-up, it needs to be worth it.
Every recipe is developed, cooked, adjusted and photographed by me in my home kitchen. My family helps with the tasting, although “helps” can be a generous description when five people have five different opinions. Their feedback has made me a more flexible and creative cook, and it helps me explain substitutions, serving options and the details that genuinely matter.
Where my love of cooking began
I grew up in North Queensland as the youngest of five children. Our kitchen was busy, meals were shared and volunteering as the baking assistant came with access to the cake beaters. It was an excellent arrangement.
My mum is a vegetarian, so vegetables, legumes and meat-free meals were a normal part of family cooking long before vegetarian food became quite so fashionable. It gave me an early appreciation for meals that rely on flavour rather than meat to do all the work.
As a teenager, I was regularly cooking weeknight dinners for our family. It was around this time that I discovered green vegetables could remain green instead of being cooked until they resembled something from a muddy dam. A useful culinary breakthrough.
I moved into the hospitality industry in my late teens, working in various restaurant and kitchens. I loved the pace and energy but quickly realised hospitality wasn’t the career I wanted for the long haul.
Over the years, I’ve worked in several corners of the food world, from fruit picking to waitressing, from cooking to baking and finally into management. Each role taught me something different about ingredients, organisation and feeding people well.
Travel has also shaped how I cook. Food tours, markets and cooking classes are usually high on my itinerary, and dishes I’ve eaten throughout Australia and abroad often inspire what I make at home. I don’t claim to recreate every dish exactly as it was served. Instead, I take the flavours, techniques and ideas I’ve learned and turn them into recipes that work in an everyday family kitchen.
Recipes made for real life
I’m a full-time working mum, so I understand the particular joy of opening the fridge at the end of a long day and discovering that nobody inside it has organised dinner.
That is where reliable recipes earn their place.
The Tasteful Pantry focuses on meals that are achievable without sacrificing flavour. You’ll find quick dinners, comforting family favourites, baking, desserts, recipes inspired by food from around the world and useful ideas for turning leftovers into something everyone is happy to eat again.
I test recipes with home cooks in mind. Instructions should tell you more than simply what to do; they should help you understand what you’re looking for and why a step matters. I’ll also tell you when something is important, when you can take a shortcut and when an ingredient can be swapped for what you already have.
Good food. Less waste.
My interest in reducing waste became much more focused when our middle child learned about environmental issues in year 3. She came home and announced that she would no longer take plastic packaging to school.
She meant it.
Sandwiches wrapped in plastic disappeared. Pre-packaged snacks were out, and fruit cups were firmly rejected. Her commitment made the rest of us look more closely at the waste our household produced, including the food we bought but didn’t always use.
Reducing food waste doesn’t require a perfectly organised fridge or a complicated household system. My approach is practical: plan enough to make the week easier, stay flexible enough to use ingredients that need attention and check the vegetable drawer before buying yet another zucchini.
That might mean turning leftover stew into a pie, freezing overripe fruit for smoothies, using stale bread for croutons, making soup from vegetables that have lost their crunch or cooking an extra quantity of dinner to freeze for later.
These small habits save money, reduce what ends up in landfill and often make cooking easier. They can also lead to very good food, which helps considerably.
You can begin with my guide to using leftovers, which includes plenty of practical ideas for transforming what you already have into another meal.
Meet the tasting panel
My husband and three children are the inspiration behind many of the recipes on The Tasteful Pantry. Each of the children has different tastes, and cooking for them over the years has taught me how to adapt meals without preparing several completely separate dinners.
My husband is also a confident cook and particularly enjoys smoking meat and fish. He provides plenty of useful feedback and has contributed his expertise to recipes across the site.
Then there’s Macy, our unofficial taste tester and official kitchen-floor cleaner. Her standards are enthusiastic, although not especially selective.
Between them, I have a very dependable testing team.
What will you find on The Tasteful Pantry?
The recipes and guides on this site are created to help you:
- cook simple, flavour-packed meals for the family
- follow clear instructions without needing specialist equipment
- use familiar ingredients in fresh ways
- adapt recipes to suit different tastes and dietary needs
- make good use of leftovers and ingredients already at home
- feel more confident in the kitchen
- enjoy cooking without making it another complicated job
Most importantly, I want The Tasteful Pantry to be somewhere you can find food that tastes good and advice that is genuinely useful.
Come and have a look around
If you’re ready to start cooking, browse all recipes or take a look through the latest dishes on The Tasteful Pantry.
You can also follow along on on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for new recipes, kitchen tips and ideas for making the most of what you already have.
Have a question, suggestion or recipe request? Visit my contact page and send me a message. I’d love to hear from you.