Amanda Frederickson is a cookbook author, restaurant owner and creator of #fridgeforaging. She attended San Francisco Cooking School for culinary school and after a stage at one of San Francisco’s Michelin starred restaurants, she landed in the Williams-Sonoma Test Kitchen. For almost 2 ½ years, Amanda wrote recipes and tested products in the Test Kitchen, all with the sole purpose of creating delicious food for the home cook. In addition, she co-wrote 11 cookbooks under the Test Kitchen titles, sold in-stores and online at Williams-Sonoma, and also authored the Staub Cookbook (Ten Speed Press, Fall 2018), which uses delicious recipes to highlight the benefits of cooking with cast iron cookware.
In 2017 this recipe master started Fridge Foraging. Every Wednesday on her Instagram account @amandafredrickson she brings her community into her fridge & pantry to cook with whatever she has on hand. She started this as a way to empower people to cook with what they have.
In the Spring of 2020 Amanda’s new cookbook written entirely by her, was published – Simple Beautiful Food (Ten Speed Press). The cookbook features over 100 easy recipes with accessible ingredients, as well as a choose your own adventure style recipe chart that shows the reader how to take 1 simple ingredient and cook it a number of different ways. Amanda shot all of the photography in the cookbook and paired down the recipes to create highly cookable, accessible, and delicious dishes.
In the summer of 2020 Amanda opened her first restaurant, a fast-casual concept serving salads, grain bowls, wraps, called Radish Kitchen with the goal of serving delicious approachable and fresh food to the community. She lives in Nashville, TN, with her husband Luke and two daughters, Olivia and Palmer.
What is #FridgeForaging?
I started Fridge foraging 4 years ago as a way to empower people to cook with what they already have in their fridge. Every Wednesday on social media, I invite people into my refrigerator and I show them what odds and ends I have on hand. From there I let people vote on what I should make for dinner and then I show them how easy it is to create a delicious meal using just what you have on hand.
What inspired you to start #FridgeForaging on Instagram?
I was inspired by friends who would say to me that they were too overwhelmed to cook dinner. They didn’t have time to go to multiple grocery stores to find what they needed for a recipe and were afraid of putting in all that effort only to have the recipe not work. I started it basically to show my friends that they can save money, save food waste and make dinner using what they already have. I like to think of Fridge Foraging almost like a muscle – the more you do it, the easier it will become.
You recently did a major kitchen remodel, what kitchen design decisions were absolute musts for you?
I did! I needed my kitchen to not only be beautiful but also be super functional since it gets heavy use. Literally the day we finished the space, I started shooting the recipes for my cookbook – we cooked and photographed 100 recipes over the course of 9 days and my kitchen looked brand new even after all of that. I also wanted it to be open and as big as possible since the kitchen really is the heart of the home.
What sold you on BlueStar? What do you love about the refrigerator? What do you love about the range?
I love that BlueStar makes professional quality appliances for the home chef. Our fridge is so big and sturdy and fits everything I need. I also love that the diary and produce drawers pull out completely so you can look down into the to see exactly what you have. The power of the range is what I love. I feel like it boils water in about 5 seconds and I am all about ways to save time these days.
