The Book of the Lamp — Read free with Kindle Unlimited · Kindle eBook: $0.99 · Paperback: $5.75.
Kitchen Monk™ · Free · No account needed
Start Your EVERgreen Voyage in the KENSPEED!
Your voyage toward flourishing begins with one small step. Explore free video cook-alongs, simple meal plans, and a grocery list you can use on your next shopping trip.
Begin where you are. Choose what helps today, and return whenever you’re ready for another step.
Step into the spirit of KENSPEED and choose your next small step toward flourishing. A welcoming place to watch, cook, shop, and take your next small step. An invitation, never a verdict.
Choose your first step
🌿 Explore our National Health Association pathway
Follow Nathanael’s two-year path toward National Health Association Life Membership, explore the National Health Association learning community, and meet plant-based culinary contributor Chef James Rohrbacher. Current membership prices, benefits, and Chef James promotions are linked to their official sources and kept separate so readers can verify the latest terms.
Choose a Recipe & Cook Along
Find a meal and watch how to prepare it.
Start a Meal Plan
Follow a simple plan with recipes and shopping support.
Starter Plan Grocery List
A ready-to-print shopping list for the 7-day Starter Plan, with a box to check off every item.
🖨️ To print: use your browser’s Share or ⋮ menu, then Print.
🩺 A nurse or clinician? See the Flourishing Nursing™ version for sharing with patients.
From recipe to shopping list to cooking
Choose a meal → watch its cook-along → build the grocery list → prepare the meal → choose another small step. This is a guide, not a rule: start with whichever tool helps you today.
🎥 Watch
See how the recipe comes together.
🛒 Shop
Collect the ingredients with your interactive or printable list.
🥣 Make
Follow the written steps at your own pace.
🌱 Continue
Return for another recipe or a new step toward flourishing.
Featured cook-alongs
Each video below shows the creator making that exact dish. More are on the way as we find genuine matching videos for every recipe.
Creamy Cauliflower Soup
👩🍳 Recipe and video by Jill Dalton, The Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show. External recipe; she hasn’t reviewed or endorsed Kitchen Monk.
🌱 Our salt-, oil-, and sugar-free changes: water or salt-free broth instead of store-bought, leave out the miso, and check spice labels. Not yet kitchen-tested. Details · 🛒 Not yet in the interactive grocery list; use the kit’s checklist.
Thai Peanut Sauce
👩🍳 Recipe and video by Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep, our Chief Culinary Guardian (Enliven Foods channel), featured with her permission. Her ingredients and method are shown in the video.
🌱 Salt-, oil-, and sugar-free status not yet verified · ⚠️ contains peanuts · 🛒 Not yet in the interactive grocery list; the page’s free Cook-Along Kit has space to jot ingredients as you watch.
Your grocery list, ready for the store
- One printable list covers the whole 7-day Starter Plan for one person.
- Cooking for more? Multiply each amount (for 2 people, double everything).
- Check off items with a pen while you shop.
🖨️ To print: use your browser’s Share or ⋮ menu, then Print.
📄 More ways to begin: the free Veterans Affairs cooking guide and first trail stops
Practical Plant-Based Cooking, by the Green Environmental Management System Clinical Work Group in collaboration with the Nutrition and Food Services Healthy Teaching Kitchen, United States Department of Veterans Affairs (May 2023). Independently authored; not a Kitchen Monk publication, and not endorsed, sponsored, or reviewed by anyone associated with this website.
🥾 First trail stops in the Veterans Affairs guide
🟡 As printed, many Veterans Affairs recipes use oil, salt, or animal ingredients. Use the salt-, oil-, and sugar-free notes in our 8-week meal plan or Ingredient Swaps. These recipes don’t yet have matched cook-along videos.
Discover the story behind the voyage
The EVERgreen Chronicles™
The Book of the Lamp: From Crimea to the Kitchen Monk
KENSPEED belongs to the world of The Book of the Lamp. On the Oregon Coast, the story reimagines a real shipwreck as a ship of family memory, honoring Grandpa Ken, whose example of feeding his community is one of the first lamps in the author’s own story. The voyage on this page borrows that spirit; the recipes and tools work on their own, no story required.
⛵ What is KENSPEED? Story and history, side by side
🏛️ Historical fact: the Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel sailing ship that ran aground on Clatsop Spit near Fort Stevens on October 25, 1906. A lifeboat crew from Hammond helped bring the sailors ashore, and no lives were lost. Her remains are still visible at Fort Stevens State Park.
📖 Story: in The EVERgreen Chronicles™, the Peter Iredale inspires KENSPEED, a ship of family memory, hope, and home that becomes a bridge between generations.
KENSPEED exists only in the story. The historic wreck has not been renamed, and no voyage can be booked. If you visit Fort Stevens, follow Oregon State Parks guidance, check the tides, and never climb on the remains. Read more about KENSPEED
🕊️ Faith & Compassion (optional reflection)
Kitchen Monk grew from Christian compassion: light for the next step, a table with room for everyone, and care that doesn’t wait for perfection. Everyone is welcome here, of every faith and of none, and every recipe and tool on this page works without any spiritual practice.
Faith is offered here as encouragement, not as health advice, and no health result is promised through it. Faith communities · The EVERgreen Oath™
Return for your next step
You do not have to complete the whole voyage today. Choose one helpful step, and come back when you’re ready.
More gentle paths: one small step for food, movement, sleep, or calm · the Nine Gardens trail · no time to cook? · find your community
💃 Move to Music. Flourish Together.
Free dance videos, seated and gentle options, and classes near you or online. Start with one song, and invite someone to join you.
📦 No time to cook? Plant-based foods Nathanael recommends
Some weeks, the next step is simply having something nourishing ready. These independent businesses are personal recommendations. Kitchen Monk earns nothing from any link here: no affiliate commissions and no payments.
🍱 Chef James Nutrition: frozen whole-plant meals with no added sugar, oil, or salt; ships to the 48 contiguous states and sometimes pauses orders seasonally. chefjamesnutrition.com ↗
🧁 Enliven Foods Mug Muffin Meals: whole-food muffin mixes sweetened only with dates, no added salt. Co-founded by Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep, Nathanael’s co-author on The Book of the Garden: The Cup of Flourishing. enlivenfoods.com ↗
🫘 WellBean: bean-based bars, Muggins, and snacks; some flavors contain nuts. wellbean.life ↗
🌶️ Well Your World: sauces, spice blends, and soup mixes made without added salt, oil, or sugar. wellyourworld.com ↗
🥕 Cooking for a family? Brittany Jaroudi shares plant-based recipes her own family loves. The Jaroudi Family ↗
🏷️ National Health Association members get 10% off Chef James Nutrition and $5 off a WellBean variety pack, among other member offers set by the National Health Association. See National Health Association member discounts ↗
Independent businesses and organizations, not affiliated with Kitchen Monk. Products, prices, discounts, and shipping can change; check each website and review ingredients for your own allergies and needs.
🧭 Pack your learning compass: trusted guides for the road
Independent recommendations; Kitchen Monk is not affiliated with or endorsed by these organizations.
🌎 Find Your Flourishing Team
Want support putting this into practice? Three simple steps:
- 🩺 Find a practitioner: search reviewed directories, and our own confirmed listings as they are added.
- 🌱 Explore community resources: local groups, pods, and free programs.
- 📍 Request a team near you: tell us where you would like services.
A request does not book a visit. Always confirm coverage with the practice and your insurance plan before booking.
Find your community
No one has to make this voyage alone. Join one of our free communities and keep going with people who are learning, cooking, and flourishing together.
Free to join · No purchase required
Join Our Free Community
Flourishing happens together. Your Kitchen Monk™ journey can begin for free. Choose the community that fits you best: one is for everyone, one is for nurses and nurse coaches, and both are free.
🌿 For everyone
Lifestyle Medicine for ALL
Our free public Kitchen Monk™ community for anyone who wants to feel better, eat well, move more, sleep better, ease stress, and connect with others. People, families, caregivers, and neighbors are all welcome. You don’t need to be a healthcare professional.
Free to join. Open to everyone.
🩺 For nurses & health professionals
Flourishing Nursing Forward™
Our free professional community for nurses, nurse practitioners, nurse coaches, licensed practical and vocational nurses, nursing assistants, students, educators, leaders, and collaborators. Connect around Flourishing Nursing™, nurse coaching, whole-person care, leadership, and moving nursing forward.
Free to join. Built for connection, education, and collaboration.
No perfection required. No purchase required. Just come as you are and grow with us.
Both groups are on Facebook and open in a new tab. Read our community expectations. Please don’t share personal health details or identifiable patient information in the groups.
🌅 New every morning
“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22–23 · KJV
🌿 Nathanael’s reflection: These words were written in the middle of grief. Flourishing is not perfection. Each morning offers mercy and a new possibility: one small, manageable next step.
Kitchen Monk™ offers health education and community, not medical care. Please check with your healthcare provider before changing your diet or activity, especially if you live with a health condition or take medications. In an emergency, call 911. Corrections: rfjeep@gmail.com (please no personal health information). Story art created with artificial intelligence assistance.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
