Begin Again with Davina McCall - BONUS Episode: 10 Kitchen Essentials with Deliciously Ella

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

Join Deliciously Ella and Davina McCall for a 10-minute kitchen reset 🍅🥦 This is your invitation to take the overwhelm out of healthy eating. In this Reset Month bonus episode, Ella shares the top 10 ingredients she always keeps on hand, and how to use them for quick, delicious, family-friendly meals. No fancy gadgets, no complex recipes, just real food, real fast. 🌱 This is the episode for you if: You want to eat better but don’t know where to start You’re tired of wellness advice that feels overcomplicated You’re looking for simple wins in the kitchen ✨ Ella's Essentials include: Easy pantry staples (like tins, grains, and frozen veg) Quick flavor boosts with minimal effort The mindset shift that makes weeknight cooking doable 🎁 Don’t miss our RESET giveaway! Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for exclusive tools and a chance to win over £750 in wellness prizes: http://beginagainshow.com 🎥 This episode is part of our RESET MONTH series, your invitation to simplify, nourish, and begin again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. One day you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time.

TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. I'm just going to quickly talk about this. Yes, quick wins. Because it came out last year. Yeah. And this is full of really brilliant, very simple recipes. That's the thing about it.

But what I also started to realise was the mental load for people was so big. So it wasn't necessarily that you didn't have 20 minutes to make supper. Yes. But that when you've been making decisions all day and you're so overwhelmed and the grass, the mental load of doing it is so big. So I've done eight weeks of meal. plans and you've got your shopping list, you've got all your suppers for the week mapped out, so then you get home from work and you're like, right, I'm going to make this super easy supper.

I have everything that I need in the fridge. It's going to take me 15 minutes. I'm ready to go. Because as I said, it's not necessarily, you don't have 20 minutes to do an easy tray bake or something like that. It's just the like mental load at the end of the day. It's like one more decision, which is a bit much. Okay, I'm going to tell everybody, we're going to talk about the weather for two minutes while everybody goes to get a pen. and a piece of paper, I want you to tell us, well, I mean, firstly I'm going to say to people, go and get quick wins, because if you want help with, like literally, it's, you tell them what to do. Yeah, and look, this is everything that I cook at home.

It's trying to get that perfect balance between, like, deliciousness, nutrition, speed and ease. Yeah. Which I think it's got to come together, right? Otherwise, if it's not delicious, you won't keep coming back to it. It's not easy. You won't keep it up. And if it's not nutritious, then it's not going to help you in the way that you want it to on a Monday night. And so for me, it's that middling of the Venn diagram that I think is so important.

So I was going to ask you for 10 ingredients that people could have just in their cupboard at all times ready for action. What will help them? I love that. Okay. Definitely have tins of kind of chickpeas, white beans, etc. that you can use in stews and curries and soups, etc. Like a chunky minestrone with nice bread, the best thing you can eat this time of year.

Yeah. Like a cold day. Then I'd also have tins of tomato, tins of coconut milk. Again. Oh, coconut milk. Yeah. So delicious in a soup.

Yeah. Got random bits of veg in your fridge, roast it, blend it up with one of your tins of beans for nutrition, and then do coconut milk, some lemon. Oh. Delish.

So coconut milk, such an easy. easy when to have in your life. Okay, so we've got tins of beans. We have got tin tomatoes. Tomatoes. I'm going to, I'm counting. Okay. We're going to have just basic herbs and spices. Yeah. I feel like you don't need loads and loads, but just have some mixed spices, have some paprika, have some cumin, have some chili flakes. Again, easy ways to add flavor into life. And they count. They all count. Exactly. Take what you can get. I would then definitely have just nice pasta again.

You know we said for bread earlier being like you kind of deem nice bread. Yes. Don't eat just loads of plain toast because you can add stuff to it. But pasta's the same. And like especially if you're cooking for families. What about how do we have to eat whole wheat? Because I've swapped. But I did swap.

Yeah. Plain pasta. For whole wheat. And my family didn't notice. No. And that's great if that's the case. But if anything you do, I would just say like the best thing you can do is make a delicious sauce. And again, that's one of the easiest way is to get a little.

loads of plants in, because you can have celery and onion and garlic and tomatoes and carrot and all of the rest of it. Yes. And you can make something absolutely delicious. And then with pasta... Need a vehicle that isn't afraid to make a splash? That's the Volkswagen Taos. Capable and confident, the Volkswagen Taos is fit for everyday life.

Nimble in traffic, agile and tight spots, and still spacious enough for weekend getaways. While available 4-motion all-wheel drive gives confidence in rain and safety. snow, the capable taos, you deserve more confidence. Visit vw.ca to learn more. Suvw, German engineered for all. Probably everyone will eat it. So you can have more sauce than pasta. Way more sauce, exactly. Like people do tons of pasta and not much sauce. Yeah no, I would do be Horace. Exactly. Exactly. Like we mentioned earlier, like a pulled obogee. It's one of my favorite meals to make. You roast that oboines till they're like blistering and falling apart. You scoop out all the inside.

So is that the pulled bit? Exactly. So you like pull it out and then you do it with lentils and tin tomatoes and lots of spices, a little bit of miso which actually had put on our list as well. It's an easy way to add flavor. And it's fermented food. It's good for your girl. But, you know, my kids were like hoover that up with pasta.

Whereas if I was like if I just gave him all the ingredients by themselves, they would not. Okay, so we've got pasta, just general grains, be that whatever you like to eat, rice and like bulgaw, keen flour, etc. Rice brown is better than white? It's a big thing I think on the internet about that. Yeah, there is a big thing on the internet. It depends what you mean. Because again, it's a really nice place.

Do you know where I learned that from? Where? Your pod. Yeah, exactly. No, because it's like, what will you eat? You know, like, yes, lots of us struggled to get enough fibres, as we've said. But if whether you're, then you're doing, I don't have been doing this. Look, I'm still holding.

I know, still holding. Marinated, good cumbers and things like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it with white rice. You've still getting so much goodness in. Like, don't over stress about it. Okay, we've got to rise. Then I'd move to your freezer. I would always have a bag of frozen mixed berries.

Yes. Such a big help. Frozen peas, again, go in everything. Or I wanted to add oats. Yeah, I'll do oats as my last one. I mean, we could go on. We could go on. This is very, very, very, very helpful.

Yeah. But like we were saying about the fancy beans on. Exactly. And we were saying about the fancy beans on toast. Like there you've got garlic, which you could always have frozen. But you'd get home and you just literally, all you used to buy on your way home would be some tomatoes

and some garlic. and then you're putting in the chili that you've already had, the beans you already have, etc. And you're just using what you've got. And again, it feels so much more doable when you're like, right, I need to buy two ingredients as opposed to, oh my gosh, I've got to go and buy 25 things I've never heard of.

I love that idea of using leftovers. Yeah, it's very important. I know that New Year can feel really overwhelming and there is so much pressure on everybody to change your entire life overnight and often no one to help you do it, but this year is going to be different because here at Begin Again,

we are launching Reset Month. As part of Reset Month, we're also going to launch the Begin Again newsletter. Yay! So when you sign up, you're going to unlock exclusive bonus content and tools that you can only get through the newsletter and you're going to get some behind-the-scenes moments.

and this is so good as a little extra everyone who signs up is also going to be in with the chance of winning a £500 wellness package packed with prizes from some of our favourite partners to help you reset in the new year so all you need to do is click on the link in the description and pop in your email

and join the Begin Again newsletter join our gang let's get ready for the new year together