Practical, delicious solutions to help you hold on to what’s important, and cook more, feel good and live well.
Hello and Welcome!
I’m Puneeta, a food writer and better food advocate and I offer practical, delicious solutions to individuals and families to improve our personal health and also the health and prosperity of the planet.
My work is inspired by scientific evidence around food and its connection with climate change, extensive research between food & mood, along with my own personal experiences of how the food that tastes good and is good for us as individuals is also good for the planet. A delightful and inescapable coincidence.
But navigating the world of cooking and eating and being weighed down by everyday decision-making around *good food* can be hard. I make it easy to shift kitchen habits with my recipes, strategies, and tips that help people cook more, use what they have, feel good, and live well.
MapleandMarigold.com, my blog, started as a love letter to India and Canada. Maple represents Canada and my life here. Marigold, with its colour and significance in Indian culture, represents my roots in India. What started as a blog on culture and family has evolved into a mission: to help create positive change in our kitchen and homes and in how we feel, and to make cooking and eating delicious and fun.
My goal is to help a million++ people make easy-to-implement, good-for-us, good-for-the-planet changes in cooking and eating that have the potential for enormous personal and collective impact.
Thank you for visiting my digital home and inviting me into your real one. I’m looking forward to cooking with you!
With gratitude and optimism,
Puneeta
Going Grocery Shopping?
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As Featured On
Let’s Cook Together!
The
sunday
Cooking Club
with Puneeta Chhitwal-Varma
Do you want to make delicious food that is good for the body and mind, and learn techniques and habits to be more *green* in the kitchen? Join me at the Sunday Cooking Club to learn about how our choices at dinner time can help us cook better, use what we have and make dinner time simple, delicious and FUN!
During this 1-hr virtual workshop we will cook with good mood foods and create real-life, DELICIOUS dishes. I also share some of my favourite kitchen tips and earth-savvy hacks for sustainable living that will nourish you and your family.
The next workshop is on November 28 at 2 pm. Registration open.
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Cook with me at the Sunday Cooking Club
Ready to make delicious food that is good for the body and mind, and learn techniques to help you make more *green* choices?
TV Appearances
Eat This, Not That - Healthy Swaps in the Kitchen
CHCH Morning Live with Annette Hamm
The Appeal of Cooking with Peels
Peel Appeal on CTV’s “The Social”
Celebrating Diwali in Canada
On Global News with Jennifer Valentine
Mood-boosting Cooking - Strategies and Tips to Feed the Mind
Good Mood Foods on CTV’s The Social
Cooking to Feed to Mind
Good Mood Foods on CHCH Morning Live
Soul-satisfying, mood-boosting cooking on TV
Feeling blue lately? Puneeta was on CTV’s The Social recently to share her strategies of cooking with mood-boosting foods.
Recipes featured on TV:
Featured Recipe
Double Your Veggies with Sweet & Sour Broccoli Stir-Fry
Broccoli is often on top of my Good Mood Food list, and for good reason. It's rich in Vitamin C and fibre. It's great for our gut health and mental wellbeing. And best of all with the right combination of ingredients and technique, it can be totally delicious. Yes, this Sweet & Sour Broccoli stir-fry is exactly that - totally delicious. I'm a fan of broccoli. It's one of those veggies that can take a lot of spices and still holds on to its own texture and flavour. It's why you'll often see...
Coming Soon!
My new eBook, “How to Shop Your Pantry”, is almost here. It includes 31 delicious, pantry-forward recipes with tons of good-for-us, good-for-the-planet practical tips.
Sign up for my newsletter so you are first to hear about the eBook launch.
*By submitting your email, you agree to receive email communications from Maple + Marigold. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Recent Posts
A Season of Seva – In the Spirit of Service
Every year at this time I get ready for the festive season. Between Thanksgiving, Diwali, birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas, the last...
5 Kitchen Hacks to Feed Your Garden
Many of us are growing our own vegetables this summer, right? Here are 5 hacks that we can use to feed our vegetable garden right from our...
Contemporary Canadian Food {with an Indian Flair}
I go through a lot of cookbooks. It comes with the job, right? And it's not just recipes that draw me in but stories about the land and...
Fighting Food Waste & Having Impact
In 2020, Puneeta released the How to SHOP YOUR PANTRY digital cookbook. What started out as a simple pantry challenge during the early months of the pandemic rapidly became a 48-page collection of pantry-forward recipes and tips designed to help people nourish their families and reduce food waste.
Through the eBook, Puneeta is helping readers cook more at home, reduce what they throw away and improve the dire problem of food scarcity and hunger.
This fund-raising endeavour has so far donated $2400 to Second Harvest, Canada’s foremost food rescue organization.
If you missed out on buying your copy of How to SHOP YOUR PANTRY, look out for the 2nd edition coming up soon.
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