Bashaw has always loved cooking. In her free time, she watches a lot of YouTube videos about cooking. Someday she wants to own a restaurant and publish a cookbook. She’s taking her first stab at the cookbook part right now for her senior project.

Every year, Lake Placid’s graduating students top off their last year in school with a senior project. Students have to dedicate at least 30 hours to their project, and whatever they choose to do has to fall into set categories, such as community service or self-improvement.

Speaking with the Lake Placid News on Wednesday, May 12, it’s clear that Bashaw has poured her heart into this cookbook. It doesn’t have a name yet, but she’s spent months testing recipes. There will be between 20 and 35 recipes in the final product.

“I’ve had these recipes. I imagine people actually making them,” she said. “I’ve been testing them and writing them down. … It’s been kind of a long process. I feel like I’ve been working hard on it.”

Bashaw’s cookbook will focus on recipes that are vegan and use sustainable ingredients. She hopes that people will try out her recipes and understand that cooking with sustainable foods doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and eating vegan doesn’t have to be expensive.

“I hope that this project, and what my message is, really gets through to people,” she said. “It’s easy to eat more plants, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. It’s good for the planet, and it’s important. It’s also enjoyable. It can be very fun.”

Bashaw, 18, knew last summer that she wanted to write a cookbook as her senior project, so she had a little bit of a head start. She’s been vegan since she was in eighth grade, so a vegan cookbook was a natural choice.

She’s learned how to eat vegan inexpensively over the years.

“I knew I didn’t want to spend a lot of my parents’ money for extra stuff,” she said.

One tip: Don’t buy the premade products.

“It’s honestly very simple and inexpensive if you don’t buy a whole lot of the premade stuff. I buy a lot of whole foods,” Bashaw said. “Beans, rice and oats are all some of the cheapest food in the world.”

Her cookbook will include some recipes she has developed, plus some family recipes she’s modified to be vegan. She shared two examples of recipes that will be included: a baked oatmeal with apples and a caramel-y sauce — once baked, the oatmeal has a cake-like consistency, she said — and a shepard’s pie with potatoes and lentils as a base.

“You can also make that and turn it into a lentil stew over mashed potatoes,” she said.

Bashaw is planning to submit her cookbook in June. It’ll be a digital cookbook, but she wants to make a few physical copies with a book press.

Bashaw’s class graduates high school at the end of June. After she leaves high school, Bashaw will be attending SUNY Oneonta in the fall as a dietetics major.