MasterChef Junior | The Dinner Special podcast

102: Erin Alderson: Moving From Fast Food to Healthier Eating

December 23, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Naturally Ella

On her blog, Naturally Ella, Erin shares seasonal vegetarian recipes that are pantry-inspired and favorite recipes that are simple, fresh and exciting for her family. She’s written two cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen.

I am so happy to have Erin Alderson of Naturally Ella here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Erin’s.)

On Her Journey From Fast Food to Fresh and Seasonal:

It’s definitely been a long journey, but one I’m glad I took. Through high school and part of college, we were a middle-class family who was always on the go. Had a lot of activities after school, during school and it just seemed like we never really had time to cook. Looking back I think we probably did have time. But like most people it’s just convenient to eat out and grab food as we go.

It wasn’t until in between my freshman and sophomore year of college that my father had a heart attack and had a quadruple bypass. He survived it all but it was definitely a wake-up call for my entire family. After that we changed our diets and we haven’t looked back.

On Getting Started to Eating Healthier:

Baby steps. Definitely baby steps. Instead of eating out every day I’d eat out three times a week. I just stepped back slowly but surely. There were things I didn’t like at first. I didn’t always eat a lot of vegetables as much as I should have. It took time. It took time to really grow and get the process down.

I thought it might have been easier than I expected. I definitely had it built up in my head thinking that, “Oh, I’ll be able to do it. It won’t be that hard.” But it definitely was a day-by-day experience and there were a lot of temptations and challenges around every corner.

I feel like a lot of time people think, “Oh, health food. That must mean salads.” And really I don’t know. I love eating whole grains I do a lot of noodles. Again everything in moderation. You can have a lot of fun with it.

On Some Good Resources for Starting to Eat More Healthy:

I think blogs are awesome. A lot of the healthier food blogs because there’s just so much inspiration. And a lot of times those I feel like are recipes that people can really dig into.

Any of the Michael Pollan books are really a kind of good, swift kick in the rear. Because you read them and think, “Okay. This is why I should be doing this.” Mark Bittman is also a good resource. I think he’s the one that has the cookbook, How to Cook Everything.

I feel like those books can really be go-to references. They don’t have to be something that you read cover to cover. It’s just something that you can say, “Hey. I feel like trying this.” And you can go and dig into it.

On Her Blog:

Originally I started as a healthy baking blog way back in 2007. This was towards the beginning of my healthy eating journey and I wanted to share. For whatever reason I thought blogging sounded like fun even back then.

But I soon realized I didn’t like baking. And I fell in love with cooking. And that really took hold when I joined a CSA. And it was one of the ones where I could go out and pick. Every week I’d go out to the farm and I’d get to pick the produce that was ready. So I was getting my hands dirty.

It just really felt like connecting me to my food more. And forcing me to… instead of making a list of recipes and then going grocery shopping it was forcing me to say, “Okay. This is what I have. What can I make?”

It definitely opened my eyes to different varieties of things. I tried new things. Like kohlrabi was something that I would have never bought at the store but because it was there I tried it. And you learn about it and while sometimes at first you don’t like it. You can try it a different way and prepare it a different way. I think it’s a lot of fun.

In fact in the early days I would come back from the CSA and photograph everything. And I’d say, “This is what I got from the CSA this week.” And then the recipes would be based on that. That’s when my blog really turned seasonal.

On Essential Pantry Items for a Healthier Diet:

I always say that people need a couple, two to three, different kinds of grains. If you’re a grain-eater. Obviously I know there are some diets out there that people don’t eat grains. But for my purpose I’m going to say a few grains. Quinoa’s always a nice one to have because it’s quick-cooking. I love brown rice. That’s a good base for things. I usually have some millet and oats on hand.

And then you need some legumes. I love black beans, chickpeas and lentils. I usually have one of each of those. When I say pantry-inspired, those are really the items that I’m thinking of.

On Her Cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen:

The first one the publisher actually reached out to me and said, “Hey, we think that you would be a really good fit for this concept we have. Would it be something you’re interested in?” At first I’m, “Oh my gosh!” I’ve talked about milling flour. I had a lot of grains but I’ve never really put the two together. The more I thought about it, I was like, “No, this is a really good extension of my brand because a lot of times these are the ingredients I have in my house anyway. So what a cool way to show a second use for them.” So that concept was interesting for me.

Then the second book was an idea that I had been playing around with for a while. Because it kind of goes back to that seasonal, “I have these things, what can I do with them?” And so for The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen, it’s 50 base recipes that you can build upon with whatever you have. And so I keep it really open-ended but I do give some examples of what to do per season.

On Being in the Kitchen as a New Parent:

I don’t blog full-time. I have never actually blogged full-time. Naturally Ella has always been my secondary thing that I do and I’ve kept up.

But as of January it’s going to be my full-time because with having Mack around I’ve found that I can’t continue to do about three different jobs. So I’m going to focus solely on the blog. I have been spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen. Primarily during nap times and on weekends when my husband’s home.

But he actually loves being in the kitchen. I put him in the bouncer and I set him up on the kitchen island. And he loves to watch and really enjoys just being there. So that’s nice. It’s been very helpful.

My husband and I’ll even put food up to his nose and say, “Hey, this is mint.” And there was one time that he accidentally got parsley in his mouth and that was a really funny experience. Because he was, “Wait a minute, what is this?” We’re really looking forward to when we can start solid foods and have him experience all of that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

We don’t have cable. We only have antennae. AI still watch shows like MasterChef. I love Junior MasterChef just because I love seeing the eight-year-olds and the 10-year-olds just get in the kitchen. I think it’s really inspiring for kids to see other kids be in the kitchen. And hopefully grow a generation that’s used to cooking.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I love blogs. I’ve met a lot of friends through blogging. But the blogs I’m loving right now, who are doing some really creative vegetarian cooking, are, The First Mess, With Food + Love, Cookie and Kate, Love and Lemons. I’m sure there’s about a dozen more I could name, but those are the four that I really love.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

So on Instagram, I love following The Fauxmartha. She has a two-year-old at home who sometimes you see little hands in her shots. And I just love that.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I have a giant stoneware bowl that is made from a company where I used to live. And it’s a pottery place that’s no longer in business. I just love it. Because I feel like you can’t buy bowls like that anymore.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Oh. So many. I’m going to have to say goat cheese. For the longest time I was scared of any cheese that was white because I thought it was goat cheese. But now I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

First and foremost, The Vegetarian Flavor Bible is pretty much how I develop recipes. It’s so great because you can look up an ingredient and get other ingredients. And I love both of The Sprouted Kitchen’s cookbooks. There’s a new cookbook out called, Rose Water and Orange Blossom. That’s a Mediterranean/Lebanese cookbook and it’s just wonderful.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Yo-Yo Ma did a collaboration with a few bluegrass artists. And it’s called, The Goat Rodeo Sessions and it’s my favorite one especially this time of year. It gets me in the mood to get in the kitchen and cook.

On Keeping Posted with Erin:

Instagram. I am all about Instagram these days.

090: Lily Diamond: Playing with Food for Beauty and Nourishment

November 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Kale & Caramel

On Kale & Caramel, Lily has fun with local, seasonal produce and plays with different flavor combinations in the kitchen while creating body and beauty products that are pure enough to eat. She believes diet is a personal matter and highly recommends eating, cooking, and mixing with our own two hands.

I am so excited to have Lily Diamond of Kale & Caramel joining me on the show today.

(*All images below are Lily’s.)

On Growing Up in Maui:

Growing up on Maui, first of all, I just feel incredibly lucky that I had that background and was able to be immersed in so much natural beauty, and to have such a strong connection to the land instilled in me from a really young age. Both my parents spent a lot of time in the gardens that we had surrounding our house. And my mom was an aromatherapist and an herbologist, and so I learned about working with plants from her. And that informed the way that I approach both self care, definitely, in terms of mixing up crazy potions that I would slather all over myself, but also in the kitchen and really thinking about food, not just one-dimensionally in terms of flavor, but really on a much broader level, hence the tagline “food for all five senses”.

For me there is so much richness in experiencing the other qualities of food, the way that it feels, its scent, all of these things that make it a really multi-dimensional experience to work with in the kitchen and to play with, whether you’re nourishing inside or outside of your body.

I think having that deep immersion in gardening and growing our own food made it really easy for me to want to explore different ingredients. And a lot of that just was very basic. The fruits and vegetables that we grew, not basic now that I’m living here on the mainland in California. Their ingredients are harder to get, and I don’t have the luxury of walking outside and having three different kinds of passion fruit to choose from or being able to pick my own pomegranate. But having a culinary vocabulary in that way really informed, I think, how I eat and how I cook now.

On Foraging:

I lived in San Francisco prior to living here, and there is actually a really cool foraging movement growing, definitely, in California. I think, around the nation of urban dwellers who are aware that even potentially within the confines of their city limits, there are oasis that contain a lot of natural life that can be foraged and eaten. I definitely don’t recommend doing any of that on your own, scrounging up things that you think look edible, totally a bad idea. But if you can go with somebody who really knows how to identify plants.

Something that I did was when I lived in San Francisco, I didn’t have a car, and so when I moved down here, I still was into walking around everywhere and exploring my neighborhood, and I really quickly discovered this walled-in secret garden. I would peer through the fence and try and figure out what was going on there. And for a few weeks. I then finally saw a sign, and looked it up online, and ended up just showing up at a community service day for this community garden that is just a few blocks from me.

And it’s huge. It has, I think, over 150 individual plots and then several acres of avocado orchards. And the avocado trees, some of them are over a hundred years old. And it’s just an incredibly special place. So right away I went in and I was like, “Can I help? I would love to just be able to work here and spend some time here.” And they said, “Sure.” And I’ve since developed a really close relationship with them.

So many people who live in L.A. don’t know that this place exists. It’s in the middle of the city, but it’s just kind of hidden, and you do have to look, and you have to explore and I think, be willing to go off the beaten track and just have your eyes open for plant life. I don’t think that’s something that most people do. Most people aren’t really walking around and going like, “I wonder where the next rosemary plant is that I will see.”

But once you have it on your radar, you start noticing like, “Oh my gosh, there’s lavender growing at the end of my block,” or, “There’s a fig tree two blocks from me that is growing over the street and all of those figs are just dropping on the ground.” And that’s technically public property. Just little things that you can attune to that will make it easier to feel like you’re in less of a desert.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

I think I was about 11. I saw an advertisement for a Quaker Oats recipe contest. And I promptly decided that I should make up a recipe and enter it, and so I did. I still remember I can see the printed page, and I remember the font that I used. And I remember what they were called, and I remember what they were. I think that I should try to recreate them now. I called them “Mini Blueberry Munchies”. And they were basically blueberry hand pies, but they had an oat crumble. Instead of being as a topping, it was baked in. So I’m not sure how that would work out now. That was the first time that I really remember making a recipe, was when I was really young.

Even before then, I would go outside, because my mom started a business making body caring spa products actually around the same age when I was around 11. And I spent a lot of time from very young, watching her put together ingredients and use different plants and scents and all different aspects of food to create really beautiful dishes, and also body products. But I would go outside. I remember just running around the yard when I was young, and I would decide I was going to make lipstick or something. And I would go, and I would pick the pink flowers and different things, and mash them all together, and then put it on myself, and go show my mom.

That mentality, just playing with food, has always been really present for me. And I think what that does for me now is informs a joy in the process of cooking that, yes, I am concerned with the final outcome, but it’s also really fun for me to take my time and play with the ingredients, which is lovely for me and means that sometimes I take a long time to make things.

On Creating Beauty Products Pure Enough to Eat:

So I think on a really basic way, if you go into my bathroom, you’ll see on my sink, there’s a jar of honey, which is not usually something that you see in people’s bathrooms. And people would always…they’d come out, they’d say, “Can I use your restroom?” And I’d say, “Sure.” And they’d come out and they would say, “Why do you have a jar of honey sitting on your sink?” And it was a tip that was given to me by an esthetician, maybe five or more years ago, who said, “We use so many harsh ingredients, and we spend so much money on really complex products. And really, for most of our lives, we don’t need those products. What we need is to help preserve and care for and on a super basic level, clean our skin. That’s it.”

And one really easy way to do that is with honey. Honey is a natural preservative. If you think about it Egyptians used to preserve mummies in honey. And it also is antibacterial. It’s a really good cleanser, and if you get raw honey, it has a little bit of a grain to it. And so it’s actually a tad exfoliating, which is super nice.

I also make my own face oil as a moisturizer. It just really started as for me saying, “Our skin is our bodies’ largest organ, what we put on our skin goes directly into our body, and people spend so much money on products to try to deal with their skin issues, whatever they may be. And a lot of them have really harsh chemicals or ingredients in them that aren’t doing them any favors at all. For me, I love being able to say, “Well, my face cleanser cost me $6 at Whole Foods to get a jar of really nice raw, wild flower, wild crafted or wild whatever honey that will last me a month.”

And the face oil that I use, I make from either sweet almond oil or sometimes add apricot kernel oil. These are all ingredients that you can get super easily at a co-op or Whole Foods or a household store. And I add a few different essential oils depending on the level of dryness or moisture that I have in my skin that season, and that’s it. And that gets to be my routine. And it’s so simple, and it feels so good, and it’s really pure.

I sat next to this super sweet high school senior on my way back home on an airplane, and she was going to Maui with her family. I think it was for some holiday vacation. And we were talking about Kale & Caramel and these different products, and she ended up telling me she had a bunch of challenges, acne and red bumps on her skin. I’m not an esthetician or a dermatologist, I would never presume to prescribe anything to anyone. But I just shared with her what I did, and I said, “You could try it and see.” And we had such a nice conversation.

We ended up exchanging information, and a couple of months later, she wrote to me and said, “I’m sorry this email is so long overdue, but I just wanted to let you know that the red bumps that I have on my skin are completely gone. I’ve never seen results like what happened with using the honey and sweet almond oil.” It’s just so simple. But I think as a culture, we’ve been trained to want the thing that’s most expensive and most complex, and yet the ingredients to really care for ourselves and for our skin are close to the earth. That’s what’s also going to keep us feeling the healthiest and the most radiant, I think. Because it’s what’s naturally occurring.

On Good Resources for Learning More About Food for Beauty:

The first thing that comes to mind is actually my mother wrote a book called The Complete Book of Flowers. It’s sort of an encyclopedia of flowers. And it is possibly not available on Amazon right now. But it’s always worth taking a look. That’s called The Complete Book of Flowers. I haven’t found any singular go-to book in that regard, but I may be working on something that could help you in that dimension.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I actually don’t have a TV. I’ve watched some MasterChef Junior. I’ve watched some of those with a friend’s kid, but that’s it.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Some of my favorite food blogs right now that I go to as just regular sources of inspiration, I would say, are probably, Fix Feast Flair, With Food and Love, Will Frolic For Food, and The First Mess. Those are just some that are off the top of my head. Two Red Bowls, I love. My Name Is Yeh, also. There are so many. I’m really just constantly astounded by the amount of inspiration that is out there and the level of beauty is so extraordinary.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

This is someone that comes to mind right away whose blog I just absolutely adore is Dash and Bella, Phyllis Grant. She’s an incredible writer and as a food writer, I think, is doing really exciting things. Instagram, definitely, I’m Laura Miller. She just does hilarious things with fruits and veggies posing with them, putting them on herself in weird ways, which obviously I like doing as well.

Oh, I follow Beyonce, clearly, and some other fashion accounts. I really love fashion, and some travel magazines, Trotter and Cereal Mag. And I think, oh, The Feed Feed is also an incredible aggregate of a lot of what’s happening on Instagram and just in the food sphere today. It’s, I think, a great way to keep up to date. And anything else? The people who I mentioned previously in terms of their blogs, I love following as well. Vegetarian Ventures, Shelly is an amazing photographer. So those are a few that come to mind.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I’m going to have to say it’s a weird answer, because it’s so utilitarian, but my Vitamix, it’s so multipurpose, and I use it so often. Most days, I definitely use it at least once and often more than once. And so, I think, for me I would have to go with the Vitamix. Not sentimental, but practical.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Cilantro. I couldn’t stand cilantro, which I know is something that is common for a lot of people. I really disliked it when I was growing up. I don’t know when it was that that shifted, but it definitely became something that for me, I use it for so many types of cuisine, and I think it adds an incredible dimension of flavor. So I love it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely, Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Plenty More. There’s so much complexity and depth in those recipes, that I’m always astounded when I explore it. There’s a cookbook called The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux, who’s a vegan chef, but she has a lot of great recipes that are super easy. There’s a vegan cupcake recipe that she has that I used to make. I just alter it to become a coffee cake. It has a really nice streusel on top. You would never know that it’s vegan. I don’t like cooking vegan recipes where you’re making a lot of substitutions and using silken tofu, and flax eggs, and complex things. I love vegan recipes where the ingredients just all stand for themselves. That cookbook really does that, which is lovely.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I do listen to a lot of Beyonce while I’m cooking, it’s true. I would say that I alternate between listening to really fun, upbeat music like Beyonce and listening to podcasts. That’s something that, for me, I live alone and being able to have that human element in the kitchen with me if I don’t have someone else over visiting, is really nice to be able to keep my brain engaged in that way, even as I’m using the rest of my body.

On Keeping Posted with Lily:

Instagram, any social platform, really, I’m everywhere @KaleandCaramel, so you can hit me up on any of those social media platforms.

029: Kristan Raines: Tips for Greater Baking Success

April 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Broken Bread

The Broken Bread is where Kristan explores her creativity through cooking. It’s also where she shares her stories and the tales behind the dishes she makes. The Broken Bread was a 2014 finalist in Saveur’s Food Blog Awards for Best Baking and Desserts blog, and in 2015 is a finalist for Best-Designed Blog.

I’m so happy to have Kristan Raines of The Broken Bread, here on the show.

On Her Blog:

I was eight or nine years old when I got my first Easy-Bake Oven. I just fell in love with baking. Even though it was just a little microwave, but it popped out a cake and I got to decorate it and I thought it was so much fun.

And then photography has always been my life. So I would say with those two components, it actually came together.

Three and a half years ago when my husband and I got married, we moved to Seattle. We didn’t really know anybody. It was this new environment for me to explore things I’ve always wanted to.

I made a few friends and they actually showed me for the first time cooking blogs. I really wasn’t familiar with them until about three and a half years ago. On these blogs, I would just see gorgeous pictures and recipes. Thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is what I want to do. I love baking. I love photography.” And then some of these stories would be so captivating and I could identify so much with that particular blog.

I would identify with what they were saying and I just thought, “John, this is what I want to do. Some of these women have cookbooks and they have these blogs that are actually generating some sort of income so that would be a dream.” So with that said, it was in Seattle when I first got there that I’m like, “Okay, I want to just explore this as a hobby.” It started as just a hobby.

I didn’t realize how much work would need to go into all this. I just thought food and pictures, this is great. But there are so many components that I was unaware of.

I would say baking of course comes the most natural to me because that is instinctively what I know and love to do. I would say that writing is probably the most difficult. My personality is very all over the place. I love activity and like going to the farmers’ market and cooking in the kitchen and making a mess. Sitting down and actually getting my words down collectively and organizing them, that probably takes the most time.

I think I’m also a very instant gratification type person so if I take a picture, I can see the image and I can correct it there. But writing takes a little more time and trying to get the emotion I want across is always and interesting struggle for me sometimes.

On Her Process for Getting Her Ideas onto Her Blog:

Each recipe, I would test probably between two or three times, depends how many times it takes me to get it right. I also do a lot of research beforehand. I study the type of technique. I try to understand all components each time I make something. There is a lot of pre-prep and practice and research beforehand.

I wish I had an organized way of putting it all together. It’s just whatever I’m inspired by. My blog is seasonally based. I go to the farmers’ market and I see all these persimmons are in season and I just thought, “Okay, how can I use this in some kind of meal or baked good.” From there, something comes out. I wish I had a formula because I would pump out a lot more. But it just sort of feels right at the moment what comes to the blog.

Tips for People Wanting to Start Baking:

Baking can definitely be overwhelming at times but I think pick something that you are really excited to make. I feel like from that point it will give you the motivation to nail it. But other than that, read the recipe. Read it four or five times, over and over so you have an idea of what’s going on because sometimes I’ve done this where I just start making it right away and I’m like, “Oh gosh, I forgot! This needs to be in room temperature,” or I kind of scramble.

I would say to make sure that you have all of your ingredients pre-measured, laid out on the table and maybe have an environment that’s not super distracting.

If you put too much of this and too much of that, that can sometimes end it something that doesn’t work out. Maybe it will taste great which is fine. As long as it tastes good, that’s the point. But just have everything organized and just take it slow. And if there is something in the recipe that you don’t know exactly what that means, just research it. It’s great with the Internet, you can actually pull up images to see what the texture will look like. So you feel like if you’re confident with that then it will lead to a successful baking adventure.

On Recipes Not Working Out:

So yeah, that happens. It can happen two ways for me.

Sometimes I won’t prepare ahead of time and I’ll forget something like sugar or the proper amount of lemon. It just doesn’t turn out right.

For a wedding for a friend last year, we were making pies and I made pastry cream a few times but I was in a kitchen at my mom’s house and two pies were baking and it’s like 98 degrees. I’m just stressed out making this. I’m like, “Okay, it’s done.” And I put it in the pie and I put all these berries on top of the pie and they just start sinking because it wasn’t set.

We walk outside because I’m like, “It will be fine.” Then the pie, you don’t even see any berries because they all sank to the bottom.

So I think it can be just bad preparation and just the process of experimenting, it’s not always going to be perfect.

On Baking for Beginners:

I would recommend quick breads. That would be like cakes, cupcakes, scones, biscuits. You can find a lot of simple methods that are two bowl methods.

If you don’t even want to bring out your handheld mixer or your standing mixer, you just need your oil, your eggs and then all of your dry ingredients. I think those are really great to start because they are just simpler. I would say a pumpkin bread would be great. On my blog, I had this recipe for apple yogurt cake that I really love. And I find those to be pretty easy to figure out in terms of simplicity and accessibility.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I have to admit I haven’t had cable for 10 years. So it’s whatever I come across really intentionally.

The cooking show I’ve seen is MasterChef and MasterChef Junior. I really enjoyed those shows. I think they are really fun.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

There are so, so many. I have a friend named Danielle she has Rustic. Joyful. Food. She is actually the first blogger I ever met face to face who had a food blog. So that was just an explosion of happiness for me. But she has a beautiful website that also is very much wholesome good meals, seasonally based, really beautiful pictures taken by her and her husband.

Another one would be Two Red Bowls. She, Cynthia, is really lovely. I actually got to meet her at the Saveur Awards and she is just lovely and her food photography is beautiful. Her food just always looks delicious. I think those are two fantastic blogs to visit absolutely.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

I can probably only speak to Instagram the most. Tiffany Mitchell. She is from Offbeat and Inspired and I don’t know how she does it but every picture is just pure beauty on her Instagram page. You just look at it like, “I want to be there. I need to know where this place is. I need to order this exactly.” She has a really beautiful feed.

Then Adventures in Cooking. That’s the blog but it’s run by Eva. She has just this very moody beautiful gallery of images that make you feel so at peace and comfortable and inspired.

I mean those two girls just kill it.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

So basics. I think flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Just at any moments notice you can whip something together.

And spices, if you can have a few spices on hand, those are fantastic because you can always mix and make something taste almost brand new if you throw in a few fresh spices.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

It would probably be a jar of chili peppers. I eat chilis with everything. Little yellow or bright green chilis that I probably eat with almost every meal.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One of the first cookbooks I bought when I moved up to Seattle was by Sur La Table and it was called The Art & Soul of Baking. I feel like that was really a profound book for me to have at the time because it is a wide range of recipes from quick breads to custards to pie crust.

If you want to bake, this is the book to go to. It also teaches you so much about the scientific components of what you’re making and how sugar works, and how lavender works. So it was teaching me how to become more confident as a baker.

You can’t just go in and be like, “Okay, I’ll just dump all these things in here and hope for the best.” It taught me the science of how to learn to do it on my own. That was a fantastic book.

Then What Katie Ate, her first cookbook that she released. That book for me visually was a huge inspiration as well as the recipes themselves. I just could sit in the corner and just flip through every single page and just fall in love with it.

So those two books fed me on two different levels but I love them both. Still do.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Is it funny that I say anything by Phil Collins?

Yeah, he’s wonderful. I just hear him and I’m like, “All right. What do you guys want?”

Just his voice. I don’t know. Whatever he’s in is just pure gold to me. I listen to him and it really puts me in a good mood.

Keep Posted on Kristan:

I would say head to the-broken-bread.com. On Instagram, The Broken Bread. It’s the best way to keep updated.

Have Kristan’s Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

021: Cindy Ensley: How Cooking is Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty

April 3, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Hungry Girl por Vida

Cindy is many things, a home cook, a baker, an avid doodler, and new mom. And on Hungry Girl por Vida, she shares all the things that she loves with her readers. Her work has also been featured in magazines all over the world.

I’m so psyched to have Cindy Ensley of Hungry Girl por Vida on the show today.

On Starting Her Blog:

I was in college when I started reading food blogs, and I graduated and spent a year actually working the same job that I was at during college, and just being bored and uninspired. I thought, maybe I should brush up my cooking skills. I was engaged and going to get married in a couple of years from then, so I just decided to document it and see where it went.

It started out really small and casual with a point-and-shoot and has grown from there. And that started in 2008, so it’s been a while.

On Her Passion for Food:

I come from a family of really great home cooks. And actually my aunt and my mom have a catering business, so food’s central in our family gatherings. I just grew up around it and have always loved to eat, so cooking goes hand-in-hand with that.

I always wanted to help, but I was more of an observer. I was too slow and not skilled enough to be helping very much, so I just observed and went from there.

They don’t do as much home cooking now that, you know, I’m older and my cousins and my brother are all older. None of us are at home anymore, so what inspired me to start cooking for myself was because I had to.

But, I mean, seeing them in the kitchen, I used to help with some of the dinners that they would put on. I always thought it was super fun and my aunt would let me decorate the dessert plates, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. I think just being around it definitely inspired me.

For Christmas this year my parents were here and my brother and his kids and stuff, so I got to cook for them and that was really fun.

On Cooking Being Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty:

Personally, I like to eat things that are very visually appealing, so I mean, even if it’s as simple as scattering some fresh herbs across a dish at dinner with just me and my husband. I’ll do that because I feel like it’s more enticing and it feels a little more special. And, obviously, cooking is a very basic, practical skill to have. I like that you can get as creative as you want to be, and also make something that looks nice every day.

I don’t broadcast that many of my fails, just because usually I get pretty upset about it and trash them or let them die in the back of the refrigerator.

On Cooking As a Parent:

I used to like to spend a weekend day on an ambitious project or something, or even just cooking something that takes a lot of prep. And now, I try to get things done as quickly as possible just because my son is almost six months old and he needs a lot of attention. I like to spend a lot of time with him. So the easier the better, but I still try to make the effort.

I’m really into bowls, so like a burrito bowl or, I’m half Korean, so we do a lot of bibimbap.

I can have things kind of pre-prepped for anything like that, you know, rice or quinoa or whatever. And then whatever protein we want and then, you know, add fresh vegetables, or whatever we have on hand.

They say to sleep when your baby sleeps, but that’s nearly impossible. I think, personally, I can’t fall asleep if I have a million things running through my mind, so get what you can, done. I think that having a base grain ready to go in the refrigerator is a great thing. I’ve been cooking quinoa or rice or whatever in batches and keeping them in the refrigerator. And also, proteins like chicken breast or even a roasted chicken, and breaking that down and having that ready to go for the week, is really nice and a great time saver.

We’re trying right now to implement a schedule with our son, Casper, so we want bath time to happen at a certain time, but we also want to have dinner. And also now I’m starting to feed him solids, so it’s a juggling act. We’re just trying to keep on a schedule because it seems to work better for him, his moods and his naps.

Having things ready to go is key. And we don’t want to resort to take out all the time.

On How to Make Cooking More Fun:

Some days you just have to get dinner on the table, so it’s more about what recipes you have in your arsenal. But if you can throw something new in there every week, maybe, or even every couple of weeks, I think that makes it fun.

Or use a new ingredient.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I weren’t really big fans of fennel, so we started implementing it into our meals and now we love it. So I think that trying a new ingredient, trying a new recipe, but not going overboard and trying to do it every night of the week, ’cause that gets daunting.

Even shaved raw fennel in the summer with bibimbap or some sort of salad would be great too. I mean, there’s lots of different ways you can use ingredients and just trying them out a couple different ways, I think is also key.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

So lately, I’ve been watching The Taste, and MasterChef Junior.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

I really love Food 52 and there are probably too many blogs to even name.

I have a really close friend, Megan from Take a Megabite, so I would mention her. I know her in person as well as through her blog.

She’s a pretty cool gal, and so I always think of her.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

I follow so many people on all of those websites. But I guess one of my other favorite blogs is Half Baked Harvest. Her name’s Tieghan, and I love her blog because her recipes are so creative, and they’re totally not things that I would do on a normal basis, but I find it inspiring.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

I think a couple of different vinegars and oils, along with the obvious salt and pepper, ’cause you can do a lot of things with that, those two ingredients, besides just make salad dressing.

If you have a soup that tastes kind of dull, those are great to add to punch up the flavor.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I cannot live without eggs. I think they’re so versatile and they’re, I mean, in a pinch they’re a great source of protein, but they also are very transformative. You can bake with them, you can do so much, so definitely eggs.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One of the cookbooks that I always turn to is Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn. I love that cookbook. I also really love Pancakes by Adrianna Adarme, who writes A Cozy Kitchen blog.

I refer to that pancake book often on the weekends.

I make the chocolate chip ones a lot because my husband is a chocolate fiend. And then the regular buttermilk ones, and then also the apple pie ones. I think they’re called apple pie.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably Cherry Bomb by Spoon. It’s one of my favorite songs to like sing to, and my husband really likes it, so it’s kind of a fun one to have on when we’re cooking.

Keep Posted on Cindy:

Probably either Instagram or Facebook. Those are the two that I use the most, but I definitely use Instagram the most, for sure. (And, http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/)

010: Ashley Rodriguez: How Dating At Home Helps Us Reconnect

March 9, 2015 by Gabriel

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Not Without Salt

Ashley was on a path to becoming a pastry chef at Spago in Beverly Hills when she found out she was pregnant and everything changed.

Today she has a successful blog, named best cooking blog by Saveur in 2013, and a new book called Date Night In, an extension of a popular series on her blog called Dating My Husband.

I am so excited to have Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt here on the show.

On What Drew Her To Starting a Blog:

When my husband and I were living in LA and I was working at Spago, I would come home and have all these crazy stories from the night’s work. He was like, “You should start a blog.” And that was the first I’d ever heard of the word blog.

As I do often with his ideas, initially, I laughed it off and I’m like, “No, who would read that? What is that? I don’t know plus I don’t really have time for that. I’m working at the restaurant all the time.”

It wasn’t in the plan for me to leave the restaurant so abruptly. We found out we were pregnant and then things changed from there.

The blog initially started after we had moved back home to Washington State, and I started my own dessert catering and wedding cake business. And so the blog was my free website.

It started off like, “Hey, look at the cake I made last weekend,” that sort of thing, until it evolved into what it is now.

So it’s really the blog that taught me how to write recipes, how to take pictures of food, and even writing about life itself.

It’s really, really evolved over the eight years that I’ve done it.

On Blogging:

I think the most natural is the recipe development or the idea for the food.

Recipe writing is a whole other subject just because I’m not a meticulous cook, and so it’s hard to write recipes in that way. But coming up with the food ideas, I think, comes pretty naturally for me and then also the photography aspect.

The writing is the hardest and I think I could have so many more recipes and so many more photos and things like that than I actually share. But it’s often the writing and what’s the story behind it and what’s the point of this recipe that keeps me from sharing more often.

It just takes so much time, and it takes so much attention.

I feel like I’ve lost touch with the blog through the process of writing the book because I’ve put all of myself into the book, which I wanted to do, but sadly the blog lost its way. So I’m hoping to find my way back to it.

Right now I’m in this crazy process having just launched a cookbook that my level of respect and empathy for others who have gone before me and wrote a cookbook, it’s just crazy. I just value cookbooks in such a different way now. So I’m going back and going through my library and finding inspiration from others in that way.

I look at the blog as kind of like this encyclopedia of what has inspired me, throughout the years, throughout the course of the years. It’s rare that I post a recipe that’s a straight recipe from someone else’s cookbook but there’s often inspiration there.

On Where Her Love of Pastries and Cooking Came From:

I don’t have a super romantic idea of having all these memories in the kitchen and all of that. There are a few of those, but what I do have is I grew up not being afraid of the kitchen, which I think is a huge gift that my mom taught me.

Even though I didn’t spend hours with her in the kitchen, I watched her and I watched her not following a recipe. I watched her coming up with a dinner in 20 minutes from whatever she could find in the cupboards and throwing in some spices here and there and just being fearless, and I think that’s a huge, huge gift.

So it’s never been intimidating to me, the kitchen and cooking.

But it really wasn’t until I lived in Italy for a semester where I fell in love with food and the culture around the food. I was studying there as part of my art degree, when I once thought I was going to be a high school art teacher. It was the first time I experienced a culture where life happens around the table.

Initially I felt guilty for spending all my money on meals that would vanish and what do I have to show for it. But I quickly realized that that’s silly because what was happening around the table was even more important than the food that I was absolutely falling in love with and enjoying.

I came back with just this renewed excitement and just having completely fallen in love with food.

And then the pastry, I’ve always loved sweets and I felt that pastry really married my love of art and food, so that’s kind of the route I took.

On Her Popular Blog Series “Dating My Husband”:

That series started four years ago which is crazy to me.

We have three young children, and when I started the series they were very, very young. Our youngest was just a baby, and I remember in that time missing my husband.

We both worked from home so it’s not that we weren’t seeing each other, but we were completely not connecting and we were just basically trying to survive that time of our lives.

I remember always just looking at him and realizing that I see him more as my roommate rather than my husband or best friend. And I really didn’t like that feeling.

The way that we used to connect, we would go out every Friday night before we had children when we were dating and try new restaurants and new foods. We kept journals, going to these restaurants, on what we tried and I really missed that.

Going out on a weekly basis wasn’t really in the budget like it used to be, but I realized that the kids go to bed pretty early and the hours that we were using in the evening, I would often grab my computer and he would grab his. And I would go to the couch and turn on the TV and eventually fall asleep on the couch.

There were many hours in the day where we were just not using because I often used that as my time, once the kids were in bed, I’m off the clock, I’m done.

But what happened then is I completely neglected our relationship and forgot how important that was and it was definitely taking its toll.

The weekly date nights that we started, I used it as a time to really stretch myself in the kitchen too.

Because the other thing that happens sometimes when you have children is you kind of get into these ruts and cooking becomes a chore and I wanted to continue to fuel my passion for it and love for it.

So I stretched myself in the kitchen and cooked the sort of food that I don’t cook on a regular basis and really make that evening feel special.

The initial part of the series was that yes, we would do this once a week, which we definitely tried to do. We still try to do it. It does not always work but that’s okay. It worked really well when I was writing a book about it because the accountability of writing a book made it.

On Her Book, Date Night In:

As I saw the response from Dating My Husband, I realized okay, I’ve hit on something here that people can relate to which was exciting.

The emails that I got from people from reading that series and the comments I received from those posts were by far just some of my absolute favorite.

As much as I love food and cooking and recipes, again, it’s really what happens around that food and around the table that’s what really excites me. And so that was really wonderful. Plus it put to use all the relationship classes and the relationship books that I read growing up. It married these two subjects that I find very, very fascinating.

There is this woman, she’s a Seattle food writer, Rebekah Denn. She was the one that actually said, “I think there is a book here” and at that point, this was really, really early on in the series.

The desire to write a book was definitely, definitely there. I had had offers of writing a cupcake book or things like that and none of them really felt right. I explored this Dating My Husband option every now and again, but we hadn’t been doing it long enough for me to write about it from a really genuine and sincere place. It felt to me in midst of it a very, very slow process but eventually it came to be, and I spent a year working on the proposal and eight months writing the manuscript.

It really stays pretty consistent to the original posts. In fact, there are still rewritten versions of some of the original posts. But the book itself is 25 chapters and each chapter is a different meal.

It’s arranged seasonally and lots of them have cocktails.

They all have desserts since obviously that’s where it kind of all started from. And it’s fun food.

It’s not how we eat on an everyday, weekday basis, but there’s fried chicken and the food that excites me and kind of lures me into the date.

Each chapter starts with a really honest narrative about dating my husband and about just the intention behind it and just what it takes to make a long-term relationship really work. And obviously, there’s much joy and happiness in that but there is a lot of work, so I speak really honestly about our marriage.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I just started watching Master Chef Junior with my kids, which has been so fun. I usually don’t like those kind of reality cooking shows, but to experience it with them and for them to see these young kids have so much talent and so much ability in the kitchen, it’s been really inspiring.

As a result of that, actually, I’m teaching my eight-year-old how to make an apple pie today. So I’m pretty excited.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

I think probably many of them you already do know about.

I read Sprouted Kitchen, Seven Spoons, and actually both of those they have books coming out this year.

And another good friend of mine has the blog, A Sweet Spoonful.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

I think Instagram is my most happy place right now as far as social media stuff goes.

I follow a ton of food people for sure, but I actually love following people who aren’t in the food world. So different artists. Right now I’m following Lisa Condlin who’s an artist/illustrator. Helen Dealtry, who’s out of New York, painter.

It’s fun to step outside the food realm.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

Salt!

I think it’s one of the most important ingredients, if not the most, and I think home cooks tend to be a little bit afraid of using a lot of salt.

It still sort of has a bad rap although that’s changing, which I’m very happy about.

And salt of different kinds and varieties, it’s exciting to play around with that and different flavored salts and things like that. Although I usually tend to stick with vanilla and smoked salt. The other ones don’t do it for me.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Salt.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Anything by Nigel Slater just really, really makes me happy. It makes my life better.

I go through so many different phases. I’m inspired by different books at so many different times.

Last night I cooked from this Frankies Spuntino cookbook that was really fun and it’s a beautiful, beautiful book.

I have so many friends that have written books that are really fun to read and inspiring.

I love particularly the book Eat. I wish I could write a cookbook like that. It’s basically just a list of ingredients and how to put them together, but it doesn’t really give super precise measurements. Just a nob of this and a bit of that and so I love that.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I wish my husband was here to answer that. He is the family DJ.

He has such a great taste of music and he puts on music tailored fit to our date nights and all that kind of stuff, but I don’t really know what we’re listening to a lot of the time.

Keep Posted on Ashley:

I really like Instagram. I think that’s my most regular. That and my Facebook page for the site. So on instagram I’m @Ashrod and Facebook is, you can find me at Not Without Salt.

On Her Journey From Fast Food to Fresh and Seasonal:

On Getting Started to Eating Healthier:

On Some Good Resources for Starting to Eat More Healthy:

On Her Blog:

On Essential Pantry Items for a Healthier Diet:

On Her Cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen:

On Being in the Kitchen as a New Parent:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Erin:

On Growing Up in Maui:

On Foraging:

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

On Creating Beauty Products Pure Enough to Eat:

On Good Resources for Learning More About Food for Beauty:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Lily:

On Her Blog:

On Her Process for Getting Her Ideas onto Her Blog:

Tips for People Wanting to Start Baking:

On Recipes Not Working Out:

On Baking for Beginners:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Kristan:

Have Kristan’s Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Her Passion for Food:

On Cooking Being Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty:

On Cooking As a Parent:

On How to Make Cooking More Fun:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Cindy:

On What Drew Her To Starting a Blog:

On Blogging:

On Where Her Love of Pastries and Cooking Came From:

On Her Popular Blog Series “Dating My Husband”:

On Her Book, Date Night In:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Ashley:

Have Ashley's Special Recipe Sent To You Now: