The Vegetarian Flavor Bible | The Dinner Special podcast

126: Ice Sanford: Tasting Food from Around the World

June 8, 2016 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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Foolproof Living

Ice was born with itchy feet. She grew up in Turkey, lived 10 years in the States, four years in the British Virgin Islands, and has recently moved back to the U.S. A food and lifestyle photographer and full-time blogger, she is a firm believer that if you know how to read, you know how to cook. On Foolproof Living, Ice shares easy to follow recipes that are helpful and full of flavor, as well as stories about her travels.

I am so happy to have Ice Sanford of Foolproof Living with me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Ice’s.)

On Her Favorite Food in Turkey:

A big plate full of Quinoa and Avocado Salad with Blood Oranges and Fennel.

I am a big fan of breakfast. I’m a morning person. I like to get up early and have breakfast. To this day, I do a lot of toast and feta cheese. Feta cheese is so big in Turkey, and olives, my American friends make fun of me because I eat olives in the morning, but olives, jam like cherry jam and homemade marmalade and different cheeses, but mostly feta cheese is big, big back home.

Feta cheese in Turkey, it’s amazing there. Really. It’s so fatty and so delicious, and I just love it. And I have a lot of friends ask me how can you live without this? It’s hard. It’s my favorite thing.

On the Food Culture in British Virgin Islands:

A bowl of braised baby artichoke salad with white beans and shaved manchego.

It’s a combination of a lot of food cultures. When you’re talking about the Caribbean, you have so many little islands and little cultures in there, and they are all living together. We were living on a small island called Virgin Gorda. It’s a nine-mile long island, half an hour ferry ride from the big island Tortola, which is the city, a big, big capital basically. Each island has islanders from the neighboring island like Jamaica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Nevis and Kitts. So they all bring their own culture and we would have these little food gatherings every so often on the island, and you get to taste a lot of different cuisines.

We were just talking about it with some friends the other day. On one of those, we heard that Nevis and Saint Kitts. Those people eat a lot of monkey meat because they have so many monkeys over there, and it’s just a part of culture. I went there because I tried to eat everything, at least know the taste of it and it was gone. Right after they opened their area, it was just gone. And my husband was like, “I can’t eat that. It’s too close to home.” But for me, I wanted to taste it. A lot of curry, they eat a lot of curry, chicken, seafood is big, and a lot of sweet tastes like putting pineapple, coconut, those are obviously in abundance.

On a Recipe She Picked Up from Her Travels:

Mexican Style 2 eggs topped with guacomole, pasilla chile sauce, Mexican cheese, and fresh cilantro served in a Mexican dish.

One of my favorite recipes, it’s on the blog as well, is huevos rancheros, I am a big fan of huevos rancheros. A couple of years ago, we went to San Miguel de Allende, and there my husband and I went to different restaurants every morning and ordered huevos rancheros every single day just to find what is the best one. If you think about it, it’s just eggs served with some sort of a sauce over a corn tortilla. But this one place called Posada Corazon, a small inn in the heart of the city, had the best, like absolutely the best huevos rancheros because the cook made this pathia sauce, chili sauce, and it was just phenomenal.

She didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak good Spanish, and we tried to really communicate, but it came to the point where it was just not working. She was trying to show me what she used, but then I went to the hotel and made the person at the front desk call her and get the recipe. And since then, it’s our favorite, favorite dish. And I shared that on the blog.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

America’s Test Kitchen.

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

I love Artful Desperado, Gabriel, his work, his photography takes my breath away. I love The Bojon Gourmet via Alanna. She is amazing. Her recipes, to me, they are all doable. I want to make everything. I also like The Clever Carrot, Emilie. She is really talented. There are so many, Snixy Kitchen, I love, and Adventures in Cooking. Those are some that I really like.

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

Oh my God, there are so many people. There is an account on Pinterest and Instagram called A Daily Something. I really liked that. Witanddelight, I really like. There is another girl on Instagram, Mademoisellepoirot. Her photography is amazing, her color schemes, those are the ones that I really enjoy.

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

My mom’s mixing bowls.

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

I can’t say I love it, but I’m working on it. And this is so in a way, embarrassing to say as a food blogger living in the U.S., bacon.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Flavor Bible, I go to the supermarket with The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. We have a Farmer’s Market here and you can find every kind of vegetable in there and some of them I’ve never seen, but I would like to try. So I go there and look at what would match with this. That’s a very good resource if you’re creating recipes or if you’re trying to finish stuff in your fridge and don’t know what matches with what.

Cook’s Illustrated is a really good resource for me because if you don’t know something, just go there and look. And then, some food blogger cookbooks. I think those guys and gals, they are just doing an amazing job. Seven Spoon cookbook is like a go-to cookbook. I made a lot of things in there. Jamie Oliver is really good, Thomas Keller if you want to learn how to do certain things the professional way. Those are ones that I go to often.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I like anything Sia. Lately, I’m really, really impressed with her voice and just love it.

On Keeping Posted with Ice:

I do update my Instagram regularly, as well as Facebook. Facebook is Foolproof Living and Instagram is aysegul.sanford. You can find me there.

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.

071: Kate Taylor: Whole Sustainable Foods and Healthy Eating

August 26, 2015 by Gabriel 10 Comments

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Cookie and Kate

Kate is a self-taught photographer and cook who daydreams about new recipes and devours cookbooks. She believes in eating whole, sustainable foods that delights the senses and nourishes the body. On her blog Cookie and Kate, she shares her vegetarian creations while keeping things fun and recipes flexible.

I am so delighted to have Kate Taylor of Cookie and Kate joining me today.

(*All images below are Kate’s.)

On Her Passion for Food:

It’s funny because when I was a kid I was the pickiest eater of all time. We’re talking peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly and no crust for a while. Before I got sick of that and then it was just like mac and cheese. So I think that my taste buds expanded exponentially once I went off to college and tried new things, and it was kind of a whole new world. We just live in this awesome time where we can sample all these different ethnic cuisines, and sample the world in any decently sized city. So coming from, like, a suburb in Oklahoma, I just hadn’t tried any of that and it was kind of a revelation.

I think that my learning how to cook was more just out of necessity. In college, I was trying to live really, really cheaply. Actually I spent a semester in France that really got me interested in cooking because we’d walk all the way to the grocery store and we’d just come back with what we could carry. And we did not have a refrigerator, we did not have a microwave, we just had a stove.

The two girls I was with were pretty content just eating spaghetti with marinara sauce every night. But I’d be like, “What would happen if I added these vegetables, or what’s that sauce taste like?” And so I’ve just always been a creative person who likes to make stuff, and I found, especially in that situation, that cooking could be pretty fun. It was like I had all those constraints and I just sort of played around with them.

On Her Blog:

I would say my blog kind of had a different story than most. Most food blogs start because the person already has a passion for cooking and loves to try recipes and share recipes with their friends. My blog just started when I was really bored at an office job, like, maybe a year and a half after college. I was working in online marketing, so I was learning a lot of stuff that was relevant to the more technical side of blogging. And I just felt sort of creatively stifled. I had always enjoyed writing and photography, I had taken several photography classes in college, and just wasn’t using those passions and skills. So when my friend introduced me to a lot of blogs that were out there I was like, “Oh, this is really fun.” And eventually it was like, “Hey, I can build websites and I like all the stuff that goes into a blog so why don’t I just start one?”

Cookie and Kate was just the only catchy name I could come up with for a blog that had no focus really. But I knew that myself and my dog would be involved somehow.

I wanted it to be really unique content that you could only get there. And when I started the blog I thought, “Oh, well, maybe I’ll dabble in interior design or, you know, some other topics that I enjoy, but there were other people out there doing a really good job with that.” It was like, “How do I add my own spin on this?” So one day I shared a salsa recipe that I’d been making at home and it was kind of a lightbulb moment, because I was like, “Oh, this is something I get to photograph, I get to wrap stories around it, I get to write about it. I kind of get to geek out because I really love projects that I can immerse myself in.” I also felt really, really good about sharing healthy recipes. You might not be able to buy that $200 top that I said was cute last week in a blog post I didn’t feel good about because I can’t even buy that $200 top, but you could probably stop by the grocery store and spend $4 on ingredients.

On Whole Sustainable Foods:

Whole foods, the basic definition, is just that they’re foods that are as close to the source as possible. In this day and age there are just processed foods everywhere you go. Even most breads out there have like 25 ingredients when there should only be five. So I just feel like somewhere in the last 100 years we’ve gone from whole foods, which didn’t even need definition, until now I just feel it’s really important to eat unprocessed, unrefined, whole grains. All the nutrition I have read reinforces the importance of getting enough vegetables and fruits and whole grains. It’s really just, we need more plant-based foods in our diet and less processed foods. If I have an agenda it’s just to try to get people to eat more healthy, whole foods and less processed foods.

I grew up in a pretty health conscious household. I mean, granted, for a while I only ate peanut butter sandwiches, but my mom was also really good about always just having a simple salad on the table, and fresh fruit, and she appreciated whole grain bread versus plain white bread. And I can tend to be hypoglycemic, so my blood sugar levels just get out of whack easier than other people, and so I learned very early on, if I just ate plain Bisquick pancakes with a lot of fake maple syrup on top for breakfast I would be seriously ill in a few hours.

For me I felt like the connection between what I ate and how I felt was more apparent than it is for other people. I guess my grandmother and my mom have been interested in healthy cooking and back then it was low fat so when I went to college I eventually picked up a book by Marion Nestle who’s a well-known nutritionist and I was just really surprised to learn, “Oh, maybe I don’t need three glasses of milk a day” and, “Oh, we need fat in our diet.” It’s not something I need to be scared of or avoid.

Another writer that I fell in love with his books is Michael Pollan. Very influential in convincing me to eat less meat.

On Misconception About Healthy Eating:

I think that the low-fat craze really did a number on everyone’s concept of healthy foods, because once you take the fat out of anything, it’s not going to be satisfying. So I would say don’t be afraid of healthy fats like olive oil or even some butter. They are fine, we need them in order to feel satisfied. I’d also say don’t even be too afraid to salt the recipes. I suggest to salt them, because I mean, really, you’re not going to get as much salt in anything you make at home versus the processed foods. And also just fresh flavors like fresh lemon, which I add to tons of stuff, like a squeeze of lemon juice or garlic, herbs, those aromatics just are bursting with flavor. There is no reason to think that healthy means flavorless. Also, vegetables are super tasty if you ask me, and if maybe you need to add some cheese to help you get there, go for it!

On Eating Vegetarian:

Well, I eat fish on rare occasions. I don’t have any problem in eating fish. I went vegetarian over five years ago. It was before I started my blog. I don’t really push vegetarianism much on my blog, it’s just that everything so happens to be meatless.

I think a lot of people that, maybe even most of the people, who follow my blog just appreciate healthy, wholesome, produce-driven meals like I do. I became a vegetarian, a lax one really, after reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. I just felt like he presented a really well-balanced view on it and frankly when I went to college and my taste buds expanded I was still very picky about meat, so I never ate a ton of it, if I did it was like chicken. I eventually learned to like burgers just because there is ketchup on them. It wasn’t a lot of meat that I loved, and once I learned more about it, was like, “Okay, well this is a really relatively easy way for me to do the environment a favor, because meat takes a lot of energy to produce. It’s another way to avoid antibiotic exposure, and just the growth hormones and the stuff we put in the animals these days.” It was just easier for me.

For a while after I went vegetarian I decided I would eat some bacon and pepperoni every now and then, but I don’t do that anymore. Those are the only meats that I really missed just because they are really tasty. I never once missed chicken. I missed some comfort food, stuff that my mom would make like chicken enchiladas but now she just puts beans in mine.

On Some Resources for Learning More About Eating Vegetarian:

The book that I’ve been referencing most often is a new one that came out from America’s Test Kitchen called The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. They just have a vegetarian version of almost anything you can think of. If you’re just dying for pad thai they’ll tell you how to make it. I think that would be a good book for anyone who wants to eat less meat. I really love Michael Pollan so if you want to learn more about food. I always feel like learning more about the reality of what you’re eating, makes it so much easier to make good choices. So I would recommend anything by Michael Pollan.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t have cable, but recently I’ve gotten into Mind of a Chef on Netflix. I’ve only seen season one so it’s all about David Chang and he’s just, like, kind of blowing my mind with his ideas, so that’s been fun.

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

Well my friend Tessa has a really awesome gluten-free baking blog. She has convinced me that gluten-free baked goods can be super tasty and she works really hard on them. So I would say Salted Plains, that is the name of the blog. And then I recently met with a researcher from Harvard and she told me about a newsletter that Harvard sends out that has like really solid nutrition advice in it. So I would say subscribe to that.

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

I am kind of a sucker for Instagram accounts that are full of animals. So, I like The Dogist on Instagram, and I like Esther the Wonder Pig.

It’s this pig that these two guys adopted thinking it was going to be a little pig, but it’s like a giant pig.

They even moved to a farm so she would have more space and they dress her up. I watch my friend’s little girl some afternoons and we always catch up on Esther the Wonder Pig.

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

I have this little spatula with a little wooden handle that I inherited from my grandmother. My dad said she was always walking around with that spatula in her back pocket. So I’m pretty attached to that one.

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

I use to dislike fennel, I really like it now.

I am so sure my mom never put fennel on the table. If you slice it super thin it becomes really palatable and kind of a surprising ingredient to add to salad.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Yeah well I definitely reiterate America’s Test Kitchen Vegetarian Cookbook. I also really love the Vegetarian Flavor Bible, which also came out recently, it’s like a flavor thesaurus and I use it for almost everything. If I’m wondering what to do with a tomato, I’ll open it up and see what goes well with tomatoes. Honestly, I just have the most enormous pile of cookbooks and it’s kind of just rotating inspiration.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I would say anything by Otis Redding just makes me want to move and hop around in the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

I would suggest definitely subscribing to my blog posts by email or RSS. I post everything on Facebook. You can get some behind the scene stuff from Instagram.

040: Sherrie Castellano: Wellness Through Plant-Based Eating

May 25, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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With Food and Love is a seasonally inspired vegetarian and naturally gluten-free food blog. Sherrie is a certified health coach and is training to be a plant-based chef. She also has an online three-week veggie-powered program called 21 Days to Lean and Green.

I am so thrilled to have Sherrie Castellano of With Food and Love here on the show today.

(*All photos are Sherrie’s.)

On How Food Played a Role in Her Health and Wellness:

I guess I’ll start when I went to get my undergrad degree. I studied sociology and women’s studies. I was a typical grad. When I was done, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was really into myself and just living young and not worrying about too many things.

So I moved out west and I lived in Denver, Colorado for about five years. Through the time that I spent there, I didn’t always feel my best. I probably partied too much and made some bad decisions along the way but I also didn’t treat my body very well with food. I was on a very high, refined, super-processed junk-y diet and energy drinks and all of that. Through that, I was not feeling very good. I was struggling a lot with digestive issues.

Towards the end of my stay in Denver, I started teaching special education. I worked at a school that was mostly specialized in helping children with autism and on autism spectrum. Through that experience, I realized that most of these kids were on specialized diets. That was something that was new to me. This was before the whole gluten-free explosion.

When my physician suggested that I go on a gluten-free elimination diet, and I did, I felt a little bit better. But I was still not eating really healthy foods. I was eating gluten-free alternative foods; gluten-free breads and pastas and processed crap. I was really just switching crap for crap.

It did seem to do something or at least it ignited a spark inside of me that I started realizing that what you’re putting in your body really does make a difference.

Shortly after I first went gluten-free, I moved to Philadelphia with my then boyfriend who’s now my husband. The road trip across country, I went back to eating gluten just because it was really convenient. We were eating fast food and I was still not feeling great. So then when I got to Philly, I probably went maybe a week or two and something happened where I was really indulging and I got really ill. So I knew at that point, I needed to make a life-lasting decision.

Around that time, I started also really getting into food documentaries. Forks Over Knives came out shortly after that. I also had a good friend that was just finishing school at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York. She introduced me to that.

I guess it was all these little pieces of the puzzle that finally came together. When I enrolled in nutrition school, I started my blog as a way to document my journey.

On Basic Ways to Start Eating Healthier:

I think the first thing for someone that’s really new to this is that it doesn’t have to be complicated. I think that there’s just so much information out there right now that it just oversaturates everyone’s mind.

You don’t know where to start and should you be paleo or vegan or whatever. Everyone is just so different. I think what’s most important is finding what works for you, eating real food, mostly plants, mostly vegetables, and work your way from there.

I’ve always really loved veggies so I don’t think that I’ve ever had to struggle at that. I feel lucky for that. Well, there are two things. You could just really start getting out of your comfort zone and go to farmer’s markets and trying new foods that you never had before.

Really, when in doubt, just roast vegetables with some olive oil and some sea salt and it’s amazing. So really, just step out of your comfort zone and push yourself in that direction. Or something you could do whether you love it or you hate the idea of it, but by drinking a smoothie in particular, a green smoothie every day. That’s a really great vessel to pack the nutrients in. You can put flax seeds and hemp seeds and chia seeds and all these healthy omega-3 and then also leafy vegetables.

On the Biggest Misconception of Having a Healthier Diet:

Something I hear a lot from clients or from potential clients who contact me and who might be apprehensive about signing up for my program or have more question is that it’s more difficult and more time-consuming.

That might be true. But I think the bottom line is you make time for the things that are important to you. So if you want to eat better, then you’ll make time for it. If you’re really not into it or ready for it, then you won’t and you’ll just keep finding excuses.

On What a Plant-Based Diet Means:

I think it’s just a nicer way to say vegan. I think that plant-based is just that. It’s mostly plants, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, basically a vegan diet. I think that vegan can be a little alienating to most, and I think it has a little bit of a negative stigma so I think plant-based is a nicer way of saying that.

But overall, plant-based eating, so I don’t eat 100% plant-based. Realistically, I shoot for 90%, but sometimes it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, maybe, it’s more 80 or 70 depending on what I’m doing at that time in my life. So I think eating plant-based or striving to eat plant-based is eating mostly plants or all plants and minimizing your animal consumption.

I think it’s not as hard as most people think. As far as protein goes, there are plenty of options that you can choose that are plant-based. My favorites are any kind of bean or lentil.

In the beginning of the week, usually on Sundays, I do a food prep power hour too. I prepare a big batch of lentils that I’ll have all week. I’ll be able to throw dinner together easily because I have that cooking out of the way.

Healthy plant-based proteins are really key to feeling nourished and full, I guess. As far as dairy is concerned, that’s a touchy subject. But I don’t think really as adults, we need it in our diets. That, you can do without if you want to.

There are some concerns of eating strictly plant-based like getting enough vitamin B12. I actually had a vitamin B12 deficiency not too long ago. It was during a really stressful time of my life when I was moving to St. Louis. Your body depletes B vitamins, I guess, more easily when you’re stressed and worried. So I didn’t realize what was going on. Through maybe my diet and my lifestyle at that time, I was more susceptible to becoming deficient in B12.

You can only get that in animal products. So if you’re a strict vegan, that’s something to be aware of and that you would want to supplement.

On Some Resources to get Trusted Information on Health and Wellness Through Plant-Based Foods:

There’s so much information online. Some of my favorites or a good place to start maybe would be forksoverknives.com which is a complement to the documentary. Kris Carr is a great source of knowledge. I like her a lot. I like what she’s doing for the plant-based community. There are so many vegan blogs. On my website actually, I have a links page and the vegan ones are marked. That would be a good place to start.

On Her 3-Week Online Program, 21 Days to Lean and Green:

Lean and Green is the program I launched after graduating from nutrition school.

I was originally coaching mostly in person one-on-one. But I found that through the community of my blog and the community I had already built, I was meeting a lot of people more virtually than anything. The really cool thing about Lean and Green is that you can be a client and live anywhere in the world. I’ve had clients anywhere from South America or Germany or Sweden. That’s been a really cool thing for me that I’ve been able to connect with all of these people on this common ground of health and wellness.

The other thing is that a lot of my clients come to me for totally different reasons. Some people will come because they want to go gluten-free and I have personal experience doing that. That will be maybe their motivation. But others might come because they’re overweight and they want to shed some pounds, and this is a good way to kick-start that. So it really depends on why you’re coming to me in the first place.

The program is three weeks and it’s plant empowered so everything that you eat is plant-based. So lots of legumes and beans, seeds, veggies, smoothies, soups. I don’t really focus too much on counting calories and that thing. It’s mostly just counting nutrients and nobody goes hungry.

It’s not a juice cleanse. It’s really gentle on your body. The other bonus of the program is that through the program, I open up this confidential Facebook group. Anyone that’s in that month’s program can be a part of that. That provides a sense of community and accountability that you’re going through this thing with other people and you’re not alone. That’s another aspect of it.

For about the last year, I’ve been doing it about once a month. I have some new spring and summer projects coming up soon so I might take a break for the next few months. But yeah, my goal is to launch one every month. And so far, I’ve done that.

The program itself is structured in the way that I have all of their learning resources and information already put together. Each week, they get sent a packet of information. It’s accumulative so it builds on itself. But also, since they’re all coming to me for different reasons, I work with them individually so they’ll each get a 45-minute Skype session or phone call. During that time, we personalize what their meal plan generally will look like and what they’ll eat. If they have any dietary restrictions, we work around those.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch a lot, but really I love Top Chef.

I love anything also that Anthony Bourdain does. I have a crush on him. My husband and I watch a lot of No Reservations reruns.

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

There are so many food blogs that are so great. Some of my favorites right now are The First Mess. Laura’s Blog is fantastic; really great photography and sense of style.

My Darling Lemon Thyme, Dolly and Oatmeal. There’s a new blog, I think, called Sobremesa. Yeah, that’s it. I think I’m pronouncing it the right way. A girl named Amy writes it. She’s got some really fabulous photography. She’s great.

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

Most of the people I follow on Instagram are food-related. I keep it pretty simple. I don’t follow a ton of people. I follow one of my friends. Her name is Kristen and her handle is @happysleepyfolks. She is super inspirational and has a new little baby. She’s always posting super precious little moments. I really enjoy her feed. Also, Ruthie Lindsey which is the same thing. It’s not food-related but her story is incredible. She’s just also very inspirational and posts beautiful pictures.

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

Maybe this garlic press that I found in Italy that’s this vintage piece. My husband worked really hard to clean it out and make sure it’s good to use. That’s probably my most treasured.

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

I don’t really love mushrooms. I’ve slowly been trying to teach myself to eat them but I don’t think there’s anything that I used to not like and now do. I’m working on the mushroom thing. I feel like it’s something adults like and that I should be eating.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I like The Vegetarian Flavor Bible, which is new to me in the last few months. It’s amazing. It breaks down all different kinds of flavor combinations and what goes with what. It’s a great tool and resource for everyone, but definitely vegetarians.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

The Barr Brothers are my favorite band. Their latest album Sleeping Operator, that one.

Keep Posted with Sherrie:

I like Instagram the best. That’s my most fun.