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Episode 90

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Published on:

24th Apr 2023

Better Comfort Food, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview With Brittany Mullens, Grapes & More!

We're our comfort-food jag on our podcast. We have some ideas about how to make comfort foods better--or at least not so guilt-ridden.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written and published over three dozen cookbooks and developed over 12,000 original recipes in our career. One of our latest books is THE LOOK & COOK AIR FRYER BIBLE.

We love a creamy casserole but we don't always love the way we feel after we enjoy a serving (or three). Here are some tips for renovating standard comfort foods to make them just as delicious but less guilt-ridden. Plus, we've got a one-minute cooking tip about kitchen appliances. Then Bruce interviews Brittany Mullens, founder of Eating Bird Food, about her cookbook MOSTLY VEGGIES. And we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Thank you for spending time with us. Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:55] How to renovate comfort food so it's not quite so guilt-ridden.

[14:10] Our one-minute cooking tip: Don't hide common cooking appliances in a back counter.

[17:06] Bruce interviews Brittany Mullens, author MOSTLY VEGGIES.

[28:14] What’s making us happy in food this week? Grapes for Bruce and, well, nothing for Mark!

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce:

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Mark:

And together with Bruce, we have written 36 cookbooks, including the latest,

Mark:

the Instant Air Fryer Bible made for any air fryer, but specifically written

Mark:

for the Vortex and Omni machines from.

Mark:

Instant brands, the folks who make the Instant pots, but you

Mark:

could use it with any machine.

Mark:

We're not talking about air frying.

Mark:

In this episode, we are talking about comfort food again.

Mark:

We've been on a jag about comfort food and we're gonna continue on that Jag and

Mark:

talk about ways to find comfort in food.

Mark:

We've got our typical one minute cooking tip.

Mark:

Bruce is an interview with Britney Mullens, an author of

Mark:

the book, mostly Vegetables.

Mark:

Just right now, right?

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

Just new now, and we're gonna of course talk about what's making

Mark:

us happy in food this week.

Mark:

So let's get started.

Bruce:

We've talked about comfort food in the last few episodes, and we talked about

Bruce:

how it's changed over the years, basically from being like a con lessons food.

Bruce:

To an indulgent food.

Bruce:

Right?

Mark:

Right.

Mark:

That is the big, huge shift.

Mark:

And we should say that that means that for many of us, including me, ice cream, a

Mark:

pint of ice cream is the ultimate comfort.

Mark:

I mean, listen, when I'm feeling down or out or my week's been too much, or I

Mark:

don't know anything like that, there's a couple local ice cream stores that I'll go

Mark:

to, and one of them only sells ice cream by the court, which is really dangerous.

Mark:

Um, and I, and I love some of their flavors more than I can possibly, or their

Mark:

chocolate cherry cheesecake is fantastic.

Mark:

And you know, I mean, listen, we pass that off as comfort food, but there's a lot

Mark:

of ways to find comfort beyond ice cream.

Bruce:

Well, there is, there's also chocolate and there's

Bruce:

also lots of indulgent.

Bruce:

Look, we want something special, as Mark said, but how else can

Bruce:

we find happiness and comfort?

Bruce:

Around food that doesn't involve eating an entire chocolate cake.

Bruce:

Well, that's the question.

Mark:

That is a question.

Mark:

And one of the ways that is traditionally, uh, said, stated, and maybe you wanna

Mark:

talk about this for a minute, but I have equivalent with this, is that you

Mark:

should share a meal with someone that sharing a meal with someone brings

Mark:

better comfort than eating alone.

Mark:

Maybe you wanna talk about that?

Mark:

Cause I have a quibble with it, but let's, let's at least talk about it for a.

Bruce:

Well, the thing is, you don't have to entertain, right?

Bruce:

You don't have to put yourself out on a limb.

Bruce:

You don't have to go to a whole lot of work, right?

Bruce:

Um, you can even just bring food to a friends or a neighbors.

Bruce:

You could do a takeout pizza, takeout Chinese, or you can make a salad.

Bruce:

You can even have a virtual dinner companion.

Bruce:

The idea of sharing a meal is so wonderful because you get to see some

Bruce:

other human being, and sometimes that's enough to really bring you out of a

Bruce:

funk is just talking to another person.

Mark:

Right it is.

Mark:

And see again, it's eating to bring you out of a funk.

Mark:

But I have to say, and here's my quibble, is that of the two of us,

Mark:

Bruce is a big extrovert and I'm a big introvert, and people drain me.

Mark:

I mean, I listen.

Mark:

I love my friends.

Mark:

I love seeing them.

Mark:

I love talking to them.

Mark:

I have a standing T date.

Mark:

On FaceTime with a friend almost every week who's now moved

Mark:

outta my area and lives away.

Mark:

But still, we talk to each other about once a week.

Mark:

I, I love doing all of that, but people drain me and there's no doubt

Mark:

that when we have people over and we have company over and Bruce as the big

Mark:

extrovert, once the house full of people all the time when they leave, I si.

Mark:

A big sigh of relief, uh, that they're gone.

Mark:

And it's not that I don't like them, it's that they are a

Mark:

draining activity for me, for me.

Mark:

Comfort food is often eating by myself.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

I understand that.

Bruce:

But some people are alone all the time.

Bruce:

Yes, it's true.

Bruce:

And that's what gets them down and in all the little things in their life

Bruce:

that might or might not get you down.

Bruce:

If you have someone else in your life or if other things are occupying, you really

Bruce:

start to get to you when you're alone.

Bruce:

So not eating alone all the time is a way to bring yourself.

Bruce:

Up from the doldrums and it involves food.

Mark:

So that's it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

It, it, it does.

Mark:

And, you know, let's, let's say right here that I know that a lot

Mark:

of people face loneliness in their lives and they're not introverts and

Mark:

they don't crave it the way I do.

Mark:

I mean, I love it when Bruce goes off to rehearsal.

Mark:

Bruce sings with an early Baroque choir.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

And he goes off to rehearsals with it.

Mark:

They think Bach is way too late for them.

Mark:

And he goes off to rehearsals for his early Baroque choir, which is fabulous.

Mark:

We have this running joke that he comes back home from rehearsal at night and all

Mark:

the lights are off throughout the entire house and the lights are off outside.

Mark:

The house is completely, we live so rurally.

Mark:

You couldn't see our house if you wanted to.

Mark:

It's completely dark and I'm down in the basement with the dogs watching tv, and

Mark:

the only light on is in the basement.

Mark:

You couldn't even tell there's any house there.

Mark:

There a lot of people like me, like in relish being alone and by themselves,

Mark:

but at the same time there's, there's a lot of loneliness out there.

Mark:

And let me introduce this idea just to you for just a second, and that

Mark:

is that there is a great way to find.

Mark:

Other friends, and it's not necessarily in the ways that you think we have discovered

Mark:

over the course of our life that friends are mostly found through activities.

Mark:

That is, um, when I, we lived in New York.

Mark:

I took French classes.

Mark:

Well, I got to be really good friends with the people in my French classes.

Mark:

In fact, we moved together as a class.

Mark:

We liked each other so much.

Mark:

We actually asked the, if we could stay together as a class.

Mark:

You know, I mean there, we've made friends out of that.

Mark:

We've sung in choirs, we've made friends out of Bruce's singing

Mark:

career at his various choirs.

Mark:

That's, uh, careers as it is hardly a career, but not paid for it.

Mark:

Right, exactly.

Mark:

We've made friends out of the book groups that I teach, I teach a lot

Mark:

of literary seminars and a lot of book groups across New England.

Mark:

We've made friends outta there.

Mark:

So joint activities, it strikes me, is absolutely key to finding

Mark:

somebody that you might wanna have.

Bruce:

Yeah, that's really a very good point.

Bruce:

And having company in the kitchen is also another way to

Bruce:

use food to bring you happiness.

Bruce:

And this is really interesting.

Bruce:

When we first left New York in our little apartment in Manhattan and

Bruce:

moved to this house in the country.

Bruce:

I would make dinner every night in our, you know, new kitchen, which was like

Bruce:

half the size of our old apartment.

Bruce:

And Mark and our first dog, Dreydl would just sit on the

Bruce:

floor together In the kitchen.

Bruce:

Yes.

Bruce:

While I made dinner every night.

Bruce:

Something we couldn't do.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

We had a dog named Dreydl.

Mark:

Yes, we did.

Bruce:

And just having company in the kitchen was great.

Bruce:

So let's say you live alone, you can have someone in the kitchen virtually.

Bruce:

That's a great time to have a FaceTime call or a Zoom call with someone.

Bruce:

They don't have to be cooking.

Bruce:

It's just no.

Bruce:

A really nice time to be sharing your experience of what you are doing

Bruce:

in the kitchen with somebody else.

Mark:

Yeah, exactly.

Mark:

And you know, this is something that's really, to me is crucial is that I.

Mark:

Keep coming back to the introvert thing.

Mark:

Part of the thing with me is that when Bruce goes away and Bruce is the

Mark:

chef in our duo, and when he goes away out of town, sees his family, goes

Mark:

out for work, et cetera, I tend to cook for myself, which is actually,

Mark:

he does most of the cooking in our house, but I tend to cook for myself.

Mark:

I'll figure out what I want over the next few days.

Mark:

I'll go shop for it, I'll make it and.

Mark:

I actually get a lot of pleasure out of that, but that's not with someone else.

Mark:

I put on podcasts like Cooking with Russo Mar.

Mark:

I put on podcasts and I listen to all kinds of podcasts while I cook.

Mark:

I have a grand time the dogs and I, you know, sit in our dark house and eat our

Mark:

dinner and we have a lovely time together.

Mark:

But you're right, there is a way that Conviviality brings out more comfort

Mark:

in food without any, without any doubt.

Mark:

I mean, uh, there's a reason.

Mark:

Old potluck suppers and I don't know, wakes at funerals and

Mark:

the giant spreads at shivers.

Mark:

There's a reason all of that always happens because the food is kind of the

Mark:

thing that brings everyone together.

Bruce:

I wanna share something that makes me really happy with food, and it

Bruce:

doesn't involve eating a whole cake or a can of frosting, and you know, those.

Bruce:

Cans of frosting come with spoons inside the lid.

Bruce:

It's so, it's really gross.

Bruce:

Gross because you so gross.

Bruce:

You know, it's easy to eat the whole can.

Bruce:

So I love to go food shopping and I enjoy finding small, little

Bruce:

specialty food stores, even where we live in Rome, new England.

Bruce:

If I drive 40 minutes, I can find a new Middle Eastern store or Asian market.

Bruce:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bruce:

And I love to wander the aisles and find some little ingredient

Bruce:

I have never seen before.

Bruce:

Some.

Bruce:

Black Japanese sugar or black garlic or

Mark:

We found not so long ago you found really in a very unusual location.

Mark:

You found a store, I guess run by Pakistanis, cuz they have a

Mark:

whole halal meat section, right?

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then they have a lot of East Indian spices and Pakistani spices.

Bruce:

They also now opened an entire aisle of Ukrainian food.

Bruce:

Oh, interesting.

Bruce:

I love that.

Mark:

And they're Pakistani, right?

Mark:

I believe they are, yeah.

Mark:

And so they must be doing that because there are Ukrainians

Mark:

we know moving into the area.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And it just makes me happy to find a new ingredient.

Bruce:

And let's say you don't really love to cook.

Bruce:

Well then go find something you do, like Mark talked about activities.

Bruce:

So let's say your hobby is making jewelry or beating or something.

Bruce:

Go to Michael's, go down the aisles.

Bruce:

Something that interests you that you haven't seen before.

Bruce:

A new kind of bead, a new yarn, a new knitting needle, a new

Bruce:

fabric to make something of.

Bruce:

It doesn't actually even have to be food.

Mark:

You're right, it's most interesting to go find new producers.

Mark:

Find little places that have opened up around you.

Mark:

A lot of I, if you live in a larger city, a lot of the,

Mark:

well, what do we want to say?

Mark:

Suburbs and the pieces of town that were kind of very vibrant when I was

Mark:

a kid, like in the seventies, those places are now starting to revitalize.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

So you can often find all kinds of Russian, Ukrainian, Pakistani,

Mark:

um, Hispanic, Cuban, Venezuelan markets in those kind of places.

Mark:

And there's, you know, go in, have, have yourself a big time.

Mark:

Remember within a neighborhood that I grew up in, in Dallas before dad

Mark:

died, and mom and dad still lived in the same house I grew up in.

Mark:

My mom now lives with my brother in St.

Mark:

Louis, but before that, in Dallas, that neighborhood had become incredibly

Mark:

Hispanic and there was this giant, uh, Hispanic, Mexican, um, Latin

Mark:

American food market that came in, whoa, half a block from my parents'

Mark:

house where an old Safeway used to be.

Mark:

Every time we would go there, Bruce and I would go to that supermarket

Mark:

academy, loved that store.

Mark:

They had the best guacamole, the best tamales, and all that kinda stuff.

Mark:

We'd stand there and buy our tamales and all that.

Mark:

Anyway.

Mark:

My mom was always like, oh, should I go in there as if she was afraid she

Mark:

was, she didn't know what they had.

Mark:

I know my mom never went in there and I kept saying, mom, first of all,

Mark:

the prices are ridiculously lower than any other place you're gonna go.

Mark:

They're be, they've got a real butcher cuz we're watching him cut up.

Mark:

The pig in the back and the pigs are hanging in the back.

Mark:

So it's not like the meat is brought in packaged.

Mark:

There's an actual butcher there and see, you love all that.

Mark:

You gr, you Texas, you love all that guacamole, Tama stuff.

Mark:

So go in there.

Mark:

But she never would.

Mark:

She was always afraid of it and it was, I don't know, it

Mark:

always struck me as very sad.

Mark:

So what I'm telling you is if you pass a Lithuanian market in your

Mark:

neighborhood, don't be afraid.

Bruce:

Go, go in, go in.

Bruce:

Even if you just buy a roll in their bakery, try something

Bruce:

new, try something different.

Bruce:

There's gonna be Lithuanian tea or honey or something made somewhere

Bruce:

else that you've never tried.

Bruce:

And that is a wonderful experience.

Mark:

It is.

Mark:

And of course there are lots of cooking classes online.

Mark:

A lot of these cooking classes online actually involve making the food along

Mark:

with the instructors, like on Milk Street.

Mark:

Bruce and I.

Mark:

Teaching an air frying class at the end of May with Milk Street, and you know,

Mark:

it's set up so that you will cook along with us, which means that we'll all

Mark:

end up with dinner together at the end.

Mark:

And I think that that's really, I don't know, fun, crucial,

Mark:

interesting, but to have people actually making the food with you.

Mark:

Remember when during covid and uh, The intense lockdowns.

Mark:

You were doing all that stuff with kids and you and kids were cooking

Mark:

online through local libraries.

Bruce:

The local libraries had me do a weekly cooking

Bruce:

class with kids in one week.

Bruce:

We made dumplings, we made wontons, so we made our filling and we

Bruce:

all made our wontons and crazy.

Bruce:

It really was so much fun.

Bruce:

And the kids were cooking, right?

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

They

Mark:

were making it.

Mark:

They were making it.

Mark:

They were making wontons.

Bruce:

They were doing it along with me.

Bruce:

And Mark mentioned we're doing this class.

Bruce:

If you go to our Facebook group, cooking with Bruce and

Bruce:

Mark, I'm gonna post it there.

Bruce:

The Milk Street class.

Bruce:

We actually have a discount code, air Fry 15.

Bruce:

If you use that code, you'll get a discount on the class.

Bruce:

It'll be a whole lot of fun, and it's not.

Bruce:

The basics.

Bruce:

We're doing a few more advanced recipes and I'll, I'll post about it on our group.

Bruce:

Are we doing, doing Briwat?

Mark:

Aren't we doing?

Mark:

The filo rolls stuff with goat cheese and honey.

Bruce:

We're doing a filo roll for sure.

Bruce:

I'm not sure.

Bruce:

Yeah,

Mark:

it's, I don't, you can tell that how much.

Mark:

Up on this land.

Mark:

I'll get more up on it as we get close to class.

Mark:

Good.

Mark:

Oh good, good.

Mark:

That's always good.

Mark:

Before we get to our, our one minute cooking, tick, let me say

Mark:

that we do have a newsletter.

Mark:

I will admit, and you'll hear about this at the end of this podcast.

Mark:

I will admit that I have not sent out a newsletter in about four weeks.

Mark:

Sorry about that.

Mark:

I have been incredibly busy with other things.

Mark:

Um, I'll tell you about that at the end of the podcast, but I've been incredibly busy

Mark:

with other things that I haven't sent out a newsletter, but if you'd like to be on.

Mark:

Letter.

Mark:

Go to our website, Bruce and mark.com.

Mark:

You can sign up there, just drop down the screen and there's

Mark:

a sign up for the newsletter.

Mark:

If you sign up, let me say that I have locked all the signups,

Mark:

so I cannot see your name or your email address, so I can't sell it.

Mark:

I can't see it, I can't access it, I can't save it.

Mark:

I set it up that way for privacy's sake.

Mark:

And of course, at any moment, Unsubscribed from that newsletter.

Mark:

So if you're interested, and it is not a rehash to this podcast,

Mark:

it is things beyond this podcast.

Mark:

So if you're interested, sign up there now onto our traditional second

Mark:

segment, our one minute cooking tip.

Bruce:

Keep your blender, your food processor, your mixer, and.

Bruce:

Other smaller tools on your counters or right at the front of easy tore cabinets,

Bruce:

why you are much more likely to use them if you don't have to dig them out

Bruce:

of the back of high places and then put them back there when you're done.

Mark:

Okay?

Mark:

What happens when you live in Manhattan, as we did, and you have a three by

Mark:

three counter and that's your counter?

Bruce:

You could put them in a cabinet, but don't put them in

Bruce:

the back of the highest cabinet.

Bruce:

Put them where they're with an easy reach so that you'll use them, consider

Bruce:

them as necessary for your cooking as a dinner plate and as a chef knife.

Mark:

Yeah, I, I have to tell you a little story, so this is gonna

Mark:

make it more than one minute, but I have to tell you the story that.

Mark:

As our cookbook career ramped up, we did have a three by three counter in,

Mark:

essentially in our apartment in Manhattan.

Mark:

And this cookbook career started ramp, you know, ramping up and becoming

Mark:

more and more part of our lives until we quit our jobs, and it was all of

Mark:

our lives and all that kinda stuff.

Mark:

Well, anyway, as that happened, of course you can imagine that the kitchen

Mark:

in Manhattan, the kitchen exploded.

Mark:

With stuff because we needed it for all this stuff.

Mark:

So we actually had to rent a storage space to hold kitchen

Mark:

equipment, Manhattan mini storage.

Bruce:

We did.

Bruce:

I put the extra food processors and mixers,

Mark:

and I always said to Bruce said that first time, if every recipe should be, you

Mark:

know, like go to the mini storage and get your food processor, because that's what

Mark:

we had to do, is we had to walk down the street with a cart and pull it out of mini

Mark:

storage.

Mark:

So

Bruce:

that was like my fourth food process.

Bruce:

But yes, I had to get a lot and u.

Bruce:

All the space.

Bruce:

Don't be someone who's afraid to keep things out on top of cabinets,

Bruce:

and it's just like you'll use it.

Bruce:

So don't go for the totally clean kitchen.

Bruce:

Look if you have room, because if it's out Yeah, true.

Bruce:

You'll use it.

Mark:

And I, this is becoming a four minute cooking dip,

Mark:

but I wanna tell you that.

Mark:

Our air fryer has been out since we wrote our first air fryer book three years ago.

Mark:

Yep.

Mark:

And I bet we use it three, four times a week.

Bruce:

I was gonna say four times a day.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

I mean, we sometimes we used our air fryer all, we just had falafel for lunch today,

Mark:

air fryer from, from the store, I mean falafel that Bruce bought at the store and

Mark:

we stuck it in the air fryer and heated it up and had it for lunch with homeless.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Um, I mean, we use our air.

Mark:

All that time.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Before we get to Bruce's interview with Brittany Mullens, let me

Mark:

say, it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast.

Mark:

If you could rate it, that would be fabulous.

Mark:

And if you could write even a review on Google Podcast or Apple Podcasts, you

Mark:

can drop down to the bottom and it says, write a review and even as great podcast

Mark:

or Love to Hear ya, or thanks a lot.

Mark:

Any of that just does amazing bits.

Mark:

Analytics and for the logarithms and all that stuff because this is

Mark:

an unsupported podcast and that is the way that you can support us.

Mark:

All right, now on to Bruce's interview with Britney Mullins, the author of

Mark:

the brand new book, mostly Vegetables.

Bruce:

Today I'm speaking with Britney Mullins.

Bruce:

She is a certified health coach and the creative force behind the culinary

Bruce:

website eating bird food, and she's the author of the new book, mostly Veggies.

Bruce:

Welcome, Brittany.

Bruce:

Thank you so much for having me.

Bruce:

So Brittany, you went to college and studied marketing, but from

Bruce:

what you write in your book, sounds like the dining halls taught you

Bruce:

the most important lesson of all.

Bruce:

Tell me about your early journey with food and nutrition.

Brittany:

Sure.

Brittany:

So I grew up eating a lot of southern cooking that my mom cooked, which

Brittany:

was delicious, but went to college reali, like knowing that I wanted

Brittany:

to lose a little bit of weight.

Brittany:

So it actually came off pretty easy my freshman year, which is really

Brittany:

interesting cause I know a lot of people.

Brittany:

It's like that, you know, infamous freshman 15 kind of thing.

Brittany:

Um, but I just started doing more movement and getting just more

Brittany:

knowledgeable about the food I was eating.

Brittany:

And then it was also really easy because the dining hall, just like salad bars were

Brittany:

just made for you and just ready to go.

Brittany:

So I ate a lot of salads.

Brittany:

That's where my love from salads.

Brittany:

Like started.

Brittany:

Um, and yeah, after that I just got really inspired about helping other

Brittany:

people, um, get healthy, lose weight, if that was their goal in sustainable ways.

Bruce:

When you're planning a meal or even just filling your plate, you

Bruce:

follow your mantra, mostly veggies, which is how you named your book.

Bruce:

And a lot of people worry that if they do that, they're not getting enough protein.

Bruce:

Is that a problem when you eat mostly veggie?

Brittany:

I don't think so.

Brittany:

There's still a place on your plate for the protein if it's, it doesn't always

Brittany:

have to be the standard like meat protein.

Brittany:

In my cookbook, I show you how to use plant-based proteins to get enough.

Brittany:

Right.

Brittany:

Um, and I think of in our society, um, and our culture, everyone eats.

Brittany:

More protein than they even realize.

Brittany:

I think.

Brittany:

I mean, sometimes it can be hard to get you to reach your protein goals,

Brittany:

but at the same time, a lot of people do eat really meat heavy diets.

Brittany:

Mm-hmm.

Brittany:

Um, so they're getting plenty of protein.

Brittany:

So it's good to add in some of these veggies and get those nutrients And fiber.

Bruce:

What's your take on packaged meat substitutes?

Bruce:

Um, only a few of the recipes in your book call for these kind of products.

Brittany:

I'll have them here and there, but my go-to for plant-based

Brittany:

proteins, if you want something really high in protein, not legum.

Brittany:

Is Tofu, Tempe, edamame, those are the least processed.

Brittany:

I mean, if you look at the ingredients, I've seen these little

Brittany:

TikTok videos and stuff of the ingredients of like Impossible Burger

Brittany:

or some of these meat substitutes.

Brittany:

They are comparing it to, you know, dog food.

Brittany:

So I'm more on like real foods.

Brittany:

Whole real foods.

Bruce:

You have in your book a foolproof four step method for meal planning.

Bruce:

Keeps you organized, keeps you.

Bruce:

Gimme a quick recap of this method.

Brittany:

First step is to plan, so this is where you're gonna look

Brittany:

at your week, see what is on the calendar, say you have, you know, just

Brittany:

like something going on some nights.

Brittany:

You wanna make sure you have that written out, um, and then decide, okay, how many

Brittany:

dinners am I gonna be making at home?

Brittany:

And kind of write out your calendar of what those will be.

Brittany:

Come up with ideas for your breakfast and lunch.

Brittany:

Lots of times I do repeat things for those just to keep it really easy.

Brittany:

Like maybe you'll have two different options for breakfast

Brittany:

and a few options for lunch.

Brittany:

And I'm also big on leftover, so using leftover dinner for

Brittany:

lunch the next day kind of thing.

Brittany:

So your first step will be your planning.

Brittany:

Just looking at your calendar, see what's ahead, and then planning

Brittany:

out what wheels you wanna.

Brittany:

The next stop, the next step is gonna be to create your shopping list.

Brittany:

Take inventory of what you have, what you're gonna need to make the recipes

Brittany:

that you picked out, um, and then just looking in your fridge, pantry, making

Brittany:

your list, and then going to the store and buying it or ordering online.

Brittany:

I have two small kids and I used to love going to the grocery store and

Brittany:

walking the aisles and looking at everything and seeing what was new.

Brittany:

Love that.

Brittany:

But now I'm a big fan.

Brittany:

Ordering online.

Brittany:

So just makes my life really easy.

Brittany:

And then, um, whatever day you're gonna prep, which I really like, Sundays

Brittany:

just to get ready for the week, you're gonna start prepping either your

Brittany:

full meals if you want, or component.

Brittany:

I look at what's ahead and if I say I'm gonna need onions and a couple recipes,

Brittany:

I'll go ahead and chop 'em all at once.

Brittany:

Mm-hmm.

Brittany:

I'm gonna batch cook some grains, I'm gonna back cook, um, some veggies.

Brittany:

I love roasting a bunch of veggies and that's an easy way to get your

Brittany:

plate to half full of veggies if you.

Brittany:

Already cooked veggies on hand.

Brittany:

And if you are okay with leftovers, go ahead and batch cook.

Brittany:

Some things like in the fall, I love doing a big pot of soup, and then we

Brittany:

could have that for dinner on Sunday, as well as maybe two more dinners.

Brittany:

Any tips

Bruce:

and advice for people who are not used to being so organized.

Brittany:

So I think it just remembering that you can be flexible.

Brittany:

It doesn't have to be.

Brittany:

All planned out, you know, and you also don't have to do every

Brittany:

single meal of every, like put, put your takeout on Friday night.

Brittany:

Like just add that to your calendar and know that, like say, I know a

Brittany:

lot of people are like, well, I don't know if I'm gonna be feeling whatever

Brittany:

I have planned for Monday night.

Brittany:

Like, I might not be in the mood for that.

Brittany:

Well that's okay.

Brittany:

Move it to the next night.

Brittany:

I think once you see, once you start doing it a little bit and getting a little more

Brittany:

organized with it and realize how much time and energy you're saving by doing.

Brittany:

I think it'll help you kinda get in the groove with it.

Bruce:

Brittany, I wanna talk about some of the amazing recipes in your new book.

Bruce:

You start the book off with breakfast and you have.

Bruce:

Cold overnight oats, which as you say are great lifesavers in the

Bruce:

summer when you don't want it.

Bruce:

Steaming hot breakfast, you have oats and a super crunchy granola, and you

Bruce:

had something that just made me drool.

Bruce:

Cinnamon roll, baked oatmeal.

Bruce:

Is it a pudding?

Bruce:

Is it a cake?

Bruce:

Is it oatmeal?

Bruce:

Tell me about this dish.

Brittany:

Okay, so I love baked oatmeal.

Brittany:

I think it was 2020 maybe.

Brittany:

I did a bake don meal every single month on my.

Brittany:

So I have so many different flavor combinations, but this one in the

Brittany:

book Cinnamon Roll, I just love it so much and it like has a coconut

Brittany:

butter or drizzle or you can do icing.

Brittany:

So there's either one, you could do the um, almond milk and powdered

Brittany:

sugar or keep it a little bit healthier and do the coconut butter,

Brittany:

but it's just a fun way to kind of.

Brittany:

You know, have a cinnamon roll, but a healthy way and with baked oatmeal,

Brittany:

it's not a cake and it's not a pudding.

Brittany:

It's, but it isn't little.

Brittany:

It's like, it's like having oatmeal, but it's baked like an oat bar or

Brittany:

it's a little puddingy, I guess.

Brittany:

It's so good.

Bruce:

You talked about starting your journey with the salad bars in college,

Bruce:

and now you offer up a whole chapter of meal sized salads in your book.

Bruce:

I love the seaside chickpeas salad.

Bruce:

You've got sweet pickle relish in it.

Bruce:

Crumbled nory celery.

Bruce:

It looks like the perfect alternative to canned tuna salad.

Bruce:

Yes.

Bruce:

And you also have a number of jar salads in the book.

Bruce:

What's a jar salad?

Brittany:

Okay, so this is something I love as well, and it's a way to meal prep

Brittany:

your salads where they don't get soggy.

Brittany:

So you're gonna put your dressing down at the bottom as well as

Brittany:

party vegetables that can kind of stand the like dressing kind.

Brittany:

Pickling them and getting them really nice and tasty.

Brittany:

And then when you're ready to eat it, so those can sit in the fridge

Brittany:

for, you know, all week basically.

Brittany:

Um, and then when you're ready to eat it, you just dump it out.

Brittany:

Your bottom will be the dressing with all of the veggies that have been

Brittany:

kind of marinating in that dressing.

Brittany:

And then your top will be your lettuce and it's still really nice

Brittany:

and crunchy, crisp, not wilty at all.

Brittany:

So I love it for prepping and they just look really pretty too.

Brittany:

They're all layered with the ingredients.

Brittany:

Yeah.

Brittany:

I mean, they're fun.

Brittany:

They will definitely, like if you were to take it to an office, people

Brittany:

would be envious and be like, oh, I wish I'd packed that for my lunch.

Bruce:

Hey, sheet Pan suppers have helped an entire generation of people

Bruce:

looking to make dinner easier, but usually they involve chicken or pork.

Bruce:

Can you give me an example of your favorite All veggie Shean s.

Brittany:

Yes.

Brittany:

So one of my favorites is the first one in the book actually.

Brittany:

It's the Tempe and Broccoli, which, you know, most people are,

Brittany:

you know about beef and broccoli.

Brittany:

Like it's a really classic, um, That was always my favorite growing up.

Brittany:

So it's kinda a take on that, but it has kind of an orange sauce on it.

Brittany:

Mm-hmm.

Brittany:

Which I love doing Sweet sauces on Tempe.

Brittany:

I think Tempe has a really like earthy, nutty flavor.

Brittany:

Mm-hmm.

Brittany:

And so it needs something really flavorful and like a little bit sweet to make

Brittany:

it taste really good in my opinion.

Brittany:

So this one, I mean this picture's so beautiful and it's like really

Brittany:

saucy and it just, this makes people want to make it, I think.

Brittany:

Um, and so yeah, you're gonna do tamari orange juice and the sauce, um, and then

Brittany:

just cook it off on a sheet pan and it has tons of protein and you have your

Brittany:

veggie on there and then you can serve it over a little rice if you want, or

Brittany:

cauliflower rice to add even more veggies.

Brittany:

And it's delicious.

Bruce:

Do you eat cauliflower rice raw, or do you like to cook?

Brittany:

Cook it.

Brittany:

I do happen in one of the salads raw and I think it's good, but I love cooking it up.

Brittany:

Um, I just saute in a pan a little bit of salt and pepper.

Brittany:

Keep it really easy.

Bruce:

Brittany, you have a recipe in your book that is coconut butter.

Bruce:

Now, coconut butter is an amazing substitute for butter on toast,

Bruce:

on baked sweet potatoes, but it can be really expensive to buy.

Bruce:

So tell me about your homemade coconut butter.

Brittany:

You literally just buy a pack of unsweet.

Brittany:

Coconut shreds, pop it into your food processor.

Brittany:

It actually works best in the food processor I found.

Brittany:

It's faster.

Brittany:

You just dump your whole bag in, turn it on, let it go, and it turns

Brittany:

into this creamy, smooth butter

Bruce:

aside from toast, and you drizzle it on those baked don't oatmeal.

Bruce:

That's great.

Bruce:

What are other things we could do with it?

Bruce:

I

Brittany:

put it in my protein balls, drizzle it on oatmeal, eat

Brittany:

it by the spoonful as a snack.

Brittany:

I mean, it's so good.

Bruce:

Do you keep it in the fridge or is it room.

Brittany:

You can keep it at room temp.

Brittany:

It does get solid.

Brittany:

Same with like coconut oil.

Brittany:

So what you do is I just make a little warm water bath to put your, I keep

Brittany:

it in a mason jar, so just put the mason jar inside that warm water

Brittany:

and it'll liquefy right back up.

Bruce:

Britney Mullins, your new book Mostly Veggies is beautiful.

Bruce:

It's got recipes that we will all want to eat your website eating bird food.

Bruce:

Everyone can find more recipes there.

Bruce:

Thank you for spending some time with me this morning.

Brittany:

Yes, thank you.

Brittany:

I've really enjoyed it.

Mark:

I am always up for more vegetables on my plate and we, we've talked about

Mark:

this in podcast before, but I've kind of, uh, caught back on my meat intake.

Mark:

I won't eat meat more than once a day, and I count fish as meat.

Mark:

Yeah, so it's flesh.

Mark:

Um, right.

Mark:

So, well, I know a lot of people don't, but I won't eat meat more than

Mark:

once a day, so I've cut way back.

Mark:

So I'm always looking for, to get more vegetables into everything I do.

Mark:

Oh, she's got great ideas.

Mark:

Yeah, and it was great to hear her, you know, I mean, she is.

Mark:

I'm gonna sound like an old fart, but she's part of a young, new crowd

Mark:

of cookbook authors and influencers and social media personalities, and

Mark:

it's just great to see their ideas.

Bruce:

It is.

Bruce:

It's really, she was a lot of fun to talk to.

Mark:

A lot of people my age feel threatened by that, and

Mark:

I'm always like, no, come on.

Mark:

It's great to watch it happen and change around you.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

As is traditional, the.

Mark:

Moment of our podcast.

Mark:

What's making us happy in food this week?

Mark:

You can go first.

Bruce:

Grapes are making me happy.

Bruce:

And here's the thing I, well, it's a two, like a two part.

Mark:

I love grapes too, except I like 'em in a bottle.

Mark:

When you pour 'em into a glass and

Bruce:

Mark always refers to them as shaped water.

Bruce:

I love grapes.

Bruce:

But there's a couple of things about grapes.

Bruce:

We are now recording this in the middle of April and New England where we.

Bruce:

Furthest away from fresh fruit that we could possibly get.

Bruce:

It's not a fresh

Mark:

thing out.

Mark:

There's barely ramps up where we are right now,

Bruce:

and I'm, you know, I get by this time of the year, I'm tired of bananas.

Bruce:

The pineapples are either rotted when you cut them open and fermenting,

Bruce:

or they're hard and gross, ugh.

Bruce:

But grapes are always delicious, always good, always there year round.

Bruce:

Grapes in my mind have to be crisp and a little crunchy.

Bruce:

And when I buy grapes, where is this going?

Bruce:

And I get those soft, mushy grapes.

Bruce:

I don't like grapes.

Bruce:

Okay, so where is this going?

Bruce:

Grapes are making me happy and I've bought like 20 pounds of grapes.

Mark:

Are you gonna say how you know how to buy grapes.

Mark:

This just sounds like the grapes is, well, you have to be been brought

Mark:

to you by the grape institute.

Bruce:

You have to be really clandestine about this because

Bruce:

I don't wanna see anyone eating.

Bruce:

The grapes outta the bag.

Mark:

Oh my God.

Mark:

But you have to, the only way you'll know is if you taste one.

Mark:

Oh my God.

Mark:

All right, so moving on.

Mark:

What's making us happy in food this week for me is, and here it comes, nothing,

Mark:

what have you not eaten this week?

Mark:

No, I've eaten it.

Mark:

Sorry.

Mark:

So this is,

Bruce:

we need to take you on a trip to find some new ingredients.

Mark:

We do, and here's the thing, I, I have really injured my

Mark:

shoulder and it's really messed up.

Mark:

I've been through an MRI and x-rays and physical therapy for weeks and weeks

Mark:

and weeks on end, and I'm avoiding everything with physical therapy, but it.

Mark:

All the time.

Mark:

And you know what, here's what I decided.

Mark:

I was thinking about this before we recorded it, about what's

Mark:

making me happy through this week.

Mark:

And listen, I, I had some great meals.

Mark:

Bruce made delicious meals.

Mark:

He made even meals I requested.

Mark:

It's not that I haven't eaten, it's just that my mood is

Mark:

gross because of my shoulder.

Mark:

Oh, excellent.

Mark:

And I've decided it's okay.

Mark:

It's okay that I am sunk down in the oblivion of my left shoulder.

Mark:

You know, it's just not the best week for me.

Mark:

And so I ate, I had a good time.

Mark:

I went out to dinner with friends.

Mark:

Bruce made delicious meals.

Mark:

But in then the end, you know, man, when your body hurts, it's hard to

Mark:

get away from when your body hurts.

Mark:

So it is true.

Mark:

That is true.

Mark:

So the answer is nothing.

Mark:

And here's the thing that I wanna.

Mark:

It's okay.

Mark:

It is okay on a food podcast.

Mark:

It's okay to say nothing.

Mark:

Ha made me happy in food this week.

Mark:

So that's the podcast for the week.

Mark:

We're gonna end up on that downer note.

Mark:

Wow, that was really down, but okay.

Mark:

Grapes, just eat grapes.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Apparently in the fricking supermarket.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

So, um, that was the podcast for this week.

Mark:

A, you enjoyed our, your time with us.

Mark:

We certainly thank you for being here.

Mark:

YouTube subscribing rate.

Mark:

As Bruce mentioned, there's a Facebook group who, and Bruce and

Mark:

Mark, this podcast goes over there.

Mark:

Questions go up there.

Mark:

People will answer stuff there.

Mark:

You can drop comments and questions all there for us about

Mark:

air fryers or anything else.

Mark:

Follow us on Instagram under our own names, Bruce a Weinstein or

Mark:

Mark Scarborough, and you can also message us through Instagram.

Mark:

We'd be glad to connect with you in any way you want and we will see you

Mark:

next week hopefully with a much better shoulder on cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!