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Episode 95

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Published on:

29th May 2023

Our Grandmothers' Cooking, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview With Karla Salinari, Kale Caesar Salad, Jewish "Appetizing," And More!

Grandmothers! Some of them are great cooks. And others? Well, there's no nostalgia like "grandmother's cooking." So we've got a podcast episode devoted to it.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We'd like to tell you about our grandmothers' cooking--the good and the bad. We've also got a one-minute cooking tip on spices. Bruce interviews Karla Salinari about her book, Abuela's Plant-Based Kitchen. And we let you know what's making us happy in food this week.

Thanks for joining us for our podcast. Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:51] Our grandmothers' cooking

[14:17] Our one-minute cooking tip: toast spices to make them more flavorful.

[15:16] Bruce interview Karla Salinari about her cookbook Abuela’s Plant-Based Kitchen.

[32:41] What’s making us happy in food this week? Kale Caesar salad and Jewish "appetizing."

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking of Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Mark:

And together Bruce and I have written three dozen cookbooks.

Mark:

And here's something you may not know.

Mark:

We have a TikTok channel called Yes, cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

There's actually a TikTok channel now in which you can

Mark:

see all kinds of cooking videos.

Mark:

Most of them right now are all about air frying because

Mark:

we are all about air frying.

Mark:

But check us out on TikTok.

Mark:

We would love to make friends with you there.

Mark:

But this episode of our podcast isn't about TikTok or.

Mark:

Air frying instead, it's about grandmother cooking.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

And it includes our memories of our grandmother's cooking.

Mark:

We wanna share a one minute cooking tip with you.

Mark:

Then Bruce has an interview with Carlos Sonari.

Mark:

She's the other of Abuela's, plant-based kitchen, and we wanna talk about what's

Mark:

making us happy in food this week.

Mark:

So let's get started.

Bruce:

It's nostalgic to think about family dinners, right?

Bruce:

Your grandma cooking somewhat.

Bruce:

Usually we think about Thanksgiving, we think about the holidays somewhat

Bruce:

and you know, but grandmothers cook,

Mark:

not me.

Mark:

Well, well I just wanna stop.

Mark:

I don't think about the holidays, really.

Mark:

I mean, the holidays were a big rush in my family.

Mark:

It was a huge German immigrant family, and they were just this giant overwhelming.

Mark:

Uh, what do I wanna say?

Mark:

Nightmare of people.

Mark:

I mean, it wasn't a nightmare.

Mark:

We had a good time, but I mean, it was just thousands of people

Mark:

jammed into my great aunt's house or one of my greathous houses.

Mark:

Um, so it, I don't remember that.

Mark:

What I remember is that I spent most of the summers with my grandparents.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

And that's the cooking I remember.

Bruce:

And you, well, let's start there in the summer.

Bruce:

What was that like?

Bruce:

I mean, that cookie, what do you remember of that cooking from?

Bruce:

Now, first of all, this is your mother's parents, right?

Bruce:

This is my mother's parents.

Bruce:

Your maternal grandparents.

Bruce:

And what kind of cooking was done there and what do you really remember about it?

Mark:

Well, I remember very much a lot of fried chicken.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

I remember very much my grandmother killing chickens when I was a

Mark:

kid and frying the chickens, killing them the day before.

Mark:

I remember all of the kind of farmhouse.

Mark:

Cooking that would go on.

Mark:

My grandmother no longer did this by the time I was a kid, but when

Mark:

she was a kid, they would have what she called threshing days.

Mark:

And these are days when migrant workers would come through the farms and help

Mark:

with the harvest of, this was a grain farm and alfalfa, oats, wheat, et cetera.

Mark:

Farm this, there's a grain farm in.

Mark:

Oklahoma and, uh, she remembers threshing days when they

Mark:

would cook for all the thres.

Mark:

We would say migrant workers now who would come through, but

Mark:

still, she still cooked like that.

Mark:

And she herself, my grandmother was a baker back in the days when.

Mark:

Elementary schools had bakers, and it's hard to,

Bruce:

it's quite a career baking in an elementary school.

Mark:

It's hard to even remember that, that this happened.

Mark:

But she would walk to this elementary school in Oklahoma

Mark:

City at six in the morning.

Mark:

It was about four blocks from their house.

Mark:

She would walk down there and she would, if they were, let's say,

Mark:

having hamburgers, she would bake.

Mark:

All the hamburger bonds, she would bake outrageous cakes, all of that

Mark:

from scratch at the elementary.

Mark:

So isn't that crazy?

Mark:

If they were having sandwiches for lunch, which they did, sometimes

Mark:

they'd have Turkey sandwiches.

Mark:

She would bake the bread for the sandwiches when she, in the

Mark:

morning when she got in, it's in.

Mark:

It's just like this incredible idea that there was a baker actually baking

Mark:

that isn't in an elementary school.

Bruce:

So you had a good baking experience as a kid.

Bruce:

My mother's mother.

Bruce:

Never baked a sweet thing or even a bread in her life.

Bruce:

Your mother's mother didn't like sweet things?

Bruce:

No, she didn't like sweet things.

Bruce:

She liked bread, but she went to the bakery and she bought rye bread and

Bruce:

she bought bagels, but she, yeah.

Mark:

I wouldn't say that your aunt would highly disagree with this

Mark:

and say that your grandmother, her mother, was an excellent thing.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

That was my father's mother.

Bruce:

She agrees that she was not a good cook and she wasn't.

Bruce:

Everything was, the chicken was always baked covered, so it was soft and gummy.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

And lots of you know, sweet and sour meatballs.

Bruce:

No, she made.

Bruce:

Excellent chicken soup with the feet floating in it, and she

Bruce:

made good grimness, which is fried chicken skin and onions.

Bruce:

She made heart attack on a plate decent chopped liver, but outside

Bruce:

of those classic Jewish food things, she really didn't cook very well,

Bruce:

and I mostly remember a lot of jello.

Mark:

Oh, well.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Grandmother made, my maternal grandmother made a lot of jello.

Mark:

We had a lot of jello salads.

Mark:

And in the south we always say, how do you know if it's a salad or dessert?

Mark:

And the question is whether it has marshmallows in it.

Mark:

So what does marshmallows, it's a salad.

Mark:

If it has marshmallows, is a dessert.

Mark:

If it doesn't have marshmallows, a salad.

Mark:

And she would make these jello salads with mayonnaise and celery and canned olives.

Mark:

Oh, it was, it was the, the sixties.

Bruce:

That's your goyisha food, but

Mark:

uh, it probably is your goyisha food.

Bruce:

Now, first of all, my grandmother was making ko-jel.

Bruce:

With the kosher jello.

Bruce:

Yeah, no, mine was, which is made with fish gelatin.

Bruce:

Not your beef gelatin.

Bruce:

But was it done in a mold or was it just done in a bowl and scooped out?

Mark:

Uh, my grandmother's.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

It was done in a mold.

Bruce:

No, my grandmother was just in a bowl and scooped out.

Bruce:

That was, and then covered in cool whip.

Mark:

This is getting off the subject, but when I was a kid, my mother would

Mark:

make jello in a sheet pan when I was sick and cut it into cubes and put

Mark:

them in a bowl and pour milk over it.

Mark:

And somehow that was sick food.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

Um, I know it's kind of gross.

Mark:

My grandmother, my maternal grandmother, she was a really good cook and she,

Mark:

but she cooked very old fashioned.

Mark:

She cooked, you know, the starch and the vegetable, right, and the jello

Mark:

and the, whether it was pot roast, what we call pot roast, which was

Mark:

chuck roast or fried chicken, or.

Mark:

Baked chicken or baked Turkey, roasted Turkey, all those things that, that's

Mark:

the kind of stuff that she made.

Mark:

And she always had, Bruce knows this story.

Mark:

She always had a crockpot vessel under the kitchen sink, and it was

Mark:

full of potatoes, new potatoes, tiny little potatoes, and she would boil

Mark:

them and then coat them in salt.

Mark:

I mean, just coat them heavy in salt and put them in this crock, and it would sit.

Mark:

Under the sink and at any given moment, you could go get a potato in salt out

Mark:

of the crock and have it as a snack.

Mark:

It was a, it was a thing.

Bruce:

Well, both of my grandmothers were not very good cooks, but the

Bruce:

one we were talking about that would make the gummy chicken.

Bruce:

Now yes, my aunt thinks that she was a good baker, and it is true.

Bruce:

She made an apple cake that was absolutely delicious and we actually put

Bruce:

that recipe in our book, the Ultimate Cookbook, and I make it a lot still.

Bruce:

But that was about the.

Bruce:

Only thing she baked that was good.

Bruce:

She had these cookies that basically it was flour and spry.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

And sugar.

Bruce:

And that was, nobody knows what sp Sprite.

Bruce:

Spry is just Crisco.

Bruce:

But it was like old-fashioned shortening nobody.

Bruce:

And I mean, they were fine, but they were hard little rocks.

Bruce:

And the only way you could eat them was to dip them in your tea and Oh, tea.

Bruce:

So tea at their house was like, you'd line up all the teac cups and

Bruce:

then you'd put one teabag in the.

Bruce:

First, and you pour the boiling water in as you lift the teabag out, and then

Bruce:

you go to the next cup and you go, and by the time you got to the eighth cup,

Bruce:

there was basically all you had was water.

Mark:

But this is the dead opposite.

Mark:

And I wanna say that this is the dead episode of now I'm

Mark:

at my paternal grandparents.

Mark:

At my paternal grandparents, mostly interestingly, my grandfather

Mark:

cooked, not my grandmother, uh, in my, in my dad's family.

Mark:

And my grandfather would make breakfast every morning.

Mark:

The way he made coffee is he would take, I don't even know how much, let's

Mark:

say eight huge heaping tablespoons, and I don't mean measuring spoons.

Mark:

I mean like the big spoons you use for soup tablespoons of coffee in a sauce pan.

Mark:

He would fill it about halfway with water, and then he would boil it for,

Mark:

oh, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes.

Mark:

Oh, and then reduce it too.

Mark:

Strain it into cups, and it was so strong.

Mark:

It was.

Mark:

Unbelievably, your spoon, the minute it hit the surface of the liquid

Mark:

would disappear because it was no light could penetrate the, no.

Bruce:

I thought maybe it melted.

Mark:

No, it dissolved in the light.

Mark:

It could penetrate the liquid.

Mark:

It was so strong.

Mark:

Oh my God.

Mark:

And he was a big my, and then now we're on my paternal side.

Mark:

They were big.

Mark:

Uh, Bacon fat people.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

I mean, it was always frying the eggs in the bacon, bacon frying the eggs

Mark:

in the bacon, and then he would take the toast and put it in the bacon

Mark:

fat in the, he used to griddle and he would put the toast in the bacon

Mark:

fat on the griddle to get it crunchy.

Mark:

Sounds good to, to me, he toasted in a toaster and then put it

Mark:

on the griddle in bacon fat.

Bruce:

I wonder what cinnamon toast would taste like with

Bruce:

bacon fat instead of butter.

Bruce:

Oh, no, no, no.

Mark:

Gross cinnamon sugar and bacon fat.

Mark:

And they would, they lo.

Mark:

They love fat of all kinds.

Mark:

They would take what they called hen and dressing and he, they would

Mark:

make, she would make the dressing.

Mark:

My grandmother, my paternal grandmother, would make the dressing

Mark:

southern, dressing with cornbread.

Mark:

You know, you'd make the cornbread a couple days before it was,

Mark:

couldn't stale, kind of rock hard, so it absorbs liquid properly.

Mark:

It didn't get mushy.

Mark:

So, You make the cornbread ahead, then you crumble it up and then you saute, I dunno,

Mark:

onions and celery and stuff like that.

Mark:

And garlic, maybe, I don't remember, garlic remem that seems

Mark:

out of the question in butter.

Mark:

And you'd mix it with eggs and mix it into that 70.

Mark:

And then they would put that in a nine by 13 pan and set

Mark:

the chicken right on top of it.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

And roast it.

Mark:

So, All of the chicken fat would seep down into that dressing as it cooked.

Mark:

Oh

Bruce:

my god.

Bruce:

It, oh gosh, that sounds delicious.

Mark:

Well, they only had one bathroom, so it was always in use,

Bruce:

but, um, well, my grandmother only had one bathroom too,

Bruce:

but it was a little apartment.

Bruce:

And the thing I remember most about her kitchen was how clean the stove was.

Bruce:

I mean, that woman scrubbed and scrubbed that, so in fact

Bruce:

she scrubbed it so much that.

Bruce:

All the numbers on the dial, cuz you had the old dial to turn the oven

Bruce:

on the numbers to whether you're at 300 or three 50, they were all gone.

Bruce:

They were all wiped off from cleaning.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

And so the way she turned the oven on is you turn that dial

Bruce:

all the way till it stops.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

One direction and that's on.

Bruce:

And you turn it all the way, the other way to the steps and that's off.

Bruce:

So everything got cooked at basically 500 degrees.

Bruce:

And I remember once asking her, she was making like a meatloaf or

Bruce:

something and she was like checking in and it's like, oh, it's done.

Bruce:

I'm like, oh, how do you know when it's.

Bruce:

Done Grandma when there's no more juice.

Bruce:

Oh, that was her answer.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

So we always knew.

Bruce:

I was glad she always served salad before dinner.

Bruce:

Oh, never finish your salad cuz you want to keep it in front of you.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

So that you could dip your meat in the dressing left in your bowl to be able to

Bruce:

get it down because everything was so D.

Mark:

Yeah, we had very different experiences.

Mark:

I mean, my grandparents might.

Mark:

paternal grandparents were, well, to put it, crassly.

Mark:

They were quite poor and it was very poor southern food.

Mark:

And uh, it was good.

Mark:

The, don't get me wrong, I mean there was bacon and eggs and hen and

Mark:

dressing, but there wasn't anything.

Mark:

Fancy to say the least.

Mark:

Right.

Mark:

Um, because it, it, they, they just didn't have any money so they, it

Mark:

was never for a want of food, but it was just very different and it's very

Mark:

different lower class southern cooking.

Bruce:

My mother's parents, I think were willing to try fancier stuff.

Bruce:

They didn't.

Bruce:

Keep kosher like my father's parents did.

Bruce:

Although my grandmother's mother's, mother's idea of kosher

Bruce:

was a separate pan for the bacon because my grandfather insisted.

Bruce:

But I think she would've kept kosher if he hadn't, you know,

Bruce:

said, no, we're eating tray.

Bruce:

Right, right, right.

Bruce:

But sh so there was a separate pan for the bacon, um, but she.

Bruce:

Bought brisket and she bought high-end food and she bought veal chops.

Bruce:

She just didn't

Mark:

Veal chops.

Mark:

That would've been veal

Bruce:

shoulder.

Bruce:

Veal.

Bruce:

Shoulder chops.

Bruce:

Okay.

Bruce:

And she would grind up Special K cereal.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

And she would coat the veal chops in Special K cereal.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

And put them in a nine by 13 pan in the oven.

Bruce:

Until there was no more juice.

Bruce:

Oh, so she bought high-end food and then destroyed it?

Bruce:

Oh, basically.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Mark:

No, that's not, that's not my childhood memories at all.

Mark:

We had a big potato patch at my great-grandparents farm, and I was

Mark:

responsible for weeding that patch, and it always scared the crap out of

Mark:

me when I was six and seven years old because it was just full of snakes.

Mark:

And you know, the potatoes are now Ben, the plants bend over and

Mark:

the potatoes grow underground.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

I'm sure you know this how potatoes blossom and then bend over and the

Mark:

plants grow underground and yada yada.

Mark:

You know, like the tubers and that they are Anyway, but that patch

Mark:

was always just full of snakes.

Mark:

But it was my job to hoe and weed it out there and man and drag

Mark:

giant buckets of water from the farmhouse out to that potato plot.

Mark:

But then they would.

Mark:

My, uh, uncle, great-uncle, my great-uncle actually would come through

Mark:

with a tractor and dig it all up and then we would all go out to that plot.

Mark:

Even my great-aunt who looked like Grace Kelly, my, we'd all stand,

Mark:

you have to picture Grace Kelly in a potato plot, and we would.

Mark:

Pick the potatoes out of the soil.

Mark:

I, it was just a thing.

Mark:

You have to picture my great Aunt Ruth with her big giant four carat

Mark:

diamond rings, picking, picking, uh, potatoes out of the soil.

Bruce:

Then you've got the whole picture and the peroxide blonde hair done up.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

Oh, absolutely.

Mark:

That's exact with the, with the, uh, glasses that had the little chippy

Mark:

rhinestones in the points on the end.

Mark:

Out in the potato field.

Mark:

Out in the potato field, absolutely.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

No, we, we didn't have that.

Bruce:

No, we had well done meatloaf and Oh, and overcooked everything, but yeah,

Bruce:

no, that wasn't my, yeah, no, no.

Mark:

Uh, that wasn't my experience at all growing up.

Mark:

My grandparents cooked really well, and they cooked differently.

Mark:

Again, um, a little more high class on my mom's side than my dad's side because

Mark:

of money, just because of having it.

Bruce:

Hey, if you've got stories about your grandparents and food that's

Bruce:

really fun, join us at cooking and Bruce and Mark on Facebook tell us what

Bruce:

your grandparents' food memories are.

Bruce:

We would love to hear about it.

Mark:

Before we get to our next one minute cooking tip segment of this

Mark:

podcast, let me say that we have a newsletter and it is going out again.

Mark:

It would be great if you subscribe to that newsletter.

Mark:

You can do that by going to our website, Bruce and mark.com, or

Mark:

cooking with bruce and mark.com.

Mark:

It all goes to the same place.

Mark:

You'll find there a place to register for the newsletter again.

Mark:

I can't see your, Email and I can't see your name, so I have

Mark:

no way to capture it or sell it.

Mark:

You can be assured that it's private.

Mark:

I locked it from my view, and you can always unsubscribe at any moment

Mark:

at the bottom of any newsletter.

Mark:

We'd love to have you along on that journey, which is separate

Mark:

from this journey on our podcast.

Mark:

So, uh, next our one minute cooking tip.

Bruce:

Boost your spices flavoring power by adding them to a hot pan with

Bruce:

some oil or butter till you fry them.

Bruce:

You sizzle them a little and it brings out their flavor.

Bruce:

If you're sauteing onions or browning meat.

Bruce:

Add them to the pan afterwards, before you add liquid to scrape it up.

Bruce:

That little bit of saute, if your spices will boost their flavoring power.

Mark:

And we're particularly talking here about spices and dried herbs, right?

Mark:

We're not necessarily talking about fresh herbs, not about fresh herbs.

Mark:

Dried.

Mark:

We're talking things in a bottle.

Bruce:

That's right.

Bruce:

Dried things.

Bruce:

Dried coriander.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

cumin cloves, all of that kind of stuff.

Bruce:

Right?

Mark:

Exactly.

Mark:

If you brown something and then you pull it out as Bruce says,

Mark:

and then put the spices in before you add your wine, that just.

Mark:

10 seconds over the heat will absolutely make them all taste much better.

Mark:

Okay, up next Bruce's interview with Carla Saari.

Mark:

She's the author of Abuela's Plant-Based Kitchen.

Bruce:

Today I am really excited to be speaking with Karla Salinari.

Bruce:

She is a certified holistic health coach who inspired by her

Bruce:

upbringing in two culinary worlds, vegetarian and Puerto Rican.

Bruce:

Has just written a fantastic new book, Abuelo's Plant-Based Kitchen

Bruce:

Vegan cuisine, inspired by Latin and Caribbean family recipes.

Bruce:

Welcome Karla.

Karla:

Hi, how are you?

Karla:

Thank you so much for having me, Bruce.

Karla:

It's such a pleasure.

Bruce:

Uh, you write in your book that food was always a place of joy for you,

Bruce:

but being pregnant with your daughter was the start of a new relationship with food.

Bruce:

So tell me about that journey.

Karla:

Yes.

Karla:

So in the Latin community, as I'm sure I share this story with many other cultures,

Karla:

food is what connects us to tradition.

Karla:

Love your family.

Karla:

And growing up in a Puerto Rican household, food was always around, not

Karla:

always the healthiest type of food, but you know, for many people you grow up.

Karla:

With this emotional connection to food, it brings you joy, it brings you comfort.

Karla:

And as an adult, living on my own, not really knowing my way around

Karla:

the kitchen, um, as I do now, I had a very unhealthy relationship with

Karla:

food where I would turn to food when I was sad or when I missed home.

Karla:

And it wasn't until.

Karla:

I was pregnant with my daughter that I decided I really need to take control over

Karla:

my relationship with food, not only for myself, cuz I have to be on this earth

Karla:

for a very long time, but also because I wanted to pave the way for her and teach

Karla:

her different ways so that food didn't become such an emotional thing for her.

Karla:

Even though it is beautiful to have somewhat of an emotional connection,

Karla:

but when it becomes an unhealthy emotional connection, and that's

Karla:

something that I didn't really want.

Karla:

To transfer over to her.

Karla:

I wanted to teach her that it's really important to have a

Karla:

healthy relationship with food.

Bruce:

And was it difficult to build this new relationship

Bruce:

with food within the context of.

Bruce:

This Latin American cuisine, which you just said can often be fairly unhealthy.

Karla:

So I have a very interesting story and probably not one that is

Karla:

very common in the Latin community.

Karla:

So my dad has been vegan since the seventies before veganism, plant-based

Karla:

eating was as popular as it is today.

Karla:

So I have always been around that.

Karla:

World, right?

Karla:

I didn't necessarily care to implement that for myself and for my family, but I

Karla:

definitely wanted to find something that had a bit less rigid structure and was

Karla:

easier for me and my family to follow.

Karla:

So when I decided to go to nutrition school and kind of start my own journey,

Karla:

I did have that foundation from my father.

Karla:

Now, when I was born, I was born vegan.

Karla:

And my pl, my parents split when I was really young.

Karla:

My mom, my mom remarried and I went back to that conventional

Karla:

way of eating slowly on my own.

Karla:

I started to realize, I kind of identify more with the holistic approach that

Karla:

my father introduced me to and not so much to the conventional lifestyle

Karla:

that I was living with my mother.

Karla:

And my stepfather.

Karla:

So it's interesting and I would say shaped me into who I am today and

Karla:

what I promote, because I think a lot of people can identify with my

Karla:

story in the sense that I've had my.

Karla:

Feet in both worlds, and I have chosen to create a blend between the two that

Karla:

is easier to follow and that really does promote health in a healthy way without

Karla:

sacrificing the foods that bring us so much joy, our traditional flavors, which

Karla:

is what brought us to this project.

Karla:

Really.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And your book is full, as you say, healthy, holistic dishes

Bruce:

that are really good for you.

Bruce:

But it's also for people to enjoy classic Latin American conditions.

Bruce:

So it's easy to forget sometimes the healthier aspect when you see

Bruce:

plantain fritters and Mexican corn salad and sweet potato parfait.

Bruce:

So tell me how a dish like sweet potato parfait fits into a healthy diet.

Karla:

Yes.

Karla:

So the idea, the concept behind the sweet potato parfait is to substitute

Karla:

the dairy that traditionally is used to make a parfait.

Karla:

A traditional parfait recipe is usually a mix of a layer of yogurt, a layer of

Karla:

granola and toppings of fruits, right?

Karla:

So what I did is that I replaced the yogurt, which is dairy, and

Karla:

I replaced it with a delicious blend of sweet potato and.

Karla:

Fruit and topped it with some granola.

Karla:

So that's the healthy twist on it.

Karla:

I call this approach, flipping these conventional recipes and turning

Karla:

them into healthier alternatives that are entirely plant-based.

Karla:

And Bruce, it's not about, restricting, is about finding different ways

Karla:

that we can incorporate these fun foods, but making them work for us.

Karla:

And this is a perfect example.

Karla:

Yeah.

Bruce:

You have an eggplant parm recipe in your book.

Bruce:

Yes.

Bruce:

That is just as surprising.

Bruce:

And you say in the head note that you thought eggplant par was

Bruce:

gone from your plant-based diet.

Bruce:

And uh, people have to realize eggplant par has got cheese.

Bruce:

It's also fried and could be greasy.

Bruce:

So, How did you manage to, as you say, flip this classic comfort food from

Bruce:

an oily dairy based dish to something healthier, but still so delicious?

Karla:

So my husband is of bat Italian descent, and eggplant parm is a

Karla:

really popular dish in his family.

Karla:

And Joe, my husband and I worked really hard at recreating this recipe.

Karla:

And in doing so, we realize as long as you are using.

Karla:

Panco, which is a Japanese bread crumb.

Karla:

It's thicker and it's heartier.

Karla:

It's sturdier, and we eliminate the egg.

Karla:

If you use unflavored, unsweetened plant milk, you can use O, you can

Karla:

use almond, you can use rice, and you dip the eggplant in this liquid

Karla:

substance and you bread it using the panko, and then you put it in the oven.

Karla:

You can get that breaded.

Karla:

Texture and, and taste without dipping the eggplant in egg.

Karla:

So, and then we put it in the oven, or we put it in the air fryer.

Karla:

And what you have is these crispy pieces of eggplant that went combined

Karla:

with a homemade marinara sauce, which we also include in the book.

Karla:

And it's my husband's.

Karla:

Family recipe and then we add some tofu, ricotta, cheese whiskey.

Karla:

We added fresh basil and we added all these Italian spices and really gave it

Karla:

that taste and feel of ricotta cheese.

Karla:

I like to call these wow dishes, right?

Karla:

It's like, wow, this is made with no egg and no cheese and it's not

Karla:

fried and it's delicious and it's, you know, something that you can feel

Karla:

comfortable giving to your family, not only on special occasions, right?

Karla:

But any time of the week,

Bruce:

tell me about.

Bruce:

Pickled green bananas.

Bruce:

Uh, and why did you choose bananas for this salad in your book

Bruce:

instead of yucca or plantains?

Karla:

So , which is the recipe that you're referring to, is a very popular

Karla:

and traditional recipe in Puerto Rico, traditionally majoring the holidays.

Karla:

And what it is, it's the smaller, very ripe plantains that are not sweet yet.

Karla:

So they're smaller in size.

Karla:

And when you boil them and you cool them, and then you make

Karla:

what is called an es, which is.

Karla:

It's a pickling sauce and it's made with olive oil and onions.

Karla:

You can use red or white and peppercorns and a citrus.

Karla:

Then you combine all that together, and Bruce, the longer it sits in the

Karla:

refrigerator, the more delicious it is.

Karla:

So not only is this recipe.

Karla:

A really delicious cold salad that you can have during the,

Karla:

the spring and summer months.

Karla:

So it's like a double whammy.

Karla:

It's delicious and it's good for us, and that's what

Bruce:

we want.

Bruce:

Hey, Carla, you combine two of my favorite things in the

Bruce:

world in one dish in your book.

Bruce:

I love Ropa Vieja.

Bruce:

Usually a shredded pulled braised flank steak.

Bruce:

And you combine that with king oyster mushrooms also one of my favorite things.

Bruce:

Tell me about this dish and why it works so well.

Bruce:

Okay,

Karla:

so I was raised by my mom and my stepfather who was Cuban,

Karla:

and I was raised part-time in Miami, part-time in Puerto Rico.

Karla:

So, I was exposed to the Cuban culture very much growing up, and you

Karla:

know, is a traditional Cuban dish, and I wanted to simulate textures.

Karla:

I wanted to find texture of the flank steak, which is traditionally used to make

Karla:

RAB and find a plant-based substitute.

Karla:

And during this time, I was seeing in mainstream media that they were using

Karla:

these king oyster mushrooms or trumpet mushrooms to make pulled pork in

Karla:

barbecue recipes or sloppy jo recipes.

Karla:

And I thought, wait a minute, this could be a delicious substitute for the hi,

Karla:

and sure enough, but I'll teach you.

Karla:

A little trick and a lot of people are turned off by the texture of

Karla:

mushrooms, and the reason for that is because it absorbs a lot of moisture.

Karla:

But yeah, if you shred the mushrooms and you put them in the oven to cook for about

Karla:

15 minutes, you remove the moisture and the shreds of mushroom hold its texture.

Karla:

And you can then incorporate them into this recipe.

Karla:

The rest of the recipe, the rest of the ingredients is how my mother

Karla:

would traditionally make the herba.

Karla:

So there's lots of peppers, lots of onions.

Karla:

There's white wine, there's olives, there's capers, there's

Karla:

tomato, there's oregano, bay leaf.

Karla:

So all the other flavors that come in this dish are infused in the

Karla:

mushrooms, and it works so well.

Karla:

I have to

Bruce:

go back to fritters again.

Bruce:

Corn fritters.

Bruce:

Okay.

Bruce:

Where did the inspiration for the corn fritters come from and how do you

Bruce:

manage to make a fritter that's sweet, crispy and delicious and yet healthy?

Karla:

Okay, so in Puerto Rico we call these, so it's a very easy recipe that

Karla:

many people make at all times of the day because it's also budget friendly.

Karla:

What you do with the corn is that you.

Karla:

Heat it up, and then you turn it into a dough and you can add a tiny bit

Karla:

of brown sugar or coconut palm sugar.

Karla:

And what you do is you mold it into these fritters that you can then add some vegan

Karla:

cheese or completely omit the vegan cheese if you're not into that processed fruit.

Karla:

And what you do is that you can.

Karla:

Either put them in the air fryer or you can fry them in avocado oil or olive oil,

Karla:

and it's a really delicious treat that.

Karla:

Everybody loves.

Karla:

I mean, everybody loves, so it's such a great Puerto Rican staple.

Bruce:

I love that you referred to as a treat because I do think it's important

Bruce:

that some things be treated like they're special and also that it's okay to fry

Bruce:

it in a little bit of healthy oil because even that has a place in a healthy diet.

Karla:

It's important to highlight Bruce that.

Karla:

We don't have to restrict ourselves all the time, and I often promote

Karla:

this and it's if 90% of your meals are made with whole plant-based foods,

Karla:

then you can allow yourself this 10% of, you know, playing in the.

Karla:

In the sandbox, like I call this like my, my play, my playtime, right?

Karla:

And, and, and this is the time that 10% is the time where you can make things like

Karla:

these corn fritters and not feel guilty because you're eating something that

Karla:

brings you joy and that you really enjoy.

Karla:

But you're obviously not going to be frying corn fritters every day

Karla:

of the week, but in moderation, it's a really delicious tree.

Karla:

And you don't have to make it the traditional way, which is with

Karla:

cheese and refined, uh, sugar.

Bruce:

So continuing that theme of something that's a treat, your book

Bruce:

does have some amazing desserts.

Bruce:

So if you had to choose a dessert among your collection that'll

Bruce:

satisfy even the most picky sweet tooth, what would that be?

Karla:

Oh, this is a tough one, Bruce.

Karla:

A tough one.

Karla:

Um, I would say that the coconut flan, which is a coconut custard recipe, is a

Karla:

hit every single time for many reasons.

Karla:

One, because we are not using any cow milk and we're not using any

Karla:

refined sugar or egg, what we're using to give the flung that custard

Karla:

texture, that gelatinous feel.

Karla:

And taste is a gaga, which is derived from seaweed, and it works to give

Karla:

the desserts and the foods that.

Karla:

That consistency without having to add egg to it.

Karla:

And it's just the flavors of the coconut milk and the maple syrup and, and the

Karla:

caramel custard, uh, the caramel sauce that goes over it is really such a

Karla:

delight because a little goes a long way and it satisfies that sweet craving

Karla:

and you don't feel guilty or heavy.

Karla:

After eating it.

Karla:

I would say that that is my favorite recipe and one that I love

Karla:

to in to share with my guests or anybody that triess these recipes.

Karla:

In the end,

Bruce:

I want to ask you something that a lot of people might not

Bruce:

know about and it's coquito.

Bruce:

So in the book you call it Puerto Rican eggnog, and since most non-Latin Americans

Bruce:

don't know about it, tell me about it.

Karla:

Yes.

Karla:

So Coquito is.

Karla:

Best described as Puerto Rican eggnog.

Karla:

So it's a creamy, milky type of drink that is oftentimes served with alcohol, and we

Karla:

consume it during the holidays and it's a.

Karla:

Different countries in Latin and the, in Latin America and the Caribbean

Karla:

share a very, um, similar recipe.

Karla:

So it's interesting.

Karla:

In Cuba they call Itk because it's made with egg yolks.

Karla:

And in Venezuela they call it . So every culture has a different way of

Karla:

making their eggnog in Puerto Rico.

Karla:

We make it with condensed milk, coconut milk, cow milk, and you then add as much

Karla:

or as little rum as you want, and it stays in the refrigerator for as long as

Karla:

it will last during, during the holidays.

Karla:

But for this recipe, I substituted the condensed milk for soaked cashews,

Karla:

which in plant-based and vegan cooking is a really great way to give your

Karla:

dessert or your dishes a creamy consistency without the lactose.

Karla:

So this recipe uses the soaked cashews and coconut milk, coconut

Karla:

cream, and then a non-dairy.

Karla:

Milk, you can use rice or or almond milk.

Karla:

And then it's sweetened with maple syrup because maple syrup gives it

Karla:

that sweet taste and it doesn't spike your blood sugars levels as much.

Karla:

And now, I don't wanna say that my Puerto Rican egg o eggnog is a health food.

Karla:

It's definitely not, especially if you're adding.

Karla:

Two cups of rum like my grandmother used to, and that's

Karla:

what we added to the recipe.

Karla:

But it's a really nice treat, especially for people who are intolerant to lactose.

Karla:

And if you wanted to have that treat without the added artificial

Karla:

ingredients or refined ingredients, this is a really great one.

Bruce:

Well, it goes back to that 10% and, but most of your book is filled with.

Bruce:

Things you can eat every day.

Bruce:

Recipes that are both inspired by your Latin American heritage

Bruce:

and your healthy outlook on food.

Bruce:

Uh, Carlos Aari, your new book, ALA's Plant-Based Kitchen,

Bruce:

full of fantastic recipes.

Bruce:

Thank you so much for sharing them and sharing some insight

Bruce:

with me about it today.

Karla:

Thank you so much for having me.

Karla:

It's been a pleasure, Bruce.

Mark:

It's just part of a trend, this plant-based kitchen stuff, right?

Mark:

I mean, it's like a huge trend and it's a trend that I absolutely approve of.

Mark:

Um, I'm not, oh God, here we go.

Mark:

I'm not giving out my T-bone.

Mark:

But at the same time, I want to cut down on the number of

Mark:

TBOs I eat, to say the least.

Mark:

So it's just a trend that I think that Gen Z and, uh, now they call

Mark:

them early millennials, right?

Mark:

Or youngster, millennials not, yeah.

Mark:

I love that they now say geriatric millennials.

Mark:

If you're 40, you're a geriatric woman.

Mark:

But basically Gen Z and younger millennials are leading this trend, and

Mark:

I, I am so happy to follow them down this trend of more plant-based cooking.

Mark:

I.

Mark:

Absolutely love it.

Mark:

Now, before we get to the last segment of our podcast, let me say that it'd be great

Mark:

if you could subscribe to this podcast, if you could rate it, do all those things.

Mark:

It really helps us out in the end, and it keeps the podcast

Mark:

working because otherwise we are unsupported except by you boys.

Mark:

Unlike a P B S ad, we are unsupported except by you, but we're

Bruce:

not asking you to support us financially.

Bruce:

At least not right now.

Bruce:

We're asking just.

Bruce:

For a good rating would just subscribe and give us a rating and

Bruce:

that's, that's what we're asking for.

Mark:

That would be terrific.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Our final segment as is traditional.

Mark:

What's making us happy in food this week?

Bruce:

Kale Caesar salad.

Bruce:

Oh gosh.

Bruce:

I go through my phases where that's all I want to eat and I make mark

Bruce:

eat kale, Caesar salads every I do.

Bruce:

I love it.

Bruce:

Single day.

Bruce:

So last night, well I, yesterday I was out running errands and I ran by a Whole

Bruce:

Foods and I went in and they had this.

Bruce:

Beautiful red kale and it was tender and it was young looking and I s slivered

Bruce:

it up and I made a Caesar dressing with an egg yolk and good olive oil and

Bruce:

anchovies and garlic and a little Dijon.

Bruce:

And that was the, we had that for dinner last night with some, we did grilled

Bruce:

sockeye salmon, we did ButcherBox.

Bruce:

And boy, that was a nice dinner.

Mark:

And what's making me happy in food this week is something that

Mark:

almost never happens at our house anymore, and used to happen a lot.

Mark:

And that is, we got to eat.

Mark:

Appetizing this week.

Mark:

Now, if you don't know what appetizing is, that means you haven't been around Jewish

Mark:

culture enough, but I'm married into it.

Mark:

Appetizing refers to, uh, what herring smoked salmon whitefish salad,

Mark:

salmon spread salmon salad, bagels.

Mark:

Bagels cream cheese.

Mark:

This is all appetizing.

Mark:

In fact, when I moved in with Bruce years ago in the mid nineties, I heard

Mark:

about this thing called an appetizing store, and I thought, what in the world

Mark:

aren't stores supposed to be appetizing?

Mark:

I mean, what?

Mark:

What does that mean?

Mark:

A food store that's non appetizing?

Mark:

But then I discovered, oh, what you mean is a bagel cream

Mark:

cheese smoked salmon store.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

That's what you mean by, so Bruce was, Teaching knitting in a Boston

Mark:

suburb this last weekend, and as he drove back toward us, you pass

Mark:

a big New York style kosher style.

Mark:

It's not kosher, but rain, kosher style.

Bruce:

R e i n S.

Bruce:

Rains Deli.

Bruce:

Deli and

Mark:

Vernon.

Mark:

In Vernon, Connecticut and he stopped and picked up tons of appetizing, so

Mark:

much that we had herring and smoke.

Mark:

Salmon and white fish salad.

Mark:

And sable.

Mark:

And sable.

Mark:

Oh gosh.

Mark:

You just don't know what it is if you haven't had it.

Mark:

Um, we picked up Sable and we had that for two nights running.

Mark:

It was astounding.

Mark:

Delicious.

Mark:

It was really delicious.

Mark:

They had great pickles.

Mark:

You met.

Mark:

Cucumber salad

Bruce:

and we drank a pet net, an Italian pet net with it, a sparkling wine.

Bruce:

It was a delicious couple of nights.

Bruce:

So that was, that's good thing to make you happy.

Bruce:

It

Mark:

is a good thing.

Mark:

So that's our podcast for this week.

Mark:

Thanks for being on this journey with us.

Mark:

We appreciate your taking the time.

Mark:

To listen to this podcast because there are, after all,

Mark:

so many podcasts out there.

Bruce:

And please go to our Facebook group Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Bruce:

Share your grandmother food memories, what's making you happy with food this

Bruce:

week, and then come back for another episode of 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!