#194: Kim Campbell - Pure Comfort - Exploring the Delicious World of Plant-Based Comfort Food
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Kim and Nelson Campbell of PlantPure Nation
Kim Campbell is the Director of Culinary Education and Development at PlantPure and the daughter-in-law of T. Colin Campbell known, of course, for authoring The China Study and his work in Forks Over Knives.
Together, Kim and her husband Nelson Campbell run PlantPure Nation, where they provide support and resources to help people experience the benefits of a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.
In December 2022, Kim released her latest cookbook, PlantPure Comfort Food, which features over 100 plant-based and mostly gluten-free recipes from cultures and ethnicities across the globe.
These family meals pack the flavor without all of the oils you often see in the traditional recipes and this book proves that the possibilities for healthy, delicious plant-based eating are endless and know no cultural bounds!
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Episode Resources
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Full YouTube Transcript
Rip Esselstyn:
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Kim Campbell:
I picked a mole sauce. I have sushi, I have tacos, arepas, Asian dumplings, poke bowls, falafels, which is street food in Israel. So I was trying to find those foods that different cultures love because, I mean, we are a multitude of cultures here in this country. So I mean, you go to any big city and you can find almost any kind of food from any culture.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to the Plantstrong Podcast. The mission at Plantstrong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your plantstrong journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Hey, everyone. Wow. I am back from a week-long retreat in Black Mountain, North Carolina. We had 86 participants. Man, was this ever epic, epic, epic, epic. My voice is a little shot, so please pardon. Pardon my vocal chords if they're a little bit fried.
Today on the show, we have a member of Whole Food, Plant-Based royalty. This is her first time on the show. Her name is Kim Campbell, and I'm sure that many of you recognize that last name. We'll talk about that in a sec. Kim is the Director of Culinary Education and Development at Plant Pure, and she is the daughter-in-law of the great, from Forks Over Knives and China Study and Whole, T. Colin Campbell.
Together, she and her husband, Nelson Campbell, run Plant Pure Nation, where their work is very similar to the mission of my own family, which is to provide support and resources to help people experience the benefits of a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.
A few months back, Kim released her cookbook, Plant Pure Comfort Food, and what I love about this book is that it's not purely Americanized comfort food. In fact, she made a point of including delicious and interesting foods from all cultures and ethnicities, and you're going to see that reflected in her recipes and many that we talk about today like, get ready because my mouth is already watering, lasagna stew, veggie dumplings, fried rice, burritos, chickpea, tikka masala, nachos, mole enchiladas, pad Thai, mushroom stroganoff, and a lot more than that. Plus, all these family meals packed the flavor that we're all looking for without all the oils that you often see in these traditional recipes.
So often, people assume that whole food, plant-based cooking is going to be boring or tasteless because, surely, you're just going to be cooking the same meals over and over again, but I'm telling you, with Kim's new book, she proves that the possibilities for healthy, delicious, plant-based eating are endless and know no cultural bounds. It's always an absolute delight to speak with someone who is so aligned with similar values as Kim, Nelson, and the entire Campbell family are. So please enjoy my conversation with Kim Campbell.
Well, Kim, really, it's a joy to have you on the Plantstrong podcast. I want you to know that I feel like the Esselstyns and the Campbells are kindred spirits on this plant-based voyage that we've been on, in some cases, your father-in-law and my father since the early 1980s, and it's amazing how it's trickled down into their children and their children's wives, and just the passion that we all have for everything plant-based, which I know you feel in and through your bones.
Kim Campbell:
Yes, most definitely. You come from a big family and Nelson and I do too, so there's a lot of us here, a lot of Campbells.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So Kim, I want to dive into a little bit about your history. You've got a new book that came out December 13th called Plant Pure Comfort Foods. There she blows right there. It is absolutely gorgeous. I haven't had a chance to try anything, but I certainly have looked through and I've got about maybe 15 of these recipes that I have earmarked to make in the not too distant future, and I'm going to ask you about those 15. So get ready.
Kim Campbell:
Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Tell me this. Did you always have a love for the kitchen and food?
Kim Campbell:
I did. I can't lie. I've been interested in cooking since I was a little kid. So when I met Nelson, I was very interested in nutrition, culinary. I wanted to go to culinary school. My father said, "No, you're not going to culinary school. You're going to go to a four-year college." So I decided I was going to major in dietetics, but right around that time when I was looking at colleges and thinking about what I was going to do, I met Nelson, and Colin was doing his research over in China and bringing back the data, and it was very interesting to me. So I already had that love before I met Nelson and I had the love of both nutrition and food, so that was nice.
Then I went to college. I studied nutrition, and I was very disillusioned with what they were teaching in the dietetics program. So I ended up getting my degree in teaching, and we got married after college and I became a middle school teacher. So I developed a lot of patience, I guess you would say, but I feel like I've gone full circle because here I am back in culinary, back in nutrition and teaching, and I love teaching and I love teaching adults, so I feel like this has been a really fun, something that's been fun getting into the middle aged years. I mean, when I was younger, I was teaching and raising kids. So my life was quite different then than it is now.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you mentioned you went to dietetic school. Can you remember specifically what it was or some of the things that you were learning there that just didn't feel right?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. I remember one course, and it was actually at Cornell, and it was in the nutrition program where Colin was teaching, and it was called Maternal Child and Nutrition because women's health has always been something I've been passionate about. They were teaching dairy, dairy, dairy, make sure you get your calcium, make sure you get your protein when you're nursing, when you're pregnant. I just was appalled. Here we were at Cornell and in the nutrition department where Colin worked and that's what they were teaching. So it was very concerning.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, my gosh. That's almost like blasphemous, I mean, especially given what Colin and his findings were around casein, which is the main protein in all dairy products, which he found out to be, what?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah, directly linked to cancer. He was able to, when he did his research in the lab, he was able to turn cancer on and turn cancer off just by giving them casein. So that was really very, very interesting.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, incredibly interesting. When I think about how many Americans today are probably consuming between three to six servings of some sort of dairy product a day and what that's doing to fertilize and nourish dormant cancer cells and tumor and tumors, it's crazy.
Kim Campbell:
Oh, when you think about dairy and what it's for, it's to grow a cow and they grow fast. Same thing with children. Breast milk is for babies, it's not for adults. So to me, it just makes so much sense that we wouldn't be consuming dairy products. So that's one thing that I've always been extremely strict about in this house, especially after the kids were born.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you started falling for Nelson Campbell when you were in high school, is that right?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah, we were 16.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, my God, sweet 16. Have you guys been together the whole time? Have you ever broken up and come back together?
Kim Campbell:
It was somewhat of a tumultuous relationship in college. So yeah, we had our share of ... We broke up, got back together. We did our thing in college a little bit as all people do, but we were best friends, so we always ended up coming back to each other. So we got married when we were 23 right after college.
Rip Esselstyn:
For everybody that's listening and doesn't know, Colin and Karen Campbell have several children and Nelson is the oldest son, correct, Kim?
Kim Campbell:
Yes. He's the oldest of five children.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. So can you remember? What was it about Nelson that caught your eye?
Kim Campbell:
He was really smart. He was very smart. He was very quiet, introverted in high school, and very athletic, but really fun. So behind his quietness was a very fun person. So we did a lot of things outside. He loved to exercise, I did too. I loved his family. I was the youngest of four, and he's the oldest of five. So my parents were empty nesters, his parents were, I feel like, just getting started with the chaos. So I would go over there and I know I fell in love with his family and him together, and his parents are wonderful people. So I've been with them since I was 16. They feel like my own parents. So yeah, I fell in love with the whole package deal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So when you started hearing about Colin's work at Cornell and the fact that he was turning on its head, everything that we thought we knew traditionally about protein, were you like, "Oh, yeah, I mean, this makes sense," or were you like, "Oh, my gosh. I mean, Nelson, your father's cuckoo"? Can you remember how you initially reacted to all that?
Kim Campbell:
Interesting question. I never thought that. I just found his information and the science around it very interesting. It made sense to me that we should be predominantly plant-based. I never thought that. Now, my father, he did. So the interesting story is that my father worked at Cornell as well. He was in the Ag school, and he was teaching. He was in the dairy department. He was teaching people how to work with their cows because he worked for Cooperative Extension.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's crazy.
Kim Campbell:
Yeah, I know, isn't it?
Rip Esselstyn:
I can't even imagine the conversations between Colin and your father.
Kim Campbell:
Well, there weren't many, Rip. There weren't very many. So when he found out I was dating Colin Campbell's son, he said, "Who?" and he said, "Colin Campbell?" So I don't think he was real excited about it. Of course, my father, I talked about this on another podcast, so I love my parents and they're polar opposites, but I think that was really hard for them to ... We were plant-based and having children, and they were coming to our house, and there was no dairy, no cheese, no meat, none of that.
So it was hard for my father. It really was. He wanted me to feed the children milk and pork chops and all the things that I grew up on, and I wasn't about to do that. So we had our moments. It was a little tricky at times, but food was just not something I really talked about a lot with my parents.
Rip Esselstyn:
Where did your mother fit into that equation? Does she defer to your father on all stuff or does it matter?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. My father passed away five years ago. So I always thought when my dad was gone, my mom would maybe try plant-based a little bit more because he was pretty stubborn about food. Although he went plant-based, and I'll talk about that, but he went plant-based the last probably four months of his life. So I thought, "Well, my mom will do it." Well, my mom is 88 now, and she's broken eight bones in the last year, and she will have nothing of a plant-based diet. So I don't really go there too much, but actually, between the two, I think she's more stubborn than he was, but he got colon cancer when he was 80 and decided to go through chemotherapy radiation. He had his colon removed. He did everything. The last four years of his life, he was pretty miserable.
After he tried every treatment in the world practically, he contacted me and he said, "I think I want to try plant-based." At that point, he had suffered so much from the treatment that it was a little bit too late, but it was interesting because I got a chance to work with him, and I felt like the two of us had some peace, which was nice. My mother wasn't on board with it. She just didn't think it was going to help at that point, but yeah, he was open to it, unfortunately, too late. I think a lot of times when people get to that point when there's no other options, that's when they'll consider plant-based. I don't know. I don't the reasoning behind it. It's hard.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, no, listen, I mean, we all know how personal food is and all the traditions around it and all the preconceived notions that we have in our head from all the powerful marketing hype that's out there, but having gone through what you've gone through with your parents, and I'll finish this question, but it just hit me, you said you're one of four, what about your other three siblings? Where are they, on board or not board, with plant-based?
Kim Campbell:
So I have one that's that's interested, and they do it a little bit. I have another one that's very keto. I have a brother who is a crop farmer in upstate New York. So no, none of them are plant-based, but we don't talk about food. We don't let that get into our friendship and our relationship. I know you would've thought by now I would've convinced somebody in my immediate family or my family, but I do have a niece who's plant-based, and I have some nieces and nephews who are very interested in this and who are trying it out.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. Having gone through what you've gone through, what advice would you give to somebody that's out there who's dealing with a family that just doesn't get it, not interested? What do you think?
Kim Campbell:
So I think that you can poke people. I think it's poke them and model and talk about it when you can. Whenever you get that opportunity if they ask a question and you give them a mile long answer, do it, but sometimes I think the more you push and the more you, I don't know, get almost religious about it, I think it turns people off, at least that's the case in my family, but it's not just family, I think just people around you.
I had a situation just recently, not recently, but probably in the last three years. I went to a class and the guy that was teaching the class had had a brain tumor, and it was melanoma. He was telling everybody what he was doing that was really helping, making him feel better. He also said he was on the keto diet and he had lost a lot of weight. I sat there and I thought, "Don't say anything."
So I was with a friend of mine who's plant-based, and she's also a cookbook author here, and I said, "I have to say something," and she said, "No, this isn't a good time. Just wait." So at the end of the class, I was one of those students that hung out until everybody was gone. Then I went up to him afterwards and I told him about the China study and what Nelson and I do. I told him about Forks over Knives and Plant Pure Nation, and he was really interested. He said, "Tell me more."
So I said, "Well, I can get you some resources." So I went home, and the next day, I showed up in the store and I brought all my cookbooks. I brought Collin's book. So the end of the story is that he and his wife weren't fully plant-based, and today, there is no tumor. Gone. So he comes to our pod meetings and he shares his story, and he said that Plant Pure saved his life. I don't mean ... Isn't it interesting that his mind was just so open to this? I poked him a little bit, and I knew that he was interested from the get-go, but what if he wasn't interested? If he wasn't interested, and he just went, "Hmm," I probably would've still dropped off the books. I just think you just have to feel it out, and you know when the curtain is down or the curtain is up.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You can usually sense it and see it. Well, that's really ... Yeah, because I think that I look at the Esselstyn family starting with my parents and then my two brothers and my sister, and then all their children and my family and my children, and there's 20 of us, and every single one of us is just plantstrong as can be. I think on Colin and Karen's side of the family, and I could be wrong, it's maybe very similar.
Kim Campbell:
Very similar, Rip. We go on vacation every year, all of us. I don't even know how many there are. We're in the 20s now because the kids are bringing new people into ... It's funny because the new people coming into the family go plant-based with their spouses, but it's the same thing. We have amazing food. We all try to outdo each other. We get a night and we cook for each other and see who can make the best meal. It's so much fun. So on that side, I would say we're all very plant-based and plant pure and plantstrong and all that good stuff. So yeah, it's exciting, but sometimes I have to just change my brain when I go from one family to the next. I don't know if you have that too. I mean, you have a spouse. Do you have the same situation where you go from one side to the other, it's a little bit different?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes. Unfortunately, both my mother and father-in-laws, they're both dead, but I have her brother and her sister who are very open to it. So that's been good. So when you go on these Campbell vacation retreats, are you cooking a lot? Are you one of many that are cooking? You guys order out?
Kim Campbell:
No, we cook. We cook. So what we do is we pick a night. So Nelson and I have our night, and we cook for 23 people. It's easy because we do our jumpstart. So for us, it's easy doing cooking for lots of people. Then everybody gets a night. Everybody gets a night. It's so fun because the food is amazing. I'll spend all day cooking if it's a Monday night at the beach, if it's my night. I'll spend all day doing it, and same thing with Tom and Leanne and the whole crew. It's a lot of fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
It can be. It definitely can be. So I want to start talking about your cookbook that just came out. This is your third. So the first was Plant Pure Nation. Then you had the Plant Pure kitchen. This one you can see, Plant Pure Comfort Food. So if I'm not mistaken, this was born out of the pandemic, correct?
Kim Campbell:
Yes. You got it. Yup.
Rip Esselstyn:
How's that?
Kim Campbell:
I had a lot of recipes already stored up, and you cook too, so you know. You just keep storing up recipes and ideas. To me, it's never ending because the plant world is never ending. So early in the pandemic, we're all isolated and no more cooking classes. We're not doing any jumpstarts. I said to Nelson, "Let's do cook alongs. Let's do ..." because I did a chibo class, and that was really fun. Chibo is when people pay for the class and they come and they cook with you, and I said, "We can do our own chibo class." So every week, we went live, and I wanted it to be live because I wanted people to see the process from beginning to end. I wanted them to see the mistakes and the changes and just how I cook.
So we started early in the pandemic. Every Thursday night, we went live at 6:30. I would send people the recipe, I would send them all the equipment and tools that they would need, the grocery list, and we cooked together. The cool thing about it was they were my testers. They didn't know it, but they were sending me emails and asking me questions, and that's why the cookbook came about because these recipes were so fine tuned.
At the end of the year, we did 50 some shows, I said, "I have a cookbook. I have to publish this cookbook." So I contacted BenBella, shared with him my ideas and what the theme was, and they were really excited about it. Then we spent the next year working on photography and getting it ready for a book.
Rip Esselstyn:
BenBella, that's your publisher. You guys, I mean, BenBella, they hit the lottery with the China study, and since the China study, have they been the publisher of every followup book, cookbook that everybody in the Campbell household has done?
Kim Campbell:
Yes. I think all of Leanne's books were done through BenBella. All three of my books were done through BenBella, and everything Colin has done has been through BenBella. So they've been very good to us. I thought about self-publishing. I thought about it for a week. I said, "No, I'm not going to do that." I like cooking and I like the education part more than I like editing. I'm not very tech savvy, I guess.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what's interesting to me is that you talked about how you and Campbell, I'm sorry, you and Nelson during the pandemic, this allowed you to spend more time together in the kitchen and in many ways just even bring you closer than you already are.
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. Nelson and I always went out to eat every week. That was our fun. We'd go out and pick a restaurant in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. There's lots of great restaurants that have vegan dishes, but when the pandemic hit, we didn't go out anymore. So we cooked. We started cooking together. Actually, Nelson's a very good cook. I do most of the cooking, but he's pretty creative in the kitchen.
So the two of us got together, and that was our fun time, our romantic time, light a candle, play some music, and that was our going out. Now, we don't go out as much because it's expensive. It's oily, right? It's salty and oily and sweet. So we stopped doing that, and now we pretty much cook in all the time.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So do you have a ... In Plant Pure Comfort Food, which I got to tell you, in looking through these recipes, every one of them spoke to me in that comfortable way, but did you have a culinary philosophy around this book when it comes to number of ingredients or what ingredients you're using or not using?
Kim Campbell:
So first of all, we don't use oil just like you guys. We don't have oil bottles in our house because you don't need them. You just really don't need them to develop flavor. So I don't use any oil in the cookbooks. There is a dessert section, so I can't say I don't use sugar and sweeteners, but for most of the recipes I don't. I use salts, but in a minimal way, and people can always salt to taste. If they don't want to use salt, they don't have to. So you could do SOS-free, but we don't do that in our books. We're oil-free.
I also made this book predominantly gluten-free, and it was because most people that are walking into plant-based want gluten-free anymore for all kinds of reasons. So I tried to go there as well. I tried to pick foods that were ... and this is my philosophy. I think going back to dishes that are more traditional, and that's where the name comfort food comes from, but what I did is I went to other cultures.
So instead of just all-American lasagna and meatballs and things like that, veggie meatballs, I went to other cultures. So I made the muhammara recipe, which is Syrian-based, but it's also a very traditional and typical dish in their culture. I picked a mole sauce. I have sushi, I have tacos, arepas, Asian dumplings, poke bowls, falafels, which is street food in Israel. So I was trying to find those foods that different cultures love because, I mean, we are a multitude of cultures here in this country. So I mean, you go to any big city and you can find almost any kind of food from any culture.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I'm going to just dive into your book here a little bit. I've got a bunch of recipes earmarked. So I'm going to start with this one and then say whatever you want about it. So this one, your lemon poppy seed pancakes, just immediately, immediately spoke to me. This Sunday, I will be making these. Every Sunday I make pancakes for my family or waffles.
Kim Campbell:
Same, Rip. We do the same thing. The Campbells have pancake dinner or pancake breakfast every Sunday.
Rip Esselstyn:
I love it. So anything I should know as I'm making this lemon poppy seed pancake recipe?
Kim Campbell:
What page are you on?
Rip Esselstyn:
That is page 39.
Kim Campbell:
39. I just have to look at it. I believe it has the Japanese sweet potatoes in it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really?
Kim Campbell:
Yes, Japanese sweet potatoes. I had to double check because there's another waffle recipe that uses sweet potatoes. I love Japanese sweet potatoes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Those are the white ones, right?
Kim Campbell:
Those are the white ones. So they're like reddish purplish on the outside, and you open them up and they're white on the inside and they're sweet, but they're not as sweet as a sweet potato or a yam, but they're definitely not a white potato. So I love to play around with those. They're hard to find, so you often have to go to Whole Foods or an Asian market. They have them in our co-op, our local co-op. Then I wanted to blend some grains for this. So this one has quinoa, which it's essentially a seed. Some people love it because it's high in protein. It's the complete protein, not that that matters, but-
Rip Esselstyn:
No, especially considering who I'm talking to here.
Kim Campbell:
Sometimes you have to say to people, "Oh, it has a lot of protein in it." Everything has protein in it, but you can throw that at them. It has oats, and I grind them up like a flour, and then I use lemon and poppy seeds. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. Do it in your Vitamix too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, do the whole thing in the Vitamix?
Kim Campbell:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, I love it. Yeah, that makes it really easy. No, the whole complete protein thing, it's like ... Oh, gosh, it's so annoying, but-
Kim Campbell:
It's really annoying. Sorry.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. The potato, it's a complete protein. The poppy seed, it's a complete protein. It's all complete. So the next thing I want to talk to you about because I've never heard of this before, and I'm like, "Okay, I got to do this." It's page 60. It is your lasagna stew. Here you go. I mean, I never in the world would've thought of a lasagna stew, and I got to have it because I love hearty, meaty lasagna noodles.
Kim Campbell:
Yes, I love that. This is actually one of my favorite recipes in the book. I did develop this recipe, but I'm going to tell you I cheated a little bit because I look at magazines and I look at traditional recipes, and I say, "Okay. How can I make this plant-based?" So when I saw it ... We were on vacation, and I saw this magazine, and it had lasagna stew, I said, "I have to make this." So I went down through all the ingredients and substituted plant-based. I used red lentils in it, which red lentils, when they cook, they pop and they make it really creamy. I have fennel seeds in it, which gives it that sausagey flavor because the original recipe called for sausage. Then you can make ricotta cheese out tofu and plop that on top of it. It's amazing. It's even better the next day because it sits and it gets even thicker, and you feel like you're eating leftover lasagna.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. I am officially have drool coming down the right side of my face. So you have a whole bread section. I love breads, but this one right here on page 78, this chocolate zucchini bread right here, I mean, chocolate, zucchini, and bread, that combination, I'm like ... I just can't imagine how moist and delicious that is.
Kim Campbell:
It is. It's like eating a brownie, and I don't know ... I'm not sure if that one is gluten-free or not, Rip. I'm looking at it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, it's all right. It's all right. I don't pay attention to that.
Kim Campbell:
This uses white whole wheat flour, but it has chocolate chips in it and applesauce, so it's a good one. I feel like it's a loaf of brownie.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right. Next one up, page 99. You've got walnut pesto burgers.
Kim Campbell:
Oh, that's a good one.
Rip Esselstyn:
I have to tell you, what I love doing with walnuts and making walnut tacos out of walnut meat, but this, I cannot wait to make it.
Kim Campbell:
I use lentils and I feel like that creates a really nice veggie burger, but I grow my own basil, so we always have tons of basil. So in the summertime, I need something to do with it. So that's where that recipe came from.
Rip Esselstyn:
What kind of lentils do you use there?
Kim Campbell:
I just use regular lentils, regular French lentils or brown lentils.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, you don't have a photo for this one, but this one ... I love dumplings. You have these vegan Chinese style dumplings that I am enamored with.
Kim Campbell:
So you can just buy the dumpling wrappers, and that is made with white flour, I will say that, but I make my own dumpling wrappers and I use whole wheat flour. I just did a show on that, but they're great. We do those at Christmas time. That's for more of the adventurous cook because it takes just a little more time and they're a little bit more fussy, but you have to throw those recipes in there because some people love to hang out in their kitchen and be fussy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah. I mean, every Christmas, my wife makes pierogies cheese. Her family is polish, and so it's a Polish tradition to do pierogies. So I get that. All right. On page 116, you have got loaded nachos with barbecue jackfruit. Nachos, I do so miss fully loaded nachos with all the works, and so this definitely spoke to me.
Kim Campbell:
When I do nachos, I use my own tortillas or corn tortillas and I bake them. You probably do too. You don't have to use the ones out of the bag that have oil in them.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. Well, that's one of the things that really caught me about that one is they looked like they were homemade, not the store-bought ones. I absolutely love, adore Thai food. I really can't get enough of it. You have a Thai fried rice on page 145. What are your thoughts on this recipe? Anything I should know about?
Kim Campbell:
I think that if you have leftover rice, you need to make fried rice, but don't use the oil. You don't need to, but I think that it's great when you have leftover rice and you have some vegetables, peas, and onions, and peppers, and you can throw it all together. This one, what I did was I really built up on the flavor because fried rice is boring. It's good, but it's boring, but Thai fried rice, it's spicy, it's got a little bit of a limey flavor. It's got cilantro and peanuts. So I just had to put my flip. I love fusing different cultures too. Thai tacos, for example, things like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
You mentioned earlier that you don't use oil. Obviously, we don't use oil either. What are some tricks and different things that you use to impart flavor in food if you're not using oil?
Kim Campbell:
So I use nuts and seeds, but I use them ... For example, some people make a cheese sauce and they'll throw in a cup or two of cashews. You don't need to use two cups. First of all, it's expensive. It's a lot of cashews, but you can make a really nice cheese sauce from three quarters of a cup of cashews or you can pull it back a little bit more, and then I use cornstarch because one of the reasons that people like to use excessive amounts of cashews is because they're getting that thickener. You don't really need to get that from the nuts. You get just enough fat that helps it to build flavor, it's healthy, and then you go over it and you don't really need it.
So I'm real careful about using not too much, but enough. So I use that. I use parchment paper so I don't have to spray pans. If something calls for oil, I might use applesauce if I'm baking or a banana. I use an avocado if it's something chocolatey. I think there's a brownie recipe in here where I use avocados. So there are great substitutions that are naturally high in fat, but you can use them in a way where you're not using excessive amounts of them, so that makes sense.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. So you know I live in Austin, Texas. We got a lot of great TexMex restaurants here, and there's one in particular when we go, they totally take care of us with the whole food, plant-based minimal to no added oil. You've got an enchiladas with a mole sauce here. I mean, oh, my gosh. So tell people, what exactly is a mole sauce and why do they want to try this recipe?
Kim Campbell:
So a mole sauce is a deeper, darker, richer flavor than an enchilada sauce. They tend to use cocoa powder and they tend to use lots of different kinds of peppers, and they cook it for a long time and they puree it. It's quite the process. Go on YouTube, look at how they make mole sauce in Mexico. It's a lot of work. This one is just I use cocoa powder, I use peanut butter, just a little bit to give it that depth of flavor, and then I use-
Rip Esselstyn:
The cocoa because to me it's like chocolate, right?
Kim Campbell:
Yes. It's very rich, and we use that. We did an immersion recently in Greensboro, and that was one of the recipes. They couldn't believe that you could just throw everything in a blender and blend it and you get a mole sauce. Now, I'm sure it's not the same as the mole sauce that you originally see in Mexico, but it's good enough.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So if I wanted to make that one, would that ... Let's see. That'd take me about ... Prep time 30 minutes, cook time 40. Okay. Good. So I ... Go ahead.
Kim Campbell:
I just never know how to put those prep time, cook times. I'm pretty fast in the kitchen, but none of these recipes take that long, Rip. I just don't spend hours in the kitchen, but go ahead.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I am a huge fan of mushroom dishes, and you've got a one pot mushroom stroganoff, but then right near it, you have a smokey mushroom boscaiola, if I'm pronouncing it.
Kim Campbell:
It's boscaiola.
Rip Esselstyn:
I was so close. I wasn't even in the same zip code. That was ugly. So if I wanted to make one of the two, which would you recommend?
Kim Campbell:
Okay. You know what? It really depends because the boscaiola, it's more of a cheesy, creamy smokey dish. Think of almost like an Alfredo. It's more of an Alfredo, and it's smokey, and it's rich. It has lots of mushrooms, and the-
Rip Esselstyn:
The stroganoff.
Kim Campbell:
Stroganoff, sorry, that's a little bit more zippy. It's got some Worcestershire. Well, the other one has Worcestershire sauce in it too. It's just, to me, it's not as rich. It's not as creamy, and it's got a little bit more of a zippy, I don't want to say citrusy, but more of a vinegary tone to it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, it definitely looks a lot thinner, for sure, that boscaiola. Is that it? Say it again.
Kim Campbell:
Boscaiola.
Rip Esselstyn:
Boscaiola.
Kim Campbell:
That probably is wrong, but it's more like an Alfredo, a mushroom Alfredo.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So Kim, one of the plant-based vegetables that I can't stand is eggplant. So do you have an eggplant dish here that might turn me to the good side with eggplants?
Kim Campbell:
I think we're kindred spirits there because I'm not an eggplant fan. So I have a recipe for eggplant parm, and I think it's in the Plant Pure Nation Cookbook, the very first one, because when I make eggplant, I really camouflage it. I bread it. I dip it in flour and dip it in plant-based milk and breadcrumbs and I bake it. Part of the problem is eggplants make my mouth itch. So I think I got a little bit of an allergy to it, but there's another one, Baba ghanoush, which is in the first cookbook, and I use eggplant for that. Then there's an eggplant caponata, which in this book, Plant Pure Comfort, it's an Italian dish, and it's like an eggplant warm relish that you put on top of bread. So that's more of an appetizer. So that's it for eggplant.
Rip Esselstyn:
Great. Well, hey, you speak to me with that. Well, I'm jumping to the dessert section right now. You start out, I think appropriately, with a Boston cream pie because that's one of the ways you won over Nelson, if I'm not mistaken.
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. So when I was in high school, because I couldn't go to culinary school, my father wouldn't let me, I always tell people, "My dad wouldn't let me go do that," I took every single culinary class that was offered at the school just for fun. Some kids went to study hall, I went to culinary. So we made a Boston cream pie, a traditional Boston cream pie with the eggs and the custard and all of it, and I made it, and I happen to be sitting next to Nelson in chemistry class, and I had all this leftover Boston cream pie. We weren't dating, but I asked him if he wanted some, and he loved it. So I thought, "Aha! I'll make more." So every time something special came around, I made him a Boston cream pie, and his mother used to say, "I knew you were trying to get him with that Boston cream pie because he was always bringing home a pie and shoving it in the back of the refrigerator."
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right, so his siblings couldn't find it.
Kim Campbell:
Exactly. Exactly.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. All right. So another one that really caught my eye is key lime avocado pie. What is that on a scale of one to 10? Is that a 10?
Kim Campbell:
That's a 10. It's a 10. Well, I like really-
Rip Esselstyn:
Here you go.
Kim Campbell:
I like sour. It's not sour, it's sweet, but I like that citrusy dessert. It's very fresh. It feels summery. It has lime and avocados in it. It's great.
Rip Esselstyn:
In a lot of these pies, you use, what, dates and walnuts and oats as the crust?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. I feel like to me, that's the base for almost all my pies. There's a sweet potato chocolate pie in here that I use the same kind of crust on that. You don't even need to use a crust if you don't want to. You can just put them in little mini muffins and have it without the crust if you want to make it easy.
Rip Esselstyn:
then you've also got on the next page, you have these crazy looking lemon bars that I know my wife would go nuts over. She loves anything lemon.
Kim Campbell:
Those are those Japanese sweet potatoes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Then here's where you got me. I mean, peanut butter cup bars.
Kim Campbell:
That's a Campbell recipe. My mother-in-law made those for her boys all the time. So Leanne put her rendition of it in her cookbook, and I put my rendition of it in my cookbook, but it's really a Karen Campbell recipe. I'm going to give her credit for that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, this, incredible. So tell me this. You've been cooking now for plant-based how many years?
Kim Campbell:
I've been cooking this way for probably over 35 years. I started cooking plant-based in college mostly, and then when we got married mostly. We weren't perfect. I tell people this. Nelson and I thought we were perfect. We thought we were eating plant-based, we're vegan, but I still had, before the kids were born, I still had that little block of cheese in the back, and he used to say to me, "Why do you need that?" I said, "Well, I just want to put a little bit on top of the casserole just to round it out."
So then I got pregnant for my first child, and I just got rid of it completely, stopped. Those were in the days ... That was in the '80s and '90s. She was born in '91. Those were in the days when they didn't have a plant-based cheese out there if you wanted to garnish with it. There weren't even plant-based milks that were very easy to get and they weren't very good. It was rice milk and some soy milk that was available, but they weren't very good. So we didn't have the resources.
In a way, that was a blessing because you learn how to cook with whole foods because you don't have all those processed vegan products, not that I buy a lot of them, but we didn't even have that option. So I think when I say that we were not perfect, I think that's why because I was cheating with real cheddar until ... It took me getting pregnant to say, "I think we're going to not do this anymore."
Rip Esselstyn:
Is there anything in the kitchen, and either an ingredient or something that you've been working with lately that you're super jazzed and excited about? For context, I'll call my mother up and she'll be like, "Oh, my God, Rip. I just found this lentil or this leafy green that I'd never heard of before," and she just freaks out.
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. So one of the things I really like, and I don't know if you know about soy curls. I love soy curls.
Rip Esselstyn:
Butler soy curls, I saw them in the-
Kim Campbell:
Butler soy curls, it's sold by Butler Foods. It's made with 100% soybeans. It's all non-GMO. It's organic. It's not highly processed. I love to show people these when they're first going plant-based because they're chewy. Have you had them before?
Rip Esselstyn:
I have. I have, not in a long time, but actually, you've inspired me to try them again.
Kim Campbell:
I mean, we don't need a lot of them, but I love to show them to people because they're really a nice option for people who have a spouse who doesn't want to go plant-based but they really want that texture and that chewiness. For me personally, the thing that I am playing around with a little bit is mushrooms. So many mushrooms out there, and I'm trying to find chicken of the woods, chicken of the woods. I've heard it's very meaty and it has that texture, very similar, but I like oyster mushrooms. I love oyster mushrooms. King oyster mushrooms are a lot of fun. There's so many mushrooms out there, and there's so good for us. I think the more we more we play around with mushrooms, the more we're going to see supermarkets purchasing them. Nelson just grew some mush. He grew some oyster mushrooms here over Christmas. It was really fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, mushrooms are the rage, no doubt about it. Probably a year and a half ago, I had ... Do you know the Sarnos, Derek and Chad Sarno? Anyway, they're both just wild and crazy about mushrooms, and I think Derek is going to turn into a mushroom. He's so excited about them.
Kim Campbell:
See? So he inspired me with that chicken of the woods, hand of the woods or whatever it's called. I watched one of his videos because, yes, he is a mushroom nut.
Rip Esselstyn:
He truly is. So Kim, you grew up, as you said, I think you had three kids. Tell me about their challenges growing up with this lifestyle or did you not have any?
Kim Campbell:
Oh, we had challenges. I can't lie, but you know what? They all are really good eaters. They were all open to plant-based and that's all they knew. I mean, that's all we ever cooked. So the challenge was when they went someplace else. So when they were at school and they were sitting in the cafeteria, especially the middle one, and friends had hamburgers and French fries for those healthy lunches that they serve in public schools, he'd trade out my lunches. I said, "Colin ..." His name is Colin. I said, "What are you doing?" I couldn't control that, and I knew I couldn't.
I think when the kids didn't feel good because they were at a birthday party or a sleepover and they would binge on ice cream and pizza and came home and they were sick, that's when they really learned that this was not what they were going to do. So all three of them are plant-based. I think that's one of the gifts we gave our kids that is really good. I mean, they just embraced it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Are they out of the home now? What are their ages?
Kim Campbell:
Yes. My oldest is 32, and then I have a middle, he is 29. I'm thinking because they have birthdays tomorrow, 32, 29, and then the youngest, she's 26. She'll be 26 next week, and they're all plant-based. Two of them are, well, one of them is married and her husband's plant-based now. He had some digestive issues and it really helped him a lot. So he's pretty strict with plant-based. My son just met a woman who's vegan. I'm so happy. So yeah, that's where they're at.
Rip Esselstyn:
How thrilled was Colin, meaning your father-in-law, that you guys named your son Colin?
Kim Campbell:
Our family gets confusing. We have two Nelsons in the family. We have two Collins. Nelson's first name is Tom. Ugh. Yeah, no, he was very excited about it. We made that decision last minute.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. That's really nice. Tell me, so you are Director of Culinary. You're the Director of Culinary Education and Development at Plant Pure. Tell me, what are some of the things that you've been working on there besides putting out another cookbook because I know you guys have a frozen line that I've actually purchased at Central Market here in Austin, Texas, and then you also have these dry starter kits for the immersions.
Kim Campbell:
Right. I'm sorry. We had colds. Yes. So I've been working on a dry line, and the dry line, what I wanted it to do was to be a supplement. It's a sauce line where it could supplement people's cooking. I'll just go through them real quickly. I've created a cheese sauce, an enchilada sauce, a peanut sauce, a coconut curry sauce. I have a veggie burger where you just add boiling water and just let it sit, and I'm really pleased with how that came out. I have-
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the flavor of that? What's the flavor profile of that one?
Kim Campbell:
It's got a lot of tomatoey edge to it. It's got lentils in it. No, I had to take the lentils out. They were expensive. It's got bulgur in it. Well, you know because you've developed food.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, I get it. I get it. So do you have oats? Is oats the base of it?
Kim Campbell:
Oats, and then it has pearl couscous in it. So it's interesting. It gives it that ... So when you bite into it, it gives it that meaty, holds it together. It's really nice. I love this veggie burger mix. It's one of my favorites.
So the goal was to create recipes around these packs. So that's what I've been doing. This cookbook is kind of history because I've been doing other things. So with the enchilada sauce, we're going to have a taco soup recipe that they can make with it. I have a gravy. With the gravy you can make stroganoffs, and not just gravy, but other stroganoffs. I'm trying to think, Rip. There were so many. There's 50 recipes that you can make with these ... The veggie burger, you can make a veggie loaf, and that was really good.
I mean, there's so many ways you could go with this, and I love to cook, but I'm using these packs all the time and supplementing. So hopefully, people, if they just have four or five ingredients, they can make something brand new with these packs, but the limitations around developing, you know this, there's certain foods you can't use, and there's certain things that you have to include. So it's been a trick.
Rip Esselstyn:
So how can somebody gain access to these sauces?
Kim Campbell:
So we were hoping that these would be available some time in March. Right now, we're working with a co-packer and we're working on packaging. So hopefully, Nelson's doing a new film called From Food to Freedom, so we were hoping when that film came out, we would also have these meal packs because we use a lot of these recipes in our immersion, which, really, From Food to Freedom tells the story of what happened in our immersion. Whole another story, whole another story.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I think that the title gives it away a little bit because, I mean, basically, the food gives you the freedom that many people don't have.
Kim Campbell:
Absolutely. We took these people, and that's where I feel like we have a little bit of a kinship because you work with people in the firefighters. When we worked with mainstream folks and we put them on a plant-based diet, and I had the pleasure, and it really was a pleasure of feeding them three meals a day, and they had to live with us. So you have to watch the movie to see the story, but-
Rip Esselstyn:
I can't wait. So you're thinking March that'll come out?
Kim Campbell:
Yes, comes out in March.
Rip Esselstyn:
From Food to Freedom.
Kim Campbell:
Food to Freedom. That is the truth.
Rip Esselstyn:
So tell me, are you also the developer of the Plant Pure frozen line that's in grocery stores?
Kim Campbell:
Yeah. So I had my hand in that a lot too. So I'm not the only one there. We've had some other chefs that were involved in that as well, but yeah, I had my hand in that. Of course, that's another ... When you're developing food for the frozen line, that's a whole another category of creativity. It's hard. It's hard.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes, it is. I can't even imagine all the hurdles and the challenges that you guys had launching that line. Wow.
Kim Campbell:
I think if we knew what we know now, maybe we never would've gotten into it. Everybody says that, right? If you knew what you knew now, you probably never would've done it. I'm so glad we did because we wanted to provide food and resources for people, but we had no idea what we were getting into. Food industry is tough business.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and it's gotten even tougher since the pandemic.
Kim Campbell:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Truly has. All the supply chain issues, inflation, rising costs, yeah, it's brutal. Truly brutal. Before I let you go, top five kitchen must-haves if you want to make your plant-based lifestyle sing in your opinion, like a blender, a cutting board, a sharp knife, what do you think?
Kim Campbell:
Knife, first of all.
Rip Esselstyn:
Knife, yeah.
Kim Campbell:
Okay. So in my kitchen, when my kids set up their kitchens ... I just came all the way back from Washington this morning and I was setting up my daughter's kitchen because she just moved there, and I said, "Where is your food processor? You have to have a food processor." So she did have it, and I was afraid that she didn't bring it, but a food processor, a Vitamix or a NutriBullet, and people get really intimidated by the whole blender thing. So if you can't afford a Vitamix or a Blendtec, and I know those are very expensive, go out and get a NutriBullet because they are great little machines. They will pulverize everything.
So I would say a really good blender and a food processor. I'm trying to think of what else I have. I have an air fryer, but I don't think that ... I have the Bravo, which is really nice because we make French fries. I air fry a lot of things in it. Those are my three favorite things, and having really good knives. After we get off, I'll say, "Oh, why didn't I say that?"
Rip Esselstyn:
What about when it comes to ... What do you use for a skillet or a pan for your pancakes and everything like that?
Kim Campbell:
For years and years, I just use stainless steel, but I got my daughter the Scanpan. She loves that pan. It's a non-stick. She loves that pan. I use ceramic, enamel-coated pans. I mean, I don't know, I don't really have a favorite pan. Honestly, I don't have a lot of problem with sticking because I use veg broth and water to deglaze my pans. So I think people just need to find out what works for them and what they're comfortable with because there's a lot of pans that have a lot of junk on them, and things stick and you're pulling them off and part of the pan comes off and you're eating that. So I think people need to be really conscious of getting those pans that are non-stick. They're scary to me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, sounds like you and Nelson have your hands full right now.
Kim Campbell:
Yes, we do. Yes, we do, but we love what we do. We're passionate about this, and it's just been a fun ride together, and there's been some bumps in the road, but I wouldn't do it any differently.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Beautiful. So again, Plant Pure Comfort Food. One of the things you say in this is, "I am thrilled and honored to share another cookbook full of plant-based recipes to delight your taste buds and warm your soul." I think you've done just that with this book. So huge congrats, Kim, on the third book, on the new documentary that you guys are doing, the immersions you're working on, the sauces. Wow. You guys are making plant-based hum.
Kim Campbell:
Thank you, Rip. Thank you. We really appreciate that. That means a lot.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and where can people find you if they want to connect?
Kim Campbell:
I'm on Instagram. We have Plant Pure Nation on Instagram and I'm the one behind that. I'm Plant Pure Chef. I'm behind that too. That was my personal account. I started that. Plant Pure Nation on Facebook, and then you can go to plantpurenation.com.
Rip Esselstyn:
Beautiful. Well, Kim, keep it plantstrong. I know you will, and here's the Plant Pure boop.
Kim Campbell:
Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
Plantpurenation.com is the home base for all the resources that we discussed today, including Kim's latest book, Plant Pure Comfort Foods, their latest documentary and their classes and meal starter kits. So whether you're craving Mexican, Thai or even a little Italiano food tonight, know that, yes, it can be delicious, healthy, plant pure, and always plantstrong. I'll see you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Plantstrong podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
The Plantstrong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous true seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth, most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
