#242: Plant-Based and Less Waste - Carleigh Bodrug's Adventures in Scrappy Cooking
Learn more about Carleigh Bodrug
We all know that eating more plants is incredibly powerful not only our health, but the planet.
A shocking 30 to 40 percent of the entire United States' food supply ends up in landfills, much of which stems from household waste. As you may have guessed, food waste is not a great thing for our environmental impact and, obviously, our wallets.
That’s why we’re excited to share that one of the most anticipated cookbooks of 2024 is finally here - and it’s entirely PLANT-BASED and ZERO-WASTE.
Meet PlantYou: Scrappy Cooking by our plantstrong pal, New York Times bestselling author and social media sensation Carleigh Bodrug, back for her third appearance on the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Scrappy Cooking, shares how we can extend the life of some of our favorite foods, and turn some of these foods into the most mouth-water meals you can imagine! There’s even a “Got this? Make That!” section where she recommends recipes based on what you have in your kitchen. So, no longer do you have to stare at the ripened banana and go, “I guess I’ll toss it!” Nope. Just open the book and go to town on some fantastic recipes.
PlantYou: Scrappy Cooking isn't a book of low-waste hacks you leaf through occasionally. Instead, Scrappy is a full-scale cookbook loaded with over 150+ new recipes that show you how to make the most of the food you already have in your fridge or pantry while eating healthier, saving money, and reducing food waste. Every recipe in the book is vegan, almost entirely oil-free, and focuses on whole, plant-based foods, and you'll find a signature infographic marking all the ingredients you need.
Save money, reduce waste, eat healthier than ever before with Plant You: Scrappy Cooking.
Episode Highlights
0:43 LIVE Plant-Stock 2024 Weekend Announcement!
2:45 Eliminating Food Waste with Scrappy Cooking
5:16 Catching Up with Carleigh Bodrug
6:17 Overcoming Her Personal Challenges and Promoting the Book
9:59 Behind-the-Scenes of Book Cover Photoshoot
16:27 Preventing Food Waste: Carleigh’s Meal Planning Tips
24:05 Addressing Food Storage, Best Before Dates, and Plastic Use
35:08 Utilizing Imperfect Produce - Don’t Just Toss It!
38:57 "You Got This? Make That!" Creative Recipe Solutions
39:38 Transforming Stale Bread into Breakfast Casserole
40:33 Indulging in Death by Chocolate Flapjacks
42:19 Making Use of Wilted Greens
43:46 Carleigh’s Tasty Veggie Creations
53:37 Energizing Vegan Ground Beef
55:03 Oil-Free Versatility
56:08 Zero Waste Kitchen Hacks
1:00:28 More Mouth Watering Recipes a Call to Action
About Carleigh Bodrug
With more than 7 million followers between her social channels, Carleigh Bodrug of PlantYou is a New York Times Bestselling cookbook author and self taught plant-based content creator, famous for her simple take on low waste and vegan recipes.
She has been featured in the Rachael Ray Show, Good Morning America, Business Insider and KTLA news for her “scrappy cooking” and viral vegan creations. Along with producing weekly cooking videos and recipes, Carleigh also runs a meal planner app, all with the goal of helping people eat more plants in an easy and approachable way.
Pre-order PlantYou Scrappy Cooking - https://scrappycookbook.com/
Carleigh’s website - https://plantyou.com/
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Full Transcription via AI Transcription Service
[0:00] I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Okay, my PLANTSTRONG cousins, who isn't looking for ways to save money, reduce waste, and eat healthier than ever before?
Today, we're going to learn how, as we celebrate the release of PlantYou Scrappy Cooking by one of our favorite plant-based chefs, Carleigh Bodrug.
The book comes out on April 2nd, but I want to encourage you to pre-order your copy today.
Together, let's do everything we can to help make this book a New York Times bestseller.
[0:43] Now, we'll dig into the delicious recipes and money-saving tips right after this message from PLANTSTRONG.
[0:53] Thanks, everyone, for tuning in today. I have an important save the date that I want to share with you.
This has been several years coming, but our in-person Plant-Stock Weekend event is back this summer, and it's going to take place in the gorgeous Black Mountain, North Carolina.
This exclusive weekend is going to give you the chance to connect and collaborate with with all the best in the PLANTSTRONG community while enjoying delicious meals.
[1:31] World-class lectures, cooking demonstrations, and all kinds of outdoor activities.
The date that I want you to circle on your calendar is August 16th to the 18th, and be sure to be on the lookout for when we announce registration.
We're going to have a limited number of in-person tickets available, and I have a feeling that they're going to go super quickly.
My guest today is the one and only Carleigh Bodrug.
She is one of the headliners of Plant-Stock this year.
We can't wait to spend the weekend with her and all the other Broc stars, and I hope that you'll be able to join us as well.
Remember, Remember, the dates are August 16th to the 18th.
Now, if you're not already subscribed to our emails, go to plantstrong.com.
And then I want you to scroll all the way down to the bottom.
And then you can enter your email address.
So you'll be sure to get every insider message that we send out.
[2:39] Thanks. She's back for her third appearance on the PLANTSTRONG podcast.
[2:45] That's right. It's the incomparable Carleigh Bodrog, who is here to dispense valuable tips and tricks to eliminate food waste and save you time and money in the kitchen with her new book, Scrappy Cooking.
I was not aware that almost 40% of the food that we buy goes to waste.
Waste even in restaurants and grocery stores there is this huge tremendous amount of food waste which as you're going to hear about is not good for the environment and i'm as guilty as the next person for buying all kinds of different produce only to watch it begin to spoil before we've had a time to eat it i mean how many of us have bought that bag of spinach only to watch it wilt and get it's slimy before our very eyes.
[3:40] Scrappy cooking shares how we can extend the life of some of our favorite foods, but also turn some of these foods into the most mouth-watering meals that you could imagine.
That's one of the best things about this book. There's even a have this, make that section where Carleigh recommends recipes based on what you have in the kitchen.
So for example, you no longer have to stare at that over-ripened banana and go, I guess I'm just going to have to toss it.
No, just open the book and go to town on some fantastic recipes.
Here's the thing. Eliminating food waste does lead to a huge savings of money and time.
It also leads to healthier eating because you're actually making use of all the fresh ingredients that you already have on hand.
And just wait until you hear what some of these recipes include.
Chocolate flapjacks, curries, lasagnas, tortilla bowls, falafel fritters.
And like her last book, Carleigh's recipes all include gorgeous photos and easy to follow infographics so you know exactly what ingredients you need just by glancing at the page.
It is so incredibly creative. Okay, let's get scrappy with Plant You's Carleigh Bodrug.
[5:08] Okay, everybody, I am Plant Strong, and you, Carleigh, are Plant You.
[5:16] It's a great intro there. Yeah, thank you. It's so good to see you again.
I know that you were just on the show, episode 234, and prior to that, we had you on a couple years ago. You were episode 132.
132, you were brand spanking new. I didn't know who you were.
You kind of knew who I was because Your dad was a firefighter, and that's one of the ways that you got introduced to, you know, the plant based lifestyle and an engine, too, which was my first book.
And and since then, you know, obviously you've you've turned into this just this mega this mega star.
And I'm so so but literally so so proud and happy for all of your success.
Success and today I just want to continue to talk about some exciting things that are going on in your world, specifically the launch of this incredible thing right here, right?
[6:17] Which is so exciting and I am so happy to be holding up a copy in my hands. But first let me ask you, I know you've been doing a ton of promotion for this. How are you hanging in there?
Hanging in there would be a good word for it. I am taking it one step at a time here.
Book launches are a beast in the best of times.
And it's been a tough one. I lost my mom a few weeks ago.
So I don't want to cry on a podcast. So I'm just going to leave it at that.
But we've been one step at a time here. Okay.
No, no, no, no. Listen, I, you know, last podcast, we talked about how much your mother meant to you and what, you know, best friend, one of your biggest influences in your life.
And, you know, losing a parent, especially a mother, it's it's crushing, right? It's absolutely crushing.
But you know, the good news is, um, that look what she, she, look what she made. She made you, right?
[7:32] And tell me, was she, was she, uh, ever able to get a C and get ahold of this?
Oh my gosh. She did. Yeah.
Okay. Um, like, obviously I didn't know at the time that she was not going to be here.
She had cancer for two years and the book is dedicated towards her and um i was able to get her a copy before she passed and she was just she didn't know it was dedicated to her so it's very emotional oh wow and um, yeah and i must say rip when um i didn't expect to go into this but um when my mom passed away i was set the next day the week she passed away to go to california because i was supposed to be doing a bunch of podcasts there in person and then new york the following weekend um.
[8:20] As you can imagine, obviously, I had to cancel all of that, which was fine.
But it leaves me in this position where I'm now kind of where I was with my first book, where it's on me to really make it a success because I can't reschedule those interviews before the book is out.
And it's so inspiring to see the plant-based community and people like yourself, just like, what can I do to help you out?
And I'm just so grateful you're having me back on the podcast.
Because if anybody is listening, the plant-based community, it is like small.
We all know each other and it is the best people in the world, the best people in the world.
So I just have to say how grateful I am that you're having me back on.
Yeah, yeah. Hear, hear, hear, hear.
[9:06] Why did you use the strawberry icon here? Is there a reason for that?
And you have it throughout the book. Yeah, yeah.
That's actually my logo. So I am obsessed.
It's actually a raspberry but raspberry raspberry whatever um raspberry is my favorite fruit and my best friend is a graphic designer she has this amazing company called title design and when she i said can you make me a logo and she knew i loved raspberries i hadn't even like said can you make a raspberry and uh she designed the whole planet you logo which is this like even the font and and everything was her.
And it usually has a raspberry beside it, but it was dropped for the cover, but the publisher just put my mom's dedication in the raspberry. I don't know why.
[9:59] Well, so can we talk for a sec about the cover? Yeah.
And, and so how, how many times did you do this shoot before you kind of got it right?
Or was it just, Did it just happen?
Okay, so this was a shoot in New York.
And it was shot by an amazing photographer who has actually photographed Martha Stewart. Her name is Linda Pugliese.
I might be messing up her last name, but she is absolutely incredible.
And my publisher set up the whole shoot. I had told them, I want it to be green.
I want there to be plants and food and sitting behind a table.
Like I'm sitting behind a table and someone's across from me when they pick it up. And they were like.
[10:49] We got it. So it, it was so much fun.
We did so many different things. I don't know if you saw, so the throwing up the limes probably did that about 30 times, but we also stood on the table and I wanted this to be the cover. I love this shot.
And my mom, when she saw it, she's like, that needs to be the cover.
But understandably, my publisher was like, standing on a table with food and feet and whatever else, let's go for the other shot with your face in it it was like okay but it needs to be in it so um for anybody who's watching on youtube you can see that um i'm like standing on a table with a bunch of vegetables with a thing of carrots and broccoli in my hands it looks like um i thought like a poster to a horror movie i thought it was really cool so we did so many amazing photos that that day it could not have gone better we also shot food which we were we shot both because we were considering putting food on the cover and then once we got this shot everybody was like this is the one but I still went back and forth a million times about the food thing but my publisher was like nope this is it yeah yeah well I know that your publisher was Hachette.
[12:05] Was it a division of Hachette?
Yeah, so it's Hachette Go And they're a division that do a lot of health and wellness books And the entire team is just...
It's unbelievable, magnificent, magnificent. And it's kind of like, I don't want to compare a book to raising a child, but they say like raising a child takes a village.
I think when you're putting out a hardcover cookbook, as you know, because you have done books yourself, it takes a village from your agent to your publisher, to photographers, to really get it off the ground.
So, so grateful for the team behind me who is keeping the train on the tracks, as I like to say.
Yeah. And all the food testers. Yes.
[12:50] Right. Yeah. For my first book, I wasn't able to hire a recipe tester.
I mean, I was so green to it. I didn't even know that this was something people did.
But for this one, I hired like a dedicated person to test the recipes and they provided like, her name was Trish, provided very brutal, amazing feedback.
And it made the recipes like so much better. And yeah, that's something if If you're wanting to write a cookbook, there's a lot of people who will get whole teams.
I don't know if you guys did this for your last cookbook, but they'll hire whole teams or they'll have people in their communities test out recipes.
But it's really important.
Yeah, we kind of found people in our community that raised their hand and said, we'd love to be recipe testers.
But they weren't. That's not what they did for a living. Right. They weren't.
But it sounds like you got like top notch people. Yeah, it was really worth it. I was so nervous.
I remember when I published my first, I was just like, oh my goodness, nobody's tested these but me.
It worked out, but it's much better now, the comfort of knowing the recipes have been tested.
Yeah. Well, this is such a beast of a book.
I mean, I hold this in my hand next to Plant You, and it feels almost twice as thick.
Yeah, it's really big. And I didn't realize that, like, when I turned in the manuscript...
[14:16] It didn't hit me that it would be so much bigger. But then when I received it, I was like, this is a honking book.
[14:24] People keep saying it's so substantial. And I'm like, okay, it's good.
So I think people will be very happy. It is. It's substantial for a number of reasons.
I mean, one of the things, too, that I think if you're going to do a recipe book these days and you don't do it this way, I think you're missing out.
And that is you have the recipe on one side and then just a photo on the other.
And then in your in your kind of very Carleigh way, you have the infographics of each ingredient that's in every recipe that is so absolutely brilliant and makes it so accessible and so visually appealing.
And you mentioned this in the book. You know, I'm a visual learner.
Or I think you say you're a visual learner.
And that's what makes this to me, just if people aren't doing this any longer, it's like they're missing out. You've like struck gold.
Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day about this format.
And there is something about it that, and if you're just listening to the podcast and you're not seeing the visual here, it's just basically a white page with all of the ingredients labeled at the top and pictures of them. and then the finished dish below.
And there's something about this format that makes the recipe seem really practical.
I mean, I just made a salad right before I hopped on with you for a video.
It's a saucy kale salad. It's so good.
[15:51] And I went to make the dressing, a tahini dressing in the back.
And immediately my eyes just go to, okay, what do I need?
And I see like the images of the ingredients and I'm going to my pantry, haven't even measured them yet.
And yeah, for me, it just clicks in my brain, this visual way of laying out a book.
So I'm glad it's resonated with so many because you really don't know when you put it out there, right? Yeah. Um.
[16:17] So you've narrowed it down, whittled it down to like 150 plus recipes, I think.
Even though on the front it says 140, I think it's 150. Yeah.
[16:28] Like, how many recipes did you start with before you narrowed it down to these 140 or 150?
Yeah, it was an extensive testing process.
So my sister actually worked with me full time. I hired her full time, actually, right after my mom fell sick, my sister left her job.
And I was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this book. This whole thing is going on in my personal life.
And she ended up working with me full time, which was, oh, my goodness, like the book, I don't think would be what it was today without her help.
We just went, we tackled it chapter by chapter. So we would start with breakfast, and then we would do lunches. And there was a lot that was cut.
But like we would be in the kitchen and be like, no, this isn't good.
So I don't know what we started with.
It's hard to say, right? I can imagine we tested upwards of 300.
[17:23] Yeah. Wow. I imagine. Okay.
So let's talk about, let's talk about waste.
Yeah. I think that's like really what this is about is preventing waste.
So like educate my audience, like how much waste is there going on right now when it comes to food?
And it sounds like it's pretty horrific.
[17:48] Yes. So I heard a statistic and it was right after I published my first cookbook that just about stopped me in my tracks.
And that's that 30 to 40 percent of the entire U.S.
Food supply ends up in landfills, which my mind immediately when I heard that statistic thought, OK, well, it's food.
It's going to decompose. What's the issue here?
And unfortunately, there's a lot of issues. So when it stacks up in landfills, as the food decomposes, it emits a really powerful greenhouse gas called methane.
And to put this into perspective, food waste contributes more emissions than the entire airline industry, which was really shocking to me because I feel like in school we're just taught people are taking too long of showers, hours, too many flights, the transportation.
[18:37] When in reality, we're leaving this huge, huge issue off of our plates, that not only impacts our environment, but also has a huge impact when we think about food insecurity.
And then finally, our wallets, like grocery prices anywhere, but in Canada, especially, and then I can imagine in the US are just astronomical.
So So when we think about grocery prices and we think about inflation and groceries probably rising 40 to 50 percent over the last five years, we can really narrow that that barrier of inflation.
If we start being more mindful about the food that we're wasting.
But in the Colesnone version, it's a massive it's a massive issue that nobody's talking about.
[19:22] Yeah. And so what was it that, that really got you going in this direction?
Was it when you did that one video where you said, stop throwing out those orange peels?
Exactly. So I thought to myself, okay, I'm a food blogger. I'm bringing a lot of food. I'm testing a lot of recipes.
I'm contributing a lot of waste, which I am still not perfect.
This is not an easy solution. Right. and I threw up an orange peel candy recipe one day called it scrappy cooking didn't think much of it walked away from my phone after posting it in that kind of like dread of what what are people going to think of this came back an hour later and it had been viewed over a million times and people were just going nuts over it so I thought wow this like it's it's not necessarily about orange peel candy banana peel bacon it's not necessarily about these outwardly scrappy things but what i love about it is that it starts a conversation about food waste which i think is so important i everywhere i look now i see food waste even in my own house like i can't believe.
[20:33] The the size of the compost bin at the end of the week that we have i mean in Austin and this started maybe three or four years ago we now have compost bins which is amazing like you're composting that's you're 99 there right you don't want to waste food because of the money too well but i and not but in looking at your book and your videos and everything that's your you know your content creation i'm like oh my god why am i throwing out all those orange peels or all those banana peels or all those you know those strawberries that have kind of gotten you you know, mushy and blah, blah, blah.
And this to me is a great solution, right? For me to help curb that.
Yeah. So the recipes in the book, when I thought about writing it, I didn't want it to just be.
[21:23] Scraps. So I didn't want it to just be orange peel candy.
I wanted it to be full of recipes that people could be empowered to customize.
So I have a whole bunch of main meals in there that I like to call kitchen raid recipes.
And they're actually have a badge called kitchen raid badge.
And the whole point of them is that people can swap out the produce that they're using in the recipes, swap out the grains that they're using, swap out the beans that they're using because that's how I cook in my household.
If I'm following a recipe, I see a salad I want to make. I'm like, okay, I don't have kale, so I'm going to use spinach.
And what I really want to do, I think one of the keys to reducing food waste is empowering people to learn how to cook and trust themselves in the kitchen.
And it's one of the things I love most about plant-based cooking because can you substitute a sweet potato for some butternut squash?
Absolutely. Almost almost every time the answer is yes.
And the stakes are so low. You're not dealing with chicken, salmonella, undercooking meat.
Like these are plants. It's going to be fun.
And it should be really almost, I find cooking therapeutic.
So I'm trying to get people to get into cooking and be empowered to be using up the stuff in their fridge and pantry, rather than heading to the grocery store and buying a bunch of new things that they've never cooked with for recipes.
[22:45] Well, I just can't even imagine how much time and energy and thought and creation went into this book.
I mean, I look at, for example, the, um, I'm looking right now at the contents.
[22:59] And like scrappy sunrises is, you know, it sounds like basically a lot of your breakfast. Yes.
Yeah. And then you have scrappatizers and sides.
I mean, how absolutely fun is that? So to me, this book, and also, obviously, it's such a reflection of you and your personality.
And then you've got superb soups and then sustainable sammies, wraps, and salads and no-waste noodles.
I can't get enough noodles. Then the main bowl.
And again, each one of these has anywhere from, you know, five to 20 recipes under it.
Eco entrees and sustainable sweets.
Dressings, dips, and saucy things, sip and save.
And then your last is preserve powders, ferments and other fun stuff.
I mean, it's just wild.
So I wanna actually like jump into some of these recipes.
Before we do though, you have a whole section where you talk about here is the
[24:04] problem and here's the solution.
So let's just touch upon a couple of those because I think it's really valuable information.
[24:11] For the audience. And the first one is food storage.
I know that I am, I don't really have a clue the best smartest way to store my potatoes or my tomatoes or my bread and, or my, my green leafies.
So do you have any, any suggestions for us? Yeah, absolutely.
I do. So food storage is a really important one, right?
Because we don't want to get the food home and then it spoils and And inevitably, once your food goes moldy, I always like to use this disclaimer on podcasts.
I am not telling you to eat the moldy food.
I think once it gets to that point, it's time to time to end up in the compost.
But we want to prevent that from ever happening.
So when you get something like leafy greens, which is one of the most commonly wasted into your home, what I like to tell people to do is you want to keep the moisture off of your greens.
So your spinach, you can imagine like how your spinach kind of gets wet and then it spoils almost immediately.
So the way of doing that is to take your package, ideally transfer to like a sealable container and put a clean cloth or paper towel in it, which will dry up the moisture and keep that fresh for a lot longer.
Things like cilantro, parsley, always ones that go bad quite quickly.
So something you can do is store them like a bouquet because they have the roots still intact, which will suck up water and keep them more fresh.
[25:37] Potatoes, you want to store them in a paper bag in like a cellar or a cool area.
And ideally, you're keeping your vegetables and fruit and stuff away from each other.
When you start mixing different fruit, I know avocados are a real offender of this. like avocados emit some sort of gas that can brown bananas.
So you want to keep like your fruit and your tomatoes and your avocados separate.
And those are my top tips. The green one is the biggest.
What's so interesting there is if I could show you our refrigerator and our vegetable bin, we've got everything on top of everything else.
I mean, it is one ugly mess. Yes.
And our our broccoli, I bet I go in there and our broccoli florets are now probably some of them are brown instead of green. Right.
Which is why just in our house, I'm like, please, let's not buy fresh broccoli.
Let's do frozen. I was just going to say that. And also your freezer is your best friend, even when you do buy the fresh.
Because if you have that broccoli and you're like, oh, wait, I'm going away for the weekend or unexpectedly I didn't get to it.
But throw it in the freezer.
And the thing people don't realize about frozen food is it's harvested and then frozen right away.
So it often maintains more nutrients than the fresh stuff you're buying from the store if it's imported in, which in Canada, all of our stuff is imported in the winter. So why not?
[27:06] Did you see, I saw some guy, he's got like, he's like you, he's got a couple million followers and he, he's like, you know, do this, not that, do this, not that.
And he's got these avocados and he wraps them in tin foil and then puts them in the fridge and supposedly they stay for. Oh, I need to try that.
Yeah. Is his name a creative explained on Instagram?
[27:31] That's who it is. I feel like that's what this guy's got long hair.
[27:36] Anybody who's looking for him he's a great page it's creative explained um but yeah he has a bunch of storage hacks too but honestly like i i had to learn this stuff myself in the recent years because that was one of the biggest things but the the number one thing and you're probably going to say it next but it's over buying and the the solution to food waste is to never bring the food into your home to begin with to waste, right?
So we need to be much more intentional, like the low hanging fruit to save money, perhaps even save 30% off your grocery bill, which if you're a family of four, can add up dramatically to hundreds of dollars a month.
[28:19] Is to be more intentional about what you're buying.
So I always like to say you don't need a fancy cookbook, you don't need an app, you don't need anything for this, get a piece of paper on a of Sunday, write down Monday to Friday, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and write down what you think you're going to eat for the week.
Leave some spontaneity and flexibility, but write down, okay, I'm going to maybe have like this tofu curry on Monday, and then I'm going to bring it for lunch Tuesday.
Breakfast is going to be overnight oats, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then shop your fridge and pantry before heading to the grocery store.
I don't know how many times you've gone to the grocery store, and then we haven't written a list. We haven't looked what what we have.
And we're like, okay, well, do we have oats?
Do we have raspberries? I forget. And then we're overbuying.
The pantry is getting overwhelming.
[29:08] You can't find anything you need. So...
Number one tip, just start by meal planning and being more intentional with the food you're bringing in. That's really smart.
I can tell you that I think we have probably six two-pound bags of Bob's Red Mill extra thick oats in our pantry right now.
I think one of the issues too, Carleigh, is that, and I'm guilty, when I go to the grocery store a lot of times, I'm also hungry.
Yeah. And so I'm looking at everything and it looks so good, especially the colors that are in the fresh produce section.
And I just overbuy, right?
[29:46] That's where having a list comes in handy because you can kind of be like head down. Okay. I need this, this, this, and this.
And I think the other part of this is when you get the food home, I am such a fan of meal planning or meal prepping. And I don't mean meal prepping like you need like to eat that tofu curry I talked about Monday to Friday.
I think it's more just being intentional. Okay, I'm going to cook up a batch of quinoa so it's accessible in the fridge.
I'm going to chop these carrots so that I'm going to eat them as a snack.
You know, like just making the food more accessible to eat.
And this really, I think there's a conversation to be had here about how low waste eating ties into healthy eating.
Because I think when you're more intentional about the food that you're eating and eating the groceries that you actually buy, you're inevitably going to be cooking from home more.
You're going to be eating like more carrot sticks and whichever else.
And then you're naturally going to be eating healthier, which is what we all want. Yep. Yep.
What about what?
[30:49] And this, this, this rings true to me because I have a food line, as you know, and that's best before dates.
And you have a little, um, a little thing that you talk about, about best before dates.
Yeah. And I, I, I must say that prepared food like yours, like when you can find healthy prepared food that you can stock in your pantry, that's a great way of reducing waste as well, because Because then there's those meals that are, if you know you're a busy person, and you need to whip up a really healthy, like nutrient dense whole food plant based meal, and then you can take that out of your pantry, like a plant strong soup or stew.
It's like 10 out of 10, and you're wasting no food. So I think there's something to be said about that as well. But best before dates.
So best before dates are exactly what the name suggests, right?
Best before. for. But in the US, in Canada, we take it so literally in that, okay, this needs to be tossed right now.
And again, I'm not suggesting that anybody eats spoiled food.
That's the opposite of what I want.
I just think that we can be more, we can use our senses to determine whether something has spoiled. So almond milk is a good example.
I think like the best before date is so so soon every time I buy it.
And then if I go to pour it on cereal and it's like one day after I'll smell it, see if it's okay. Maybe give it a little taste.
[32:18] It's usually nine 99.9% of the time. All right.
You would know more about best before dates as somebody who's created a food line. How does that all work?
Well, no, you're, you're exactly right. I mean, it, it, it indicates, uh, as you talk about in the book, it's a, it's a point where a food item, it's still retrain retains its nutrition.
It may be, it's lost a little bit of that optimal flavor, but by no means has, is it unsafe to eat it by, by that date?
And like, so to your point, don't, you don't have to throw it out.
Use your senses, like smell it. You can tell if, if grains have gone bad, right?
Exactly. If a milk has gone bad. I mean, it's incredible It's incredible how sensitive our senses, especially our smell, can be to pick that stuff up.
I mean, there was a time, Carleigh, I was looking for some Tabasco sauce.
We had some in our fridge.
It was nine years over expiration, best buy date. It was probably fine because it was in there. Yeah.
[33:27] It's like my parents' fridge. Now my dad, I'm worried.
Go over and look in the back of the fridge. I don't know how many years old some stuff is.
So yeah, I mean, you use your senses. One thing, I was on a podcast the other day with a doctor, Dr.
Anthony Yoon, and we were talking about bread.
And I said, oh, I just cut the like mold off. And he said, do not do that.
And I want to talk about this on podcast because it's interesting.
And he said that the mold spores, they've proven that if there's mold on bread, the spores have gone through the rest of the bread.
So that is one fun fact because I was someone who would just like chop it off and eat it, but I will no longer.
Well, what's interesting is you talk about how the number one food waste item is bread.
[34:18] Yes. And I think what happens is like so many of us well-intentioned kind of pick up bread at the bakery, which is so fresh.
And then it goes hard in a couple of days. so I'm not talking about moldy bread but bread bread goes stale very quickly right so there's so many things you can do with bread once it's reached this point as it is the most discarded food uh breadcrumbs come to mind immediately and I have a recipe in my book so you just blend them up add some parsley I like to add some nutritional yeast and bake them you can use that for a breading for tofu I have like a french toast casserole recipe recipe um that's delicious that's vegan obviously and um croutons so like a panzanella salad is great chop up your bread again toss some little spices bake it and it's great for croutons for a salad.
Utilizing Imperfect Produce
[35:09] Yeah, we'll come back to one of your one of your bread recipes that I've even marked. What about imperfect produce?
[35:17] Yeah, this is a huge issue. So one one I like to mention is that's kind of funny is that at the grocery store, I believe it might be the second most wasted food.
But don't quote me on that is bananas.
And the reason being is people will leave the single bananas and only buy bunches.
So this kind of falls into this conversation about imperfect produce and so much gets discarded or has to be discarded from the grocery store because people don't buy it.
So when I'm talking about this, it could be like, I don't know, a bruised grapefruit or a funky looking butternut squash that's like has a head that's warped.
All of these things are completely edible, but unfortunately they get wasted.
I know there's a lot of grocery delivery companies that are now trying to tackle this by delivering, doing box delivery of food.
I think one is Misfits Market, but it's crazy what is not accepted because it can even just be lemons that are too large.
Like the standards are crazy. And then we as consumers have been trained to think that, oh, this is a little different.
Like, I don't know if I want to eat that. Right. So it's another issue for food waste.
You also have like the P word meaning plastic. What are your thoughts about plastic?
[36:43] Another huge issue. I mean, I wish I could have delved further.
And to be honest, I'm not a plastic waste expert, but I do see the insane, insane amount of plastic that even comes from grocery stores, right?
We head to the grocery store and it's kind of nonsensical. One time I posted a recipe, it was one of my recession recipes, and I was posting all of the produce right in the cart.
And people were like, why are you doing that? Put it in a bag.
It's so dirty. And I'm like, do you realize where this food has been before?
Like it's been on trucks and crates and whichever else. Putting it in the grocery cart, you're going to need to wash it when you get home anyways.
That avoids those like little plastic bags, right? right?
But there's simple swaps you can make in your day to day to eliminate a lot of plastic. The number one is water bottles, right?
Reusable water bottle, just get one and stick with it. If you get one that's like stainless steel, it can last for years.
[37:44] The grocery bag one is huge. And being mindful about perhaps, I know near us, we have like a zero waste store where you can refill things, but being mindful about buying produce in plastic.
A lot of the times there'll be broccoli wrapped in plastic, but then you can see that there's broccoli heads next to it that aren't.
So if you can, if you can try and avoid plastic in that way, it is a really bad thing for our planet. And now we're hearing about our health as well, right?
And I'm certainly not an expert on this, but microplastics seem to be a massive headline in the news right now and a huge issue for our health, for our hormones, and all of that when we're ingesting particles of it all day long.
You're exactly right. And I commend you for mentioning it. It was one of the things.
[38:37] Let's do this.
So I want to go through and show people some of the incredible recipes that you have here.
And so what I'm going to do is you have a section here, and I'm fiddling through it right now.
And here it is right here, page 18 and 19.
[38:58] You say, you got this, make that. Oh, this is one of my favorite parts of the book. Right.
And it's several pages long, but basically you say, hey, you got stale bread?
Which is the world's number one wasted food here are several recipes that you can make and so uh what i want to talk to you i'm going to go to page 42 which is last week's loaf breakfast casserole which is on page which is on page 42 if you want to flip to that and i again i see this and i just think brilliance.
[39:38] So this is like the french toast casserole that i was talking about and obviously as vegans we're not eating uh traditional french toast which has egg but this is the same idea like when your bread has kind of gone hard where you're not like toasting it up and eating a slice of peanut butter toast this is a fabulous way to use it up and it also will feed like a family so you just just tear it up into chunks, put it in a casserole dish.
You make this beautiful custard out of vegan yogurt and plant-based milk.
I like to add a little turmeric for color. So it's like a little bit yellow flax meal and you bake it up a little maple syrup and it rehydrates the bread.
So it's almost reminiscent of both French toast and bread pudding and it comes out.
It's this beautiful wonderful casserole and it's delicious.
And of course, on my way to page 42.
[40:34] My love for chocolate took me to this page, which is Death by Chocolate Flapjacks.
I mean, you again, you're after my heart here.
[40:47] So it's funny because one of the most popular recipes from my first book, which I didn't like think would be, was the lemon blueberry pancakes.
So I'm like, I need to do another staple pancake recipe.
And my mind immediately went chocolate because we have that in common that I am chocolate obsessed.
[41:08] So they're a beautiful chocolate pancake recipe.
You can make a chocolate sauce to go on them, or you can just use syrup or like vegan butter, whatever you want to use and top with a whole bunch of berries.
And then like, Like if you want to go real scrappy, I have optional.
You can top it and sprinkle it with orange peel powder.
And my inspiration for this was like, I don't know if you guys would have them in the U.S., but when I was growing up, I would always eat these chocolate oranges.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Is it chocolate covered orange slices? No.
They were like these chocolate oranges and you would open them up and you would bang them And then the chocolate would all come out, and it tastes like chocolate and orange.
Somebody out there is going to listen to this and know what I'm talking about.
But the chocolate-orange flavor combo is so good.
So if you want to go one step further and sprinkle it with orange peel powder, it's yummy.
It's a yummy one. What turns them that chocolate? Is it the cacao powder? Yeah. Yeah.
Cocoa powder. Yeah. The cocoa powder. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So –.
[42:19] All right. So that's, that's the bread. So again, like I told you with the broccoli, we always have wilted greens, whether it's Swiss chard, whether it's kale, whether it's collard greens, because I always mean to go through these, right?
Of course, everybody who wastes food has the best intentions, right?
Even myself to this day, like this, this month has been crazy.
And I'm like, it's ironic.
I'm putting this book out because I feel like I'm wasting food.
You do the best you can. That's what I say about plant-based eating too.
You do the best you can every day with every meal, right?
Yes. Yes. Love that attitude, Carleigh. Let's go to page 62, which is we got the beet chips because I don't know anyone that really doesn't love chips.
[43:09] Especially, and I am always trying to get my kids to eat more greens.
Yeah, there it is. You got it. right so this recipe was really inspired i'm a huge fan of kale chips and this is a recipe like i made really early in my plant-based journey was kale chips um tossed in apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast for some reason is so good and then i um i tried it with beet leaves in preparation for this book and they were even better so i thought why throw out your your
[43:44] beet leaves when you can make beet leaf chips.
And then I have a whatever soup recipe. I don't know.
I might've changed the name for that, but it's a sheet pan soup where you can use literally whatever vegetable you have.
And I love to top the soup with the chips.
It's like crunchy, smooth soup. So delicious.
So they're really versatile and beet leaves are a great green.
You can use them just like kale. We discard them and same with radish greens.
[44:11] It makes no sense that we get that home and then that goes in the garbage and then we're eating the the radishes or the beets well and that's specifically why i picked that one because we have beets all the time but a lot of times we'll throw out the the beet green and my mother would kill me if she heard me say that and because you know those beet greens are so loaded with all those wonderful nitrates that and downstream can allow your endothelial cells to pump out the the nitric oxide.
So I love the fact that you are being scrappy and you're using the beet greens.
Oh, can you, okay. So the beets, like they say is like a natural pre-workout, right?
It's so the beet greens have that same capacity. Yeah.
[44:58] I am going to say yes, but I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I can tell you like, yes, like beets are known to be like a vasodilator, increased blood flow to working muscles.
They can increase your, um, kind of your aerobic capacity.
[45:17] I would imagine it's the same thing with the beet, the beet greens.
I just don't know if it's as, if it's as pronounced. Right. And I was talking to Will Balswitz lately, and we were scheduled for a podcast.
It's going to be rescheduled. But he was talking about how, you know how there's that whole thing about eating 30 plants per week. week.
And to have a healthier gut microbiome, you want to aim for eating 30 plants per week.
So he's talking about how he would consider beet greens and beets, two different vegetables, because the beet greens have like a different fundamental.
And I thought that was really cool because you can get like two plant points or whatever else, whatever system they use with one vegetable.
[46:04] So another, another benefit health wise to being more scrappy.
Yeah. Well, and what you're referring to there is the American Gut Project that Will always references where the optimal number of variety of plant-based foods per week is 30 for that optimal gut microbiome health. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
Cauliflower. I love cauliflower, but I don't buy fresh cauliflower anymore because it just typically goes bad. So we always do frozen.
[46:40] It goes moldy fast. I find cauliflower was moldy quite quickly.
But so here, again, Carleigh, my eyes immediately gravitated to the skillet lasagna because I love lasagna. I love cauliflower.
And I love the fact that you now make this.
This is the way you do lasagnas now, right? Yeah.
So listen, lasagna is one of my favorite foods in the world, but in no time in my day do I find like three hours to be layering lasagna noodles.
[47:22] So this is like a shortcut skillet lasagna. And this is exactly what we were talking about earlier.
It's a kitchen raid recipe. and um so you can use basically whatever vegetables that you have on hand including cauliflower zucchini carrots onions and it you make like a veggie ground with the vegetables then you add sauce and um you break up your lasagna noodles right into there into a skillet and then the noodles cook and then you top it with either a sunflower cream sauce or a tofu ricotta and pesto if you want it's optional and um it's it's to die for so good and you can sneak so many veggies into this meal that nobody's gonna know about which which is another thing i love to do i think we talked about this last last time you're on the podcast was your cabbage steaks and and how i just i want to start eating cabbage again and i want some i want the cabbage
[48:24] when it's It's well-cooked.
It's got a nice dressing on top and cabbage steak sounded so incredible.
Here in your book, I noticed you've got on page 204, you got can't miss miso cabbage steaks. These are unreal.
[48:38] So the cabbage is marinated and then baked and it becomes like fall apart in your mouth delicious.
And then it's loaded with this peanut tahini sauce. sauce and one thing I was really intentional about these recipes in this book in this main chapter is I wanted them to be full meals so you finish them off with crispy butter beans and add um.
[49:04] Serve it over quinoa. So it's a complete meal. You're not just like serving a cabbage steak up on a plate.
So good. The other thing, and I have a recipe for this in the book that you can do with cabbage that is really fun if you get to like, okay, I have like eight leaves of cabbage left, and I don't know what to do with them are cabbage dumplings.
And this works best with Napa cabbage, but it's basically what it sounds like in that you fry up a some mushrooms, carrots, carrots whatever vegetables you have on hand in some vegetable broth and soy sauce and then wrap them in the cabbage leaves so it's almost like reminiscent of a of a cabbage roll but it's more asian inspired and uh and then you bake then you pan fry the cabbage rolls and they're like dumplings so if you've ever had like rice paper dumplings it's kind of reminiscent of that but but it's a great way to use up cabbage.
[49:57] Yeah, I need more cabbage in my life. Great fiber. Great fiber.
Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say this. This morning, I was looking for something and I saw a bag in plastic, shoot me, about 12 huge carrots.
And I'm like, what are we going to do with these carrots? And so thank goodness I'm interviewing viewing you today, and I now know exactly what to do.
We're going to go to page 76, which is sweet and spicy carrot showstoppers.
[50:31] This is a great recipe. So this, these are carrots that are roasted in this amazing, I believe it's like a harissa sauce.
And then again, it's more of like a complete side dish.
I would love to serve this. The inspiration was like a Thanksgiving side dish, but they basically get caramelized. There's maple syrup in the sauce as as well.
And then you serve them over my whipped feta dip, which is this like incredible creamy bean dip.
And you can add a carrot top chimichurri. So you can take those carrot tops, chop them up and blend them with some balsamic vinegar to make a carrot top chimichurri to drizzle over top.
So good. So good. And there's, there's nothing I love more than carrots that are, but they have to be cooked enough so that when my fork goes through it, it's almost like a sweet potato.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And in the oven, because they're like kind of caramelized, I'm not going to say the word, they get sweeter because carrots are naturally very sweet, but they're just like when they're cooked, right?
They're almost like candy in a way. Yeah. Yeah.
[51:44] One of the things that we always have in our veggie crisper is bell peppers, and we always go through them.
Like the snacks, whether we're doing the other night, what do we have them on?
Well, actually, I made pizzas last night. We had them on pizzas.
[52:03] But you have, this caught my attention, was your loaded tortilla bowl on 176, I think think it is because you, I mean, it looks like you have that in a beautiful shape of a bowl.
I don't know how you did it.
[52:20] Okay. Yes. One of my favorite, uh, favorite pictures in the book.
I think it's just eye catching.
Um, this was inspired by like Chipotle bowls and, um, I always have the problem.
I'll buy like a package of wraps and then like, again, one of them will start going going hard.
So you can actually create your own tortilla bowl, which is completely edible by putting it into a bowl that you can put in the oven, folding the sides and popping it in the oven for a couple of minutes.
And it will harden into like a crispy tortilla, almost like a chip.
And then you load the bowl up. So we got rice, guacamole, black beans.
And actually I have this amazing recipe that I haven't talked about on a podcast yet.
And it's a vegan ground beef recipe. And I need to find it in here because it's allergy friendly.
So there's so many people that are allergic. Just I found this out by publishing my first book.
They're either allergic to soy or they're allergic to nuts.
So I wanted to create a allergy friendly vegan ground beef recipe that can be used for a multitude of recipes.
And it's I, I, I saw one in here and it, I was like, Ooh, that looks really, really interesting.
Let me find it. It's right here, I think.
[53:37] While you're finding that, I just want to say, I just can't believe how much you are able to retain when I ask you about a recipe and you're just able to talk about it like you made it yesterday.
If I made something three days ago, I can't remember how I made it and what ingredients were in it.
Yeah, I know. It's weird, right? I think that there was so many testing and iterations of recipes that you do retain because you're like, oh yeah, I didn't like that. And then I changed this.
So it is even funny making them now. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's why I did that when you're going through it.
But anyways, this this ground beef recipe was one of the more interesting recipes I've ever made.
And it was this desire to like really create a vegan ground beef alternative that was going to like please everybody in terms of the allergy department.
And it's made with some of that flower seeds, tomato paste, ground flaxseed, onion, garlic, oats, eggplant, carrot, parsley, chili powder, paprika and soy sauce.
Those are all the ingredients and it's so healthy. It is so meaty.
I need to make it for a video.
I haven't made it in a while and it's great.
I can't imagine that. And that's it. It's great.
And this is not going to be oil free, but if you wrap it in puff pastry, it's like a really good Wellington base.
[55:00] Or if you use it for tacos, it's so good. So, so good.
I'm glad you said that about the oil, because, you know, obviously my audience, we're, we're kind of, you know, we're shy about oil and stuff like that.
And you say in this book that every recipe, you can make it oil free, gluten free. oil-free, you're very versatile.
So the big thing for me is obviously my first cookbook was oil-free and the whole food plant-based oil-free community loves the book, biggest supporters of the book.
And as I've gone along in my culinary journey, I do use oil probably more often.
A lot of the recipes I don't, but often I do.
And when I was writing my second cookbook, I'm like, Like I want it to be oil free still, because I think you don't you don't necessarily need oil.
There's a lot of people for health reasons that are eliminating oil.
So I would say ninety nine percent other than a I have a puff pastry wrapped, which I was kind of talking about.
They're like hand wise, which puff pastry you're not really getting around oil
[56:05] free. Maybe you guys have a recipe, but I could not figure it out.
And so they're all oil free optional. they um so i don't i don't even think i listed in the ingredients but i'll say um you can saute with vegetable broth or oil so that should i hope please everybody which was my main goal you know.
[56:26] You just made me think of, it was your first book and you mentioned that how you tried 30 iterations of trying to make a tasty, was it a, was it a bran muffin or bran muffin?
I was talking about a meatloaf. I tested for my first book the other day too. It was terrible.
But the, um, the bran muffins and you said you're dead and you just couldn't, you just couldn't get it right. They were like pox. They were like pox.
Your sister and your mom are like the wizards. And I'm going to talk to them when I see them.
And I'm going to say, puff pastry, what can we do oil-free?
And I bet you they've got something. I bet you they do.
They may. And if they don't, you know who probably would is Chef AJ, who I know you know.
I saw her show yesterday. I love Chef AJ.
I love her. Yeah, I should ask her about that. She's got a background as a pastry chef.
Oh, she'd be the person to ask then for sure.
Yeah. Okay. Let's move on. So it's funny because I've got this list here and I've starred the ones I want to ask you.
When it came to the eggplant, I completely put pass.
I'm not even, I don't want to talk about eggplant. You're not an eggplant fan.
I'm not an eggplant fan. I'm not really either.
[57:45] But you talked about the meat. Yeah. 222 and that's one of the ones so that is something i could get behind you you would not know there's eggplant in there and i am the same way like i am not somebody who wants like an eggplant parmesan or you know how they make like eggplant vegan parm but for me i need the eggplant to be a mystery if i'm eating it but it does lend well to that recipe and you would not you would not notice it in it corn i love corn especially now as it's turning to spring and I think of summer.
We typically, we go through a lot of corn, but sometimes we'll make the corn and then it'll go bad after we've made it for whatever reason, if I don't have five years of corn that night.
And so you've got some really great ideas with corn.
I want you to focus right now on page 96, which is smoky corn cob chowder, which is phenomenal.
[58:42] Yeah. So the cool part about about this recipe is I actually have a corn cob broth recipe as well, which to me is like a dupe for a vegan chicken broth.
And so you can make that first or you don't have to, but you can use the corn cobs that are cleared off to simmer and make the broth.
But for the corn cob chowder, it's just this smoky, delicious, creamy chowder, and it has pickle juice in it.
So I am a huge, As someone pointed out yesterday, you must really like dill. I do.
And this I find pickle juice adds like a little bit of oomph without being overpowering in place of things like vinegar and recipes.
So that has pickle juice in it and it's really creamy and smoky. It's just so good.
[59:27] So another thing that corn makes me think of, and it's next on your list here, is zucchini.
[59:35] Zucchinis. And I can't tell you how many people from their gardens, they've got a ton of zucchinis.
And so they're offering it to us as a family. And we don't like zucchini.
We don't like zucchini and eggplant. I am in a similar, it has to be into something else. Like I can't just eat like a roasted zucchini.
I'm the same way. It's, it's, but I think you may have got me with zucchini falafel fritters on one 86.
I, you need to try them because these are so good.
They are so good. And they're so easy. We've made them so many times since, um, since I turned my manuscript in and instead of like blending up chickpeas for your falafel, you just use chickpea flour and you grate up your zucchini
[1:00:26] in them. You would never know there's zucchini in there.
So delicious. And you make these like little fritters and you could eat them as a snack or you can eat them in a beautiful bowl with like a beautiful parsley salad, hummus, 10 out of 10, 10 out of 10.
And I also have For those zucchini skeptics, it's a scarpaccia, which is a scarpaccia recipe where you use sliced zucchini as well as the drained zucchini water to make this beautiful flatbread.
That's in the scrappatizer.
There it is. There it is. You whipped it right up there.
[1:01:03] This is a great recipe. And it actually went viral on my Instagram page. I posted one.
[1:01:09] And then my manuscript had already been turned in.
And I had to beg my editor, Renee, who is like the nicest person in the world.
And I said, you know, this really needs to go in.
She's like, oh, too late. But they folded and let me put it in. That's awesome.
[1:01:32] Mushrooms. Our family is eating more and more mushrooms.
I'm so proud of my kids that are developing a much more kind of exploratory palette besides eggplant and zucchini.
But so mushrooms, you've got...
Vegan meaty hand pies. And I honestly think that if you were to...
This is the puff pastry recipe.
They're so good though. Oh my goodness. If you were to invite me over to your house for dinner, I would say, okay, but make me 15.
I'm going to plow through 15 of these. Probably like your husband can now with his appetite.
[1:02:14] I'm turning to it. I'm turning to it here. Oh my gosh. There it is.
Okay so these are unbelievable i would say that these if you're gonna be like okay i'm gonna eat oil and puff pastry one night the this we need for christmas this year um they and i will tell you i am like one of the only vegans in my family my extended family of like 30 and um these flew off flew off the plate um so they are carnivore approved they are so delicious and they use They use a similar idea to that kind of ground beef recipe I made, but it has mushrooms in it as well. So good. Carnivore approved.
[1:02:58] Mushy berries.
Everything looks incredible. But the one that jumped out at me because I am such – when I was younger, Carleigh, my favorite food in the Hawaii world was peanut butter and jelly, right?
On Pepperidge Farm, I would eat bread. bread and uh and anyway i immediately saw pb and j chickpea blondies and you like you you caught my curiosity so i'm going to go to page 250 and i want to show people chickpea blondies right there i just made these so they're fresh in my mind and i like you i love peanut butter i love chocolate i love peanut butter and jam so these are peanut butter and jam blondies and um they the base is chickpeas.
And the other thing that's cool about this recipe is there's an oat milk recipe in the book, and then you can use the leftover pulp for these blondies.
However, you don't have to. So they provide an option. Like, if you're just making them from scratch, you just need to use oats.
And they're delicious. They're delicious, I'm telling you.
Especially, I have jam recipes, if you want to, like, go full on and make everything from scratch.
Or you can just, like, use strawberry jam from the store. But that combo of, like.
[1:04:10] Peanut butter and jam in the blondies is 12 out of 10. So good.
Well, and you've done it again. Of course, as I was going to page 250, page 245, it stopped.
[1:04:23] And of course, you've got hot chocolate cookies.
There they are. And it's just like your death by chocolate flapjacks.
Why did you use the name flapjacks?
I love the name flapjacks. I think it's got so much more personality than pancakes.
Cakes. Can I tell you something I haven't told anybody about this book?
And it's that, and it's really funny.
[1:04:45] I had just finished my manuscript and I felt like I want this edited before it goes into my publisher, just so that it's really clean.
And I hired this guy off of Upwork to edit the manuscript and just like clean up grammatical errors.
And he ended up being from from Texas.
He was a meat eater and he's editing my manuscript. He had all this experience.
He was great, but he was coming up with names. He was changing the names of some of the recipes.
And I was like, yeah, go ahead. And I'll like go back and change them back.
But he renamed them flapjacks.
And there's a few names in there that are people will see are so wacky.
A lot of it came from this guy from Texas who was editing the manuscript.
But I just thought it was so funny because I'm like, what are the chances?
Like I didn't know when I hired him that he was like this Texas meat eater editing a vegan plant-based book, but he had so much fun with it. And then I didn't even tell my publisher this.
And then I handed the manuscript in and I'm sure they were appreciative because it was cleaned up. I am not the biggest attention to detail person.
So I always need like a refinement. Yeah.
[1:05:58] To come in at the end i'm very much uh just like that but there's something about flapjacks that makes me think of uh like lumberjacks in the in alaska and wow so anyway these these hot chocolate cookies um what do you think oh they're amazing and they're inspired by like a mexican hot chocolate so they're spicy you can add cayenne pepper to them i love like a chocolate spicy mix and another recipe you will love rip is a wacky cake.
So I have a chocolate cake recipe in the book that is completely oil free.
I use aquafaba in place of the oil.
And a wacky cake is this like historical recipe that traditionally just uses, I believe it's just like oil, flour and cocoa powder and sugar to make a cake.
So I built off of that recipe, but made it whole food plant based and and then swapped the oil for aquafaba.
And it worked on my first test attempt.
And it's, it's something we make over and over again, because it's just this like perfectly sweet.
I don't like, for me, I'm not a huge sweet person.
[1:07:08] Like my desserts, I don't like them to be overly kind of like really, really sweet.
So it's a perfect chocolate cake if you like, like something that's not too, too sweet. Oh, yes.
And that's called the wacky? Wacky cake. Oh, wacky cake. Okay.
In the desserts too. It's good.
[1:07:25] And I have a peanut butter chocolate or almond butter chocolate icing, I think it is.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Oh, there it is.
[1:07:35] Oh. Yeah, it's really pretty. Oh, Lord. Yeah. It's gorgeous. All right. So...
[1:07:44] Tomatoes. Again, I am embarrassed by how many tomatoes we are very well-meaningly purchased, and then for whatever reason, they go bad.
[1:07:57] But you have a knack, whether it's the skin of the tomato or the skin of the onion or whatever it is, of turning it into something really, really fun. fun.
So I am going to go to page two 30. I think it's two or three tomato.
When you say tomato, I say tomato, tomato peel powder.
So, so I mean, yeah, no, yeah.
Three walk you through that. So a lot of people will peel their tomatoes when they're making either salsa or tomato sauce.
And I have a great scratch tomato sauce recipe in the book where I suggest that you peel the the tomatoes because they will be like, they'll leave like a texture in your sauce that is not the best.
Um, or you can leave them in it. It's, it's dependent, but if you do, um, blanch your tomatoes and take the peels off, you can utilize them.
And what I like to do is dehydrate them and then blend them into a powder.
And this is a great, we have ketchup chips in Canada, and this is what it reminds me of.
Like you can sprinkle the tomato peel powder on popcorn.
So good. It's It's like a ketchup chip. And so to add almost like a tomatoey, paprika-ish flavor to dishes, it's a great spice.
[1:09:16] Okay. We got to talk. I'm deviating now from got this, make that, right?
I love it. I think it's ingenious and you've done such a nice job with that.
[1:09:29] One of the things that I'd say, and I'm not exaggerating Carleigh when I say this, I probably go through, I probably eat six bananas a day.
Whoa. Six, right? And between my whole family, we probably go through 12 to 14 a day.
And so it makes me want to know how to do your banana peel bacon.
And it's on page 51. So if you could just explain that and let me know, is it really good or is it just kind of okay?
[1:09:59] It is really good. So to make banana peel bacon, you want to scoop out the like flesh in the peel, and then you're going to marinate the peel in this amazing like soy sauce, paprika marinade.
And then you're going to bake it. If you have an air fryer, it will crisp up even more. and I'll tell you like it is shocking. It is shockingly good.
However, if you're someone who's like, this is too far for me because this is probably the scrappiest recipe in the book, I get it.
You can also take your banana peels and put them in like a jar with water and soak them overnight.
And you've now created a really, really nutrient dense fertilizer for your plants because of the amount of nutrients in the banana peels.
So there's two options there. And then one One step further is like, I know people are going to be wary about banana peels. So I added an identical recipe.
It uses the identical marinade for oyster mushroom bacon.
[1:10:52] So there's two options there, but it is really good. And I recommend trying.
Okay, done. We'll try it.
[1:11:02] So...
[1:11:06] One of the, I told you, I love chocolate. I love bananas. I also love peanut butter. We always have a empty peanut butter jar.
Always, always. It seems like at least two or three times a week, which led me to page 191, which was your peanut butter jar latte.
Your perfect peanut butter butter curry. Oh, I was right. I have a few peanut butter jar.
You do, but I also, I, one of my favorite foods in the whole wide world is, is Indian food and a good curry.
So this, um, this is one of my favorite recipes in the book, make it all the time.
And this is when I talk about, I think people look at food bloggers and they think we're eating like a million different things in a month and that that's how a plant-based person eats.
And in reality, and I don't know about your home, but in my home, we probably cycle through four to five staple base recipes.
And then we're interchanging the different proteins from like tofu to beans or whichever else we're interchanging the vegetables to kind of get that diversity
[1:12:14] in, but we're using the same bases.
So this is a really like a staple recipe in my home that I hope becomes a staple in others.
[1:12:24] And It's my favorite, my favorite curry in the world.
And it, you add peanut butter to it. It's so creamy and delicious.
And you can really like look in your fridge and see anything and add it.
Broccoli, bell peppers, onions, chard, whatever. It's going to be delicious.
And I like to serve it over rice.
So thank you. So if I, if I want to make the quickest peanut butter, like sauce.
Yeah, I got you. for a quick salad or to dip my spring rolls in that my daughter Hope loves.
What do I add to this and then shake it up? Yeah. So you're going to add, and I have a nutty noodle salad recipe.
Like I said, a lot of things that you could utilize for this, but you're going to add some soy sauce, rice vinegar, maybe some lime juice, a little bit of maple syrup for sweetness, and then some water to thin.
And then you're going to shake it, shake it, shake it and pour.
And you've got a beautiful peanut sauce.
And speaking of spring rolls, I have a fresh spring roll recipe in the book and they're broccoli stem summer rolls.
So we haven't talked about broccoli stems, but if you're somebody who's buying broccoli every week and you're paying for it by weight, you're the half the weight is coming from the stem and it's completely edible.
You just have to peel off the really hard outer layer unless you're grating it, in which case you're fine.
[1:13:43] And then I like to slice it into thin matchsticks and I love to use it in summer rolls like matchstick carrots.
So good. So fresh tasting and delicious. Yeah. Yeah. Um.
[1:13:57] This is the last recipe I'm going to hit you with because you've done such a phenomenal job. Okay.
Leftover quinoa truffles, right? I saw these and I was like, it kind of reminds me of chocolate truffles.
And if I can use leftover quinoa, can you also use like leftover brown rice or does it not work for that?
I haven't tried. I bet you, you could though.
A quinoa just lends itself really well to like a dessert.
So you take leftover quinoa and you blend it with some dates, cinnamon, cocoa powder, a little bit of vanilla, little bit of vanilla extract.
And, um, you blend it in like a food processor and it makes a full dough and then you can roll.
And these could really be energy bites as well.
Um, they're so good. They remind me, my mom used to make rumbles growing up that were like, uh, truffles.
They had rum in them for some reason and she would call them rumbles, but that's what they remind me of.
No alcohol included. Although now that we say that maybe it could be added if you so desire.
[1:15:08] Carleigh, you have some of the most adorable creative videos that you have been producing.
And you have this, I don't know if you call it a series or what, but you say, You come on there and you're like, I'm a low-waste chef.
[1:15:28] I'm a low-waste chef. And that's why stop throwing out your, or you say, maybe it's, you say, turn your, and you say, potato peels into?
[1:15:40] Into chips. Yes. I'm a low-waste chef. So this came from a trend.
There was this trend going viral on Instagram. It was like stereotypical things.
So I saw a lot of vegans doing it. It was like, I'm vegan. in of of course i eat tofu at every meal or whatever like very stereotypical i'm like this is perfect and um so i've done two videos so far but they go through like so many of my scrappy hacks so it'll be like i'm a low-wave chef of course i save my strawberry tops for strawberry top vinegar um yeah you so let's go through some right now okay so you say of course i'm a low-wave chef.
I turn my banana peels into chips.
I turn my date seeds into coffee.
You can use date seeds. So my question there is, Is it a date coffee or are you adding these date seeds to coffee?
You're roasting the date seeds like you would coffee beans and then you're grinding them up. You need a really good coffee grinder for this.
Don't get mad at me if you have a little one in it and it doesn't get through.
Or you can use a mortar and pestle, pestle and mortar. I say it the opposite every time.
Pestle and mortar to grind them up. And then you just take boiling water and you pour it over if you're using or make coffee, however, you're going to make coffee and you've made a great coffee substitute.
No caffeine, but it's reminiscent of like a strong tea or coffee.
[1:17:06] I'm a low waste chef. I save my pickle juice for.
Oh, so many things. You can add it to soup, salad, dressing,
Flavorful Scrappy Pesto
[1:17:13] marinate, tofu for pickled Tennessee tenders, which I have in here.
Um so pickle juice never throw that away and i hear marathoners i mean i've caught jesse drinking it more than once love their pickle juice for all of the sodium probably exactly i'm a low-waste chef i save my onion peels for onion peel powder so another recipe in the book so you can dehydrate your onion peels blend them up and you've got like a very onion um onion powder reminiscent spice, I save my carrot tops for?
Pasto. So you can, I have a great recipe in the book called Scrappy Pasto, and it's taking any green that you want.
So your radish greens, your carrot tops, or whichever else, and blending them with some sunflower seeds and cashews or garlic, and garlic and nutritional yeast.
And it's so good. Use it as a dip or a pasta sauce.
I'm a low-waste chef. I save my coffee grounds for?
Granola. Whoa.
[1:18:16] I just filmed this actually for a video, but coffee ground, it's called common ground granola, but we use the coffee grounds, a little bit of coffee ground in there.
And it creates like a mocha flavor at the end.
And if you have more coffee grounds, because if you drink coffee every day, surely you do.
You can also just put them in a bowl in your fridge and it will work like baking soda to suck up scent.
[1:18:38] So it's a great, great little scrappy hack there.
You have lots but this is the last one we're gonna end with this one i'm a low-wage chef i save my, chickpea water for oh chickpea um mousse so chocolate mousse so you can blend it foam and then you add some melted chocolate to it and it creates the most luscious mousse that is out of this world delicious you know Carleigh.
[1:19:08] Way to go. Way to go. We started by crying and now we're laughing and having a great time.
So I'd say that's a good sign of a great podcast. Thank you so much for having me on, Rip.
[1:19:20] Absolutely. And before I let you go, Carleigh, I need to let everybody here know, and we haven't announced it yet, but I want to do it now.
And that is you will be joining us in 2024, August 16th to the 18th in Black Mountain, North Carolina for Plant Stock.
Plant Stock. I think it's our 14th, our 14th annual Plant Stock.
And this will be our first time being back live and in person, which we're so excited about.
Out and you know you have so graciously agreed to come you will be uh giving several uh food demonstrations am i cooking i hope so i'm so excited yeah oh yeah we're gonna have you yeah and we'll be we've got a great camera that'll broadcast up everything to this great big screen it's gonna be fabulous we're also we have dr will bolshevitz who you mentioned earlier yeah he told told me he was coming.
I got, I'm like, this is going to be the best weekend ever. I'm so excited.
I don't even know, but what's so cool about that is you were introduced to me by Will Bolshevitz. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. He's become such a great friend over the years.
Wonderful, wonderful human being here.
[1:20:41] I can't wait. I can't wait. We, and, and we also have, just to give you some other their headliners. We have Dr.
Maybe you don't know her, Dr. Dawn Musalem. She was on our podcast.
She is a physician with the Mayo Clinic, lifestyle physician.
[1:20:57] She's had basically two different death sentences and she's survived them both.
Once was cancer and the other was she had to have a heart transplant.
I'm going to have to go and listen to that episode. And it is, she is one of the most inspirational, joyful people, and she's now running marathons. So cool.
And anyway, she'll be there to share her incredible journey.
[1:21:23] We've got, you know, John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Food Market, ex-CEO of Whole Food Market stores will be there.
Obviously, Jane, my sister, will be there. Fingers crossed that my mother, Ann, and my father, Essie, will be there.
Uh we've got you've never heard of these guys but they're called plant bros and they do cooking demos and they do it because they're plant bros you know and they gotta do everything manly they cut you know they cut sandwiches with an axe they will you know do stuff with a chainsaw i mean it is media yeah.
[1:21:56] Oh, I need to follow. Yeah. I'm so interested now. I know. I know.
And, uh, Oh, and then from the UK, do you know Gemma Newman, Dr.
Gemma Newman? I know Gemma Newman. I've met her more than once.
And this is, if you watch Gemma Newman, you're like, this is the kind of soul when you meet her, she has an aura about her.
That is like the warmest, gentle human.
I I'm I'm such a fan. I love her.
So Gemma's coming over as well.
I had her on the podcast not too long ago talking about her new book.
And Carleigh, we laughed longer and harder than I have in years.
Have you met her in person?
Never. Oh, you're going to adore her. She is just wonderful.
Oh, this is like, I'm so excited. I haven't put my phone down on until August.
And so we're going to cap it at 400 people right now.
[1:22:56] And then we're also going to broadcast it out as well for people that, you know, can't make it live.
But it's going to be a barn burner. And I'm just so grateful that you're going to be coming and that we get to meet for the first time.
And I want everybody to know, one of the things that's going to make this so unique is that people like Carleigh, Will, Dawn, Gemma, Ann, Essy, Jane, everybody.
Buddy we're there from friday to sunday we're going to be eating breakfast lunch dinner together we'll be hanging out we're going to be playing pickleball going for hikes yoga uh you know whatever you want tennis um frisbee golf it is 1400 acres it's this old ymca and everybody stays on campus so in this amazing house so it's we're calling it camp plant stock and it really is Everybody needs to get their tickets.
This is going to be the most epic weekend.
[1:23:53] Like I, I am beyond excited, even though I I'm cooking, I'm cooking for, for people.
And I'm, I'm there, but like, I'm just, I'm beyond excited to see all of the speakers and hang out with everybody.
That's just going to be so fun. So as we're on our way out here, Carleigh.
So this is going to drop March 28th, your book. Okay.
Launches April 2nd. Explain to people quickly why you would so appreciate it if they would pre-order this right this second.
If you are interested and you want the book, pre-orders mean the most to me as an author.
So they really set the book up for success. It's launch week, which is April 2nd, and they count towards bestsellers list.
So particularly the the New York Times bestsellers list, all the pre-orders stack into that for the first week sales.
So it means the world to me. And as a thank you, I've put together this full list of a huge freebie bundle with a 101 vegan snack ebook, a vegan cheese ebook worth over $200 at scrappycookbook.com that you can claim up until April 2nd when the book comes out.
So if you pre-order, you just upload a screenshot of your receipt there and you're good to go.
But But yes, it means the absolute world to me. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you to anybody who pre-orders.
[1:25:17] Carleigh, I am plant strong. You are Plant You.
[1:25:20] You are one scrappy, incredible woman. Thank you, Rip. This was a blast.
All right. I'll see you soon.
[1:25:30] Let's be sure to help our friend Carleigh Bodrug hit the New York Times bestseller list when it hits the shelves on April 2nd.
To learn more and to pre-order her book, visit scrappycookbook.com to take advantage of $120 in freebies that she's offering.
That's scrappycookbook.com. And I'll also be sure to link to that in the show notes.
Save money, save waste, save time, and get scrappy.
And while you're at it, always, always keep it PlantStrong. Thanks so much for listening.
The PlantStrong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey.
If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones.
You can always leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode.
As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
