#186: Toni Okamoto - You CAN Save Time and Money While Still Being Plant-Based
Toni and Eddie, photo courtesy of: Lauren White
What is the most common myth about adopting a whole food plant-based diet? (Ok- besides that crazy fear of not getting enough protein)...The biggest misconception is that this way of eating is expensive, unattainable, and elitist even. This simply isn’t true. I mean, what’s more economical than potatoes, beans, and rice?!
Toni Okamoto (plantbasedonabudget.com) has been on a mission to bust this myth to smithereens since she launched her website in 2012 to prove that healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive.
She’s created meal plans that show how to eat plant-based if you only have $25 per week to spend, she started the Plant-Based on a Budget Facebook group and has written multiple books, including her latest, which drops on March 7th - Plant-Based on a Budget: Quick and Easy, featuring 100 fast and healthy meals.
There’s no pretentiousness here - just plant-powered fun as she walks through her story and digs into some of the tips and recipes in her new book that will stretch your dollar and leave you with quick, easy, mouth-watering meals.
Episode Highlights:
25:40 The Value of Meal Planning
Order Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy (Release Date: March 7, 2023)
29:00 Have a Well-Stocked Pantry and Freezer
31:40 Time-Saving Kitchen Tools
33:10 Smart Storage for Produce to Maximize Freshness
37:03 Recipe Highlights from Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy
40:14 Make Ahead Breakfast Highlights
Fluffy Freezer waffles
Baked Oatmeal
Overnight Oats
45:50 One-Pot Meal Highlights - Leave the dishes and messy kitchen behind with one-pot meals
Alfredo pasta
Curry lentil soup
Turmeric, lentils, and split peas - Ethiopian inspired flavors
52:05 30-Minute Meals Highlights - Spend under $30 a week and only 30 minutes of time
Pesto pasta - Use raw sunflower seeds because they are cheaper than pine nuts
Cauliflower fried rice
Southwestern lettuce wraps
1:02:20 Sheet Pan Dishes and Casserole Highlights
Sheet pan fajitas
Chili cornbread casserole
Vegetable and garbanzo beans foil packets
1:12:15 Mix and Match Bowls
Always prepare a base of quinoa, brown rice, beans
Frozen veggies, baked tofu
Easy dressings
1:17:00 Make and Take Snacks
1:17:55 Desserts
About Toni Okamoto
TONI OKAMOTO is the founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, the popular website and meal plan that shows you how to save dough by eating veggies. She’s also author of the Plant-Based on a Budget cookbook, The Super Easy Vegan Slow Cooker Cookbook, and the co-host of The Plant-Powered People Podcast. Okamoto’s work has been profiled by NBC News, Parade Magazine, and she’s a regular presence on local and national morning shows across the country, where she teaches viewers how to break their meat habit without breaking their budget. She was also featured in the popular documentary What the Health. When she’s not cooking up a plant-based storm, she’s spending time with her husband in Sacramento, CA.
Episode Resources
Order Toni’s New Book, Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy
Plant-Based on a Budget Website
Follow Toni on Instagram: @plantbasedonabudget
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Full YouTube Transcript
Rip Esselstyn:
Six days of laughing and learning and living in ways that you never thought were possible. If for one second you've ever considered joining a PLANTSTRONG retreat, now is your opportunity. Join me and the whole PLANTSTRONG crew April 16th through the 21st, just outside Asheville, North Carolina in the wondrous and magical Black Mountain. We'll be taking morning hikes together, playing afternoon pickleball, yoga, endless, endless buffets of plant-based meals, talks from some of the world leading experts on how to elevate and enhance your plant-based lifestyle. And a little asterisk here. Great news for healthcare professionals. We have CMEs and CEUs available for physicians, physician assistants, nurses and nurse practitioners as part of the registration fee. Simply visit plantstron.com and click on Black Mountain for all the details. Or send an email with any questions you have to events@plantsrong.com. I'll see you April 16th.
Toni Okamoto:
But I wanted to show that you can eat an abundance of plants and still stay within that budget. And I was able to, I got my meal planned down to $20 shopping at Walmart, and I was buying things like brown rice, whole dried beans, lots of different produce, and it was three meals a day plus some snacks. You were eating a lot of fruit for snacks, and I showed how it could be done.
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.
We are going to start out today's episode with a pop quiz. So grab your pencils or your pens, no PTSD here, because this will not be graded. This is just pure fun. What is the most common myth about adopting a whole food plant-based diet? And we're going to remove from the answers, take off the table protein. All right. The crazy fear of not getting enough protein, forget about it. That doesn't count. So in my opinion, and I think most of you will agree with me, the biggest misconception is that this way of eating is too expensive and absolutely unattainable for most people. And this simply is not true. I mean, what in the world is more economical than potatoes, rice, beans and bananas.
My guest today has been on a mission to bust this myth to smithereens with her website and books. I'm talking about Miss Plant-Based on a Budget herself, Toni Okamoto, for much of her adult life, Toni has lived at or near the poverty line, but she created her site plantbasedonabudget.com way back in 2012 to prove that healthy eating does not have to be expensive. She's created meal plans that show how to eat plant-based if you only have $25 per week to spend. She started the Plant-Based on a Budget Facebook group, and she has written multiple books, including her latest, which drops on March 7th Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy, featuring 100 fast and healthy meals. There's no pretentiousness here, just plant powered fun as Toni walks me through her story and we dig into some of the tips and recipes in her new book that will stretch your dollar and leave you with quick, easy mouthwatering meals. Let's welcome Toni. Toni Okamoto. Welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast.
Toni Okamoto:
Thank you so much for having me Rip. I am really excited about our conversation today.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I don't think you're as excited as I am because if you can teach our listeners how to save time and save money by eating plant-based, that to me is a great, great value add and I can't wait to knock those pins down with you today. So Toni, where are you? Where am I speaking to you from?
Toni Okamoto:
I'm in Sacramento, California. It is the capital of California, which people know, but people also think of it as a really big city when actually it's really tiny.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what does tiny mean to you? Like 400,000 people?
Toni Okamoto:
No, it's spread out very far and there are a lot of people because it takes maybe 50 minutes to get from one side of the city to the other. But if you drive to our downtown, you'll be very underwhelmed. It will have five or six big buildings, and it's not the site you would expect for the capital of California, but the plant-based food is good. That's great.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, my wife's sister lives in Chico, California, which is just an hour and a half up the road. So we would always fly into Sacramento and sometimes we spent the night at the Hyatt Regency that's kind of right on the River Walk there, which is a really nice place where you can walk and there's like little shops and stuff. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Toni Okamoto:
I do. Very cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Very cool. Yeah, I find that to be really charming actually.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah, I've grown up here, so I like it. And I thought I would move a million times, but here I am. So there must be something really good that's keeping me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Toni, your first name is spelled T-O-N-I. How did you get that name, Toni, and why is it spelled that way?
Toni Okamoto:
That is a good question. Okay, so this is kind of funky. Everyone in my big family has a Toni of some sort in their immediate family. So my grandma was named Antonia. She is who I'm named after, and her dad was Antonio. But in my family, I've got Antoinette's, I have Toni's, I have T-O-N-Y's, I have Anthony's. And so when you go to a family reunion and you say, Toni, half the group is turning their head to see who's calling their name.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, that's awesome. And you were raised by a single father, is that correct?
Toni Okamoto:
That is correct. I actually had two chapters of my childhood. I had part one where I was raised by my grandparents. My dad was very young, a teenager when I was born. So he went to the Navy right when I was born so that he could send home his paychecks. And my grandparents raised me in that time while my dad was deployed, so I got a really solid upbringing with my grandpa who was a Japanese gardener here in the Central Valley. And I had a ton of access to fresh food. And my grandma, they were both retired, would cook it from scratch. And then when I was 11, I moved back with my dad and we lived kind of the bachelor life together.
Rip Esselstyn:
And do you know who your mother is?
Toni Okamoto:
I do, yeah. I have known her at this point. I see her maybe once a year or so, but I have not had a really active relationship with her throughout my life.
Rip Esselstyn:
How often do you see your dad? Since I would imagine he's still in Sacramento.
Toni Okamoto:
All the time. I see him all the time. I talk to him every day. He's my best friend, and I get to see him once or twice a week.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I think it's really fantastic how you've dedicated your new book Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy to your father. And if you don't mind, I'd love to read the dedication you say, "To my dad with all my love, respect, and admiration. All the nights and weekends that you brought me along as you worked overtime are deeply ingrained in my heart. And I have so much gratitude for the sacrifices that you made as a young single father to give me the best life. Thank you for showing me what hard work looks like. This book and everything that I do is in your honor." That is beautiful.
Toni Okamoto:
Thank you. I feel it so deeply in my heart. My dad has made so many sacrifices. Every choice that he has made has been for me and my younger brother, and that's really special.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I would imagine that he must be so incredibly proud of your journey and your career path now and what you've been able to accomplish.
Toni Okamoto:
At this point. Yes, we have had some ups and downs because I don't think he understood what blogging meant, what being a content creator meant when I told him I was going to do it full time. And I believe he thought I was taking a step back in life, but at this point he's very proud of me. And also with the plant-based lifestyle, he was not totally understanding of why it was important to me and was quite dramatic in the beginning of why I would first stop eating red meat, but then go on to be a total hippie dippy all the way over here. But now they support me and they accommodate me, and I'm really lucky. My dad and his wife, who they've been married now for I want to say 23 years, they support me and accommodate me always.
Rip Esselstyn:
And has your father changed the way he eats because of what you've done?
Toni Okamoto:
I celebrate every plant-based meal. And when I'm around, they're always making things for me that I can eat. And when we eat together, it's usually plant-based, like tomorrow's my birthday and we're going to go drive to the Bay Area, which is about an hour and a half from where I live to go to a nice plant-based restaurant. And that was his idea, it's something that he knows is important to me and wants to do with me. And I call that a win.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, congratulations on your birthday tomorrow. I just had my birthday a couple days ago. Are you and are you Aquarius?
Toni Okamoto:
I'm a Pisces.
Rip Esselstyn:
Pisces, okay.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah, I think the 20th is the cutoff.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you went to co community college and then you dropped out, and then I think it was in your late 20s that you decided you'd go back and get your degree when you really had more of a greater and deeper appreciation for that kind of education, right?
Toni Okamoto:
Yes, for many different reasons. Yes. One, I had more of a path that I wanted to take in 2016 is when I decided I wanted to run Plant-Based on a Budget full time. And it's also when I went back to school. So I was able to learn and directly apply all of the information that I was learning from college to my business. And I went to University of San Francisco, studied management, which has a huge business component and really have applied everything I've learned into my business.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you went plant-based in about 2007. What were your guiding stars that kind of got you into this?
Toni Okamoto:
At first it was health. I had never considered how the food I ate impacted my body ever, ever, ever. It wasn't a thing that I was taught. And then I was getting sick quite often at my track practice, and my coach is the first person who was like, "Yo, what are you eating?" And I thought, "Wow, that's a weird question." But it was that I was eating a lot of processed food and a lot of red meat and a lot of fast food.
There was a Taco Bell located directly across the street from my campus. It was a thing to go with my friends and get a bean burrito and a taco or two bean burritos and two tacos, and I was just eating no vegetables. And so he told me I should cut back on red meat, fast food, and processed food and start incorporating more vegetables. And he didn't say go vegetarian or anything like that, but that was the first time I made a choice to eat healthier. And from there I began to thrive as an athlete. I was recovering faster, I wasn't getting sick, and it was the genesis of me moving closer to a plant-based lifestyle.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you also have a deep love for animals, right?
Toni Okamoto:
Very much so. I decided to become vegetarian after I left my family's house. It was really rough for them. As I mentioned earlier, they thought, "Gosh, how did we get this hippie dippy kid?" And at that time, I only didn't eat red meat, but it was a challenge for them, and it was much easier for me to embrace vegetarianism when I left their house and when I was responsible for my own food. And at that time, I didn't really know what vegetarian meant. I was still eating soup with chicken broth in it. I was still picking pepperonis off my cheese pizza. And it wasn't until I went to community college and found the vegetarian club through an ethics course that I felt inspired. And that ethics course was an intro to ethics, and one third of it was spent on animal ethics. I learned about things I had never considered and felt more supported through that course and through the veg club to start looking at my food more critically.
And we went to a sanctuary, a farm animal sanctuary, where I got to meet the individuals who had been spared from slaughter. And that was really powerful and all of those things together, especially having the support system, meeting peers who had similar challenges and who were able to overcome those challenges and become plant-based, they were culturally rooted in their foods, like me on a tight budget, didn't have a lot of resources in their kitchen to cook elaborate meals. We shared all of these challenges and overcame them together. And it was the reason I think I was able to stick to it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Your whole brand, Toni is Plant-Based on a Budget. You've got close to 600,000 followers now on Instagram. You're coming out with, I think it's your third book. You've got a podcast that you're doing that that is called, oh, let's see, what is it called? It's called what?
Toni Okamoto:
It's called the Plant-Powered People Podcast. And you were a guest on there, which we were so grateful.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I knew it was a lot of P's in there. The Plant-Based People Podcast. Beautiful. But Plant-Based on a Budget. And so this obviously rang true to you. What was it that in your life, I mean, allowed you to have this resonate with you so well? Is it because you were living pay to paycheck because you had to actually be super economical and live this way? Help me with that.
Toni Okamoto:
It was a few things. First, and still to this day, I love my family so much, and they were experiencing so many diet related health issues. My aunt had type two diabetes and she had multiple amputations, and then it claimed her life. And my grandpa who helped raise me had a heart attack, and then he died of complications in a triple bypass surgery. And my 40-year-old uncle, he had a heart attack, and it was just all over the place, everywhere I looked and I felt like I needed to do something.
So I had already been thriving on a plant-based diet, and every time I would say, "Hey, you should try this," money was something that I heard as a concern. So I started making our family's recipes plant based and putting them on Plant-Based on a Budget. But I also wanted to show not only my family, but my friends too. So many people I knew were on a tight budget and I had been living paycheck to paycheck. I was living under the poverty line. I had multiple jobs. There were times I didn't have a car, and I was still able to do it shopping at places like Dollar Tree and Walmart. And I wanted to show that you didn't have to shop at an expensive grocery store or even a different grocery store than you normally go to eat plant based.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. What were some of the jobs that you held back then?
Toni Okamoto:
I was a tutor at my college campus when I was in community college. I worked at a shoe store, I worked at a vegan restaurant. I worked as a nanny for the longest time of that period. I was a nanny for one family for five years, and I still know them, and I still really love them.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, they must be so enthused with your success. Okay. So you wrote your first book Plant-Based on a Budget. It came out in 2019, correct?
Toni Okamoto:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And when did that light bulb go on in your brain going, "You know what? I think I want to write a book about Plant-Based on a Budget." I mean, did somebody say, "Hey, Toni, you should write a book," or did you think of it yourself? Because I can tell you, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would write a book and be an author and all that stuff, but I had some people that believed that I could and pushed me, and then I also eventually believed. But how did it work for you?
Toni Okamoto:
Well, I actually have four books. It's my fourth book. My first book was the Super Easy Vegan Slow Cooker Cookbook, and that was a very different experience being a published author. A company came up to me, a publisher came up to me and said, "Hey, we have this concept. Will you write it and then put your name on it and we'll market it and we'll pay you a writer's fee?" I was paid a very small amount of money. I was paid $3,500 to write the cookbook, and it went on to sell 90,000 copies. So it did really well, and I got paid very little for it.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you didn't get any royalties for that?
Toni Okamoto:
No, I didn't get royalties. So that, that's the model of some publishers. They look for promising authors who haven't written a book yet, who have a growing platform. I think I had maybe 20,000 followers at the time. And so that's the model.
Rip Esselstyn:
So if I can interrupt for a second.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah, go ahead.
Rip Esselstyn:
Because selling 90,000 and do you know what the price point was on this was?
Toni Okamoto:
I think it sold for $16.95.
Rip Esselstyn:
So in a typical arrangement, you probably would've made, if you were making backend royalties, you probably would've made well over $100,00, just as an FYI. So anyway, okay, so let's move on.
Toni Okamoto:
So then I knew what I was capable of. I started around the time I had sold maybe 35,000 copies. I heard that I should get an agent. Everybody who I had known who had, had a book before said, "You need an agent. You should have had an agent before. That's outrageous that you were paid $3,500 and sold 35,000 copies." So I went onto a website called Publisher's Marketplace where you can see a list of agents and how not much they're making, but what kind of deals they're brokering for their clients. And I emailed the top 10, I heard back from six, I got my top choice. Her name is Celeste Fine, she's super awesome. And she helped me get a deal with BenBella, who is now my current publisher. And I like them. They do a profit-sharing model. So I make 50% of the profits now of all of my books.
Rip Esselstyn:
Great. And Ben... To my understanding, the book that really put BenBella on the map was the China study who Colin went with back in 2000 and 2005.
Toni Okamoto:
And has stuck with.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Toni Okamoto:
His whole family loves BenBella and that they treat their authors really well. They are very, very extremely supportive, which is not always the case with different publishers.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I guess Colin really greased the skids for a lot of other plant-based books to come down that pike.
Toni Okamoto:
Definitely. They went on to have their own vegan line of books. So it's BenBella Vegan, and they specifically want to work with vegan people, which is very cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Okay, so please continue.
Toni Okamoto:
Okay. So I then started with BenBella. We put together a proposal. They weighed in on it. At first, I wanted to talk only about money, and they wanted me to include some aspects of time. It's not as thorough as Plant-Based on a Budget Quick & Easy, which is my follow-up that is just out. But I focused a lot with that book on where I was in life and that was I was cooking everything from scratch. I was trying to save money. I was in a lot of debt still, and food prep, meal prep, meal planning was a tool that I used to bring myself out of debt. And that was what that book was focusing on. If you are in a similar position where you have more time than money, I will teach you how to make the basics and enjoy it and have them be healthy meals.
And my audience is primarily non-vegetarian, I have done a survey, I've done a couple surveys that show about 65% of my audience eats meat still, and they're looking to incorporate more plant-based dishes, and they're just stepping in. They maybe saw me on What The Health, that's where I get a lot of my traffic from. Or they saw my book on Amazon and decided to follow me. And I'm usually the first step into plant-based eating for my audience, which is very cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, it's a great brand Plant-Based on a Budget, and I don't know many people that aren't trying to save money and save time. All right, let's dive into this little gem. All right, your latest baby. Is this a baby girl or a baby boy?
Toni Okamoto:
It's a baby girl.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, sorry. Let's talk about this little baby girl. So let's first talk about meal planning because you basically say how there's different ways that you can budget both time and money in and out of the kitchen. And the first thing you talk about is meal planning. So meal planning.
Toni Okamoto:
Meal planning is how I got my start with Plant-Based on a Budget. It's how I became well known. And when I started, I was giving people recipes. They didn't really know how to create a plan within their week that was using all of the ingredients. And so they would use half of a bunch of celery, they would use half of a bag of carrots. And then over here they were putting together something with pasta, which may not use those same ingredients. And so it was hard for people, and I kept on hearing it over and over, "How do you blend your ingredients so that you're using all of them throughout the week?" So that's how I started meal planning. I created the Plant-Based on a Budget Meal Plan Challenge in 2013. And I said, "If I create a meal plan that shows you how you can eat for..." At the time it was $25 per week, "Who would do this challenge with me?"
And I had a few thousand people sign up, and it was very, very fun. I was inspired by what was called the SNAP Challenge, and they basically took the money that was allotted for government assistance for food, and they showed how people were eating, and I was really unimpressed with how much processed food people were showing. But I wanted to show that you can eat an abundance of plants and still stay within that budget. And I was able to, I got my meal planned down to $20 shopping at Walmart, and that's where the majority of my audience shops at is at Walmart.
Rip Esselstyn:
$20? Is that for a day or is that for a week?
Toni Okamoto:
Oh, one week, $20. And I was buying things like brown rice, whole dried beans, lots of different produce, and it was three meals a day plus some snacks. You're eating a lot of fruit for snacks. And I showed how it could be done. And those are still very popular on my website today. I now say it's $35 because of inflation. And that's what was featured on What The Health. Kip and I went to the grocery store using my week one meal plan, and I remember being rung up and there's a ton of food going down the line, and everybody was waiting, and Kip had cash and he only brought $25, and it rung up to something like $21. And everyone was like, "What, how did you get all of this food?" But through smart planning and being thoughtful about what goes well together, you can really get your food costs down. And so that's how I got into meal planning and I'm happy to share a lot of tips about the ways I go about it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, great. I want to talk about the next macro thing that you talk about to save time and money. And that is a well-stocked pantry. I can't tell you how many times I, like last night I went into the pantry to make actually just a simple pasta dish. And we had no kind of a jar of pasta sauce. We didn't have tomatoes, anything. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, Toni would be really upset at me right now." Well-stocked pantry, how do you do this?
Toni Okamoto:
Well-stocked pantry and well-stocked freezer, because I recently came home from a trip and I didn't have any fresh produce because we had used it all before we left, but I had a bunch of frozen food that I was able to use, frozen bell peppers, frozen broccoli. And so I try to stock my pantry with things that are not going to go bad within the next few months, six months even a year. And those things are beans. I love beans so much. Yeah, Pinto's my favorite, but also lentils. I love quinoa. I have a pressure cooker, and you can cook quinoa in five minutes and the pressure cooker. So that's a grain that I rely on. Brown rice, definitely pasta. I have a whole case of pasta in the garage, and I mean a bin, one of those storage bins where I have all the different shapes of pasta. I've got lasagna. And there was a time I did not have a lot of space.
I have the space to do this now, but even if you are in a one bedroom apartment that has a little tiny cupboard for your food, you can still stock that with cans of beans and or dried beans and the things that I just mentioned, but in smaller amounts. And what's great about bulk purchasing is that it also allows you to buy only what you need for the week. So when I was on a tight budget in a tiny little kitchen that had maybe two cabinets for my food storage, I was going and buying only what I had in my meal plan that was maybe two cups of brown rice. I would bring my measuring cups and use the downpour bulk bin to only buy the two cups that I needed so that I knew I was going to use them. And it saved me so much money. So bulk is great. If you want to do what I do now or if you want to do what I did then.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you mentioned the pressure cooker to help save time. You have a little section on time-saving kitchen tools, absolute must haves. What are some of your must haves that you would recommend for people that want to save time?
Toni Okamoto:
I am so grateful to have a pressure cooker. I did not think I would ever get one, because when you're used to cooking from scratch, that can also be part of your identity. I love cooking from scratch, but oh my gosh, I can now go walk my dog while beans are cooking and instead of having two hours, three hours waiting for my beans, I love to cook them for 25 minutes on high pressure, then take the lid off and saute them, saute the water out for 25 more minutes.
And so in an hour I have beans ready to go that are the perfect texture that don't have a lot of salt in them like if you were to get them in a can. And I think they just taste so much better. So it cuts down time dramatically. And especially with active prep time or active cook time where I have to be at the stove stirring, adding more water, making sure it's not going to burn or overflow, I can now go in my garden and hang out or do laundry or walk my dog while it's cooking without risk of fire or exclusion or any other dramatic event.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, that's all brilliant. So the next thing is smart storage. And when there's one thing that really irks me, it's when I buy, let's say a couple bunches of kale, some broccoli, some cauliflower there in the refrigerator, one of the bins, and all of a sudden I take out one of them and it's just the leaves are kind of turning a different color and all that stuff. So what would you recommend for smart storage, for leafy greens and any other thing that you can recommend for us?
Toni Okamoto:
Well, there's not a one size fits all, but I'll tell you some of my favorite, most commonly used food storage hacks, and I totally know what you mean. My husband used to say, before I did proper food storage, that cilantro would come to our house to die. That is, we would bring it in the door and it would wilt. But now I cut the bottoms and I store it like a bouquet of flowers and some water in the refrigerator. And you can even put, I use a silicone bag to keep it even fresher.
But if I were doing something like spinach or basil, I would not store it that way. I would put it in an airtight container with a paper napkin on each side to absorb some of the moisture. A lot of times when it's going bad, it's becoming a little bit soggy and brown and you want to make sure that you absorb, absorb that moisture. But there are a lot of different tips in the book for carrots and avocados. I eat avocados quite a bit. I love them. Actually, my husband proposed to me in an avocado because that's how much I love them. He hollowed out the pit and made a ring box with the avocado. So I really love avocados, and I buy them still hard, wait for them to become the perfect texture and then throw them in the refrigerator where they last many days past that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Have you ever considered freezing avocados? I know that that's a thing these days.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah, that's a controversial thing too. It's-
Rip Esselstyn:
Why so?
Toni Okamoto:
The is very divided on avocados. I posted a picture at the grocery store saying, "What you could buy frozen avocados." This was a while back, and I had thousands of people reaching out with very strong opinions on, "Yes, this is the best thing, or this is disgusting, the worst thing ever." But I don't freeze them because I eat, I eat them. They don't go bad in my house. I will eat them, but you can use them in smoothies. My understanding, because I have not used them personally is that they're not good to spread after you have frozen them. They don't have the same texture as you would if you wanted to put them on your avocado toast, for example. But they would be great in a smoothie.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, do you have a favorite way that you like to use avocados?
Toni Okamoto:
I love, my favorite meal in the world is a homemade batch of pinto beans with some, I like to make a Spanish quinoa. It's basically how you would eat Spanish rice, but cooked with quinoa instead and with some pico de gallo on top and a whole half of a avocado, just scoop it out, eat it in my mouth, put it in my mouth and chew it with a little bit of each of those things and have the perfect spoonful. That is my favorite meal on earth.
Rip Esselstyn:
Super simple, super flavorful. I like that. And lots of great textures. All right. What I want to do now, Toni, I want to dive into some of the recipes in your book, and you've got a hundred of them. And what I love is that each and every one of them has a gorgeous photo. Who was your photographer?
Toni Okamoto:
His name is Alfonso Revilla, and he has a really special story. I am so grateful to work with him and to call him a friend. He is a friend of my husband's actually. And my husband said, this was in 2019, "Hey, Why don't you reach out to Alfonso?" He had gone to college later in life too, and decided to be a photographer. And at that time, he had only done real estate photography and landscape photography. And my husband was like, "He has a camera. You should ask him if he wants to do photos for Plant-Based on a Budget." And I thought, "It's an art form. Food styling and food photography is so extremely hard." But I talked to him on the phone, he said he would try, he would love the opportunity. He was really strapped for cash, and I gave him some inspiration photos and he did a good job.
For the price it was right. And then he started doing more, and his work became a lot more refined and more beautiful. And now he's been working with me since 2019, and he nailed my vision. I told him exactly what I wanted. He moved here to my house for two months to recipe test with me and photograph all of the beautiful photos that he did. And what's even cooler about that is that his family immigrated here from Peru when he was a kid. I think he was 13 or 12, and he lived undocumented for quite some time until he got DACA. And all of his family are now citizens. He's on the path of citizenship too. But he lived in a room one bedroom with his whole family growing up. And all of his brothers and sisters, there are four of them, have gone on to be very, extremely talented, successful people who bring so much goodness to this world. So I am really proud of him and impressed with his dedication to helping people eat plant-based, helping people be inspired by his food photography. And I'm grateful that he was on my project.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that story. And I love that, that you gave him a chance, and it sounds like you both have been able to grow together over the course of your Plant-Based on a Budget books. So the first recipe that I want you to talk about, and I'm going to go through a few here, so get ready. And is, we're going to start in the breakfast, make-ahead breakfast. So what's your philosophy on breakfast and why is it called make ahead?
Toni Okamoto:
I know that breakfast is something that people often sacrifice because of time. I know growing up with a brother and a sister, with parents who had full-time jobs, it's a hustle and bustle in the morning. They're trying to get out as quickly as possible. We overslept. We're not morning people. And so sometimes you opt for things that are not the healthiest or that are frozen waffles with butter on them, and that's all you eat for breakfast. And so I wanted to make sure that people knew that they had options like overnight oats, make-ahead smoothies where you could put the effort in the night before when you're less stressed and have a quick, easy, healthy breakfast on the go in the morning,
Rip Esselstyn:
Just like a grab and go. I like that. And the first recipe I want to talk to you about, because this isn't so much a grab and go, but it can be. And in that is your fluffy freezer waffles. Can you see that everybody? Let's see. There we go. And because we in my house, we reserve Sundays for either pancakes or waffles. And it sounds like this is a very similar philosophy here.
Toni Okamoto:
And if you want to put in the work and make extra batches, they freeze perfectly, and they're very customizable, you can add in so many different things. I actually, I have a whole way to customize the pancakes and a lot of the pancake customizations work for the waffles where you can blend in spinach, you can add in berries and make them different every time. So even if you're batch cooking, you can add in those other ingredients for your future meals, then freeze them.
Rip Esselstyn:
One of my... I love oatmeal, I can't get enough oatmeal, and you've put a kind of a nice little twist on it with your baked oatmeal here. All right. And talk to me about this baked oatmeal, because I want to dive in and have some.
Toni Okamoto:
That was one of the toughest recipes for me to get in the whole book because you don't want it too dry. You don't want it too wet. And so I had to go back to that recipe maybe 9 times, 8 times, 10 times. And it is something that, again, you can put in that work and then cut them in individual slices and freeze those or store them in the refrigerator to enjoy throughout the week. And I like you cannot promote oats enough. They're so inexpensive at the grocery store, even if you're not purchasing them in through the bulk bins at Walmart, you can get, I think it's 2 pounds for $2.50. So it is a very good deal. And they're very filling for you too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I love extra thick oats. The thicker the better. And also when I'm just making plain oats, my favorite is are steel cut oats, because they kind of have that nutty and a little bit different texture. Yeah. So let's talk about on page 42, we got Overnight Oats 5 Ways. I got to say that I've really never done overnight oats for whatever reason. But in looking at these, especially the peanut butter and jelly-
Toni Okamoto:
That's my fave.
Rip Esselstyn:
Peanut butter and jelly, you've got a blueberry chia. I mean, this seems like such a smart way to spend what, couple minutes before you go to bed and then you literally grab your mason jar and you go, "I would eat it between my legs as I'm driving the car to work."
Toni Okamoto:
I really like them because they last throughout the week. Did you say you do meal prep?
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I said that I've really never done overnight oats before. It's kind of ridiculous. Yeah.
Toni Okamoto:
I do meal prep once a week and it lasts. So if I did it on Sunday night, it would last until Friday if I did them all for the week one per day, which I really, really appreciate. I don't want to keep going and doing more meal prep multiple times throughout the week. So if I can do it all in one sitting and have it last, I really want that recipe. And that's how it is with overnight oats. And I usually add the fresh fruit later, so I top them with fresh fruit that I do in the morning, but that takes just a few minutes to slice and wash and all of the things. So it's so simple. And they last throughout the week.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You've got peanut butter and jelly, you've got apple-cinnamon, chia, blueberry. You add the chia seeds the night before. Right?
Toni Okamoto:
Right.
Rip Esselstyn:
You get those nice and plumped up. You got a pumpkin pie. And I missed one there, but let's see here.
Toni Okamoto:
Wait, did you say the peanut butter and jelly?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Let's see. Oh, the one that I missed was the chocolate banana nut.
Toni Okamoto:
Oh, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, that was, yeah, of course it is. Yeah. Anything with chocolate and banana? Oof. All right. So let's move on. I want to move on now to one pot meals. And you say that for people that dread kitchen cleanup, this is like the ticket. So talk to me for a sec before I ask you about some recipes on why one pot meals other than that.
Toni Okamoto:
For me, it is definitely, definitely the least favorite thing of cooking is the washing of the dishes. I do not want to do dishes, and so the fact that I can make everything within one pot and not have to messy up all of these different utensils and pots and pans or blenders, makes me very, very happy. And my favorite recipe in there is actually one that was inspired by my friend Michelle. It's an Alfredo pasta, and it's got spinach in it, and it's so good. It's made from cashews and it's delicious.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah. Got it. Right here. It's page 84. I'm going to get to it so that I can show everybody. Oh, yeah, there she blows right there.
Toni Okamoto:
So you make the sauce, well, you cook the vegetables, and then you add the pasta with the cashew cream and some vegetable broth, and then it cooks down all in one pot and takes under 30 minutes. It's fantastic.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I've actually earmarked a couple that I want you to talk about. And the first one is the curry lentil soup. Right. I love lentils. I love curry. And so this combo really caught me. I was wondering though, my audience, we try and be mindful of oils, also coconut milk. This curry lentil soup does have coconut milk. Is there a substitute that you can think of for coconut milk that would work?
Toni Okamoto:
I think that if you were to use a high protein soy milk, that it could work. And if you cook it a little bit longer, so it's not as, because you don't want it to be really thick, but if you cook it longer, some of the liquid will absorb. So you can still have that thick experience with the creamy soup. And I love high protein soy milks. I use the Silk unsweet version the most often, and it really makes things creamy. I add that to make ramen creamy. I made a really delicious ramen broth recently. Oh my gosh. It was so good. And it made it just the perfect amount of creaminess with that soy milk.
Rip Esselstyn:
Turmeric veggies and yellow split peas. Ethiopian inspired. Obviously turmeric is hot right now because of its anti-inflammatory properties. That, and of course, anything with lentils and split peas is incredible. But I just, something about the colors, and I think you've got some broccoli in there. Just really caught my eye.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes. My husband is from Maryland, and in his area of Silver Spring, there was a beautiful Ethiopian community, and I was introduced to so many new flavors and textures and new styled cooking. I did not grow up eating a very international or many international cuisines. Actually being plant-based has opened me up to so many different texture flavors and cuisines. So I tried Ethiopian food as an adult and love it so much. And that is not an Ethiopian dish, but it is very inspired by the flavors that I learned from Ethiopian cuisine.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it. Got it. So next I want to talk about 30-minute meals, but before we do, we're going to take a little break and I want to ask you about Eddie. Who is Eddie and why do you love Eddie so much?
Toni Okamoto:
Eddie is my sweet boy. He's a pit bull, actually. He's an American Bully, which I didn't even know existed prior to having his DNA tested. But in 2020, around March 17th, we decided to help foster animals, and we got a notice from our local shelter saying that they had to get rid of 100 dogs in 24 hours or else. And so we knew we had to step up. We were at home because of the pandemic, and we decided to foster this sweet pit bull. And he was so perfect that every time someone was interested in him, I would get defensive, like, "No, he's not housebroken. He's not this or that, or whatever." But he actually was, and he's the most sweet boy. We foster pit bulls, and he is a great big foster brother who teaches these puppies how to be kind.
Oh, there he is, how he can be, how they can be kind puppies. And it also helps having Eddie be very exposed. He has an Instagram channel. He's on my channels because people have such a strong misconception about pit bulls and their attitudes and behaviors, and some people think that they may be dangerous, but in fact, all of the pit bulls that I've had in the past and have fostered, have been really sweet, loving, loyal animals.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, Eddie looks incredible, and I did check out his Instagram page. He's doing a wonderful job with all of his posts.
Toni Okamoto:
Oh, thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
So let's-
Toni Okamoto:
He has to keep up his image.
Rip Esselstyn:
Absolutely. So your next category of recipes is 30-minute meals, and this is basically what you hung your hat on for your first plant based on the budget, right? Yep. 30 under $30 a week. 30 under 30 minutes. And the first recipe I want to ask you about is this pesto pasta, which we absolutely adore. Obviously, pine nuts a lot of times can drive up the price. So what do you do instead of pine nuts to make your pesto?
Toni Okamoto:
Raw sunflower seeds, raw sunflower seeds in bulk are very inexpensive, and you don't even miss the pine nuts. I've told people later that there were no pine nuts, and in fact, there were sunflower seeds and they were shocked. But one thing to note is that if you're not familiar with sunflower seeds, make sure you're buying them without shells. And I learned this because I had one of my recipe testers, one of my recipe testers who tried the recipe, she did not know that they were available without shells. And so she made them with the shells, and she was like, it's really chalky, but it's because you need to remove the shells or make sure you purchase without shells.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, that's an innocent enough mistake, I think.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you mentioned recipe testers. It's really cool to me throughout the book and your recipes, how you include the people that tested your recipes and if they added a cool little tip that they did, and you inserted that in there, kind of as a PS on each recipe.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah. As a recipe developer, it's extremely important to me that to know that my recipes will work in many very diverse households. So I recipe tested with 100 people. Each recipe was tested by five people. And those people, some of them ate meat. Some of them don't eat oil, sugar, or salt. Some people have never cooked. Some people are chefs. And so they were all so different from each other. I even had a couple kids as recipe testers wanting to make sure that they could make my recipes too. And they gave me very valuable feedback that I incorporated and credited them in the book.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, you sure did. And maybe you said it and I missed it. So how many recipe testers did you have for this book?
Toni Okamoto:
100.
Rip Esselstyn:
100. Wow. That's great. And did you put out the word, "I'm looking for recipe testers," and then did you have to close it down in 30 minutes?
Toni Okamoto:
I did put out the word, and I wanted a lot more because people have the best intentions, and it sounds really cool, but it's a lot of work. And so some people sadly are unable to keep up. And so then I have my backups, which was always nice.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. Know all about that. So the next recipe is cauliflower fried rice, which sounds absolutely delicious. But the reason I'm asking you about this is I have not yet gotten on the cauliflower rice bandwagon. And I'm wondering, Toni, am I missing out?
Toni Okamoto:
Yes, for sure. I know a lot of people, and a lot of people in my audience are trying to move away from white rice for whatever reason that they have. And this is a great alternative to that. I do like brown rice in a stir-fry, but this is even better. I'm not joking. You simply take a whole head of cauliflower and grind it up in a food processor or in a high-powered blender, and not so much that it's mushy, but enough that it still has a little bit of texture, and then you cook it in the same way you would rice. It's awesome. Have you tried the Trader Joe's Fried Rice?
Rip Esselstyn:
I don't think I have. I don't really.
Toni Okamoto:
Of, yeah. Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's like that?
Toni Okamoto:
It's similar, it's similar.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. And what I like about cauliflower too is a lot of people don't know it, but it's basically considered a cruciferous green leafy vegetable. So you're getting all the benefits that you would from eating something like broccoli or kale or Swiss chard. And it's for a lot of people, it's much more palatable.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes. I actually, I recently did what I eat in a day with the Daily Dozen, and I included that as one of my recipes as using the cauliflower as a cruciferous vegetable.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. So the last one from this section is these southwestern lettuce wraps. And I think that for me, what really catches me about this one is for people that are trying to lose weight and they're trying to not have the bread, the tacos, the burritos that like a romaine lettuce leaf like this is so convenient, so kind of makes whatever you're putting in it so transportable and ergonomically easy to eat. So hopefully I didn't just tell you all the reasons why, but anyway. But yeah, I looked at that and I immediately was like, "Oh yeah, this looks like a total winner."
Toni Okamoto:
I love that recipe for several different reasons. It's really filling, even though it doesn't have the tortillas, you'd think, "Oh, well, that's not going to fill me up." But it's actually really filling with the beans. And the beans are totally versatile. You can use lentils if you wanted to. You can also use a different type of bean than the black bean and the vegetables as well. You can toss in anything that you have on hand. You can even put in some carrots or some sweet potato, and it would be delicious. And then if you wanted to even pack it with more flavor, you could add in different spices. I am on a budget with this book, and so I only add in chili powder, but if you had others like cumin or even a taco seasoning packet, those would all be great too.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. We're moving on to the next category here, but before we do, we're going to have another little break. I want to ask you, so you love a certain type of dancing, swing dancing. Why do you have such a amore for swing dancing?
Toni Okamoto:
Whew. It is the most fun sport of all time. I'm sure it will make you feel like you had the best night of your life, and you won't even realize that you put in 10,000 steps in just the time you were there. So it's a great form of exercise. It's a great form of cardio, and it's also a really nice way to make friends. It's how I've made most of my friends. And I think as an adult, it's much harder to meet new people, especially now that most of us are working from home. So going out and meeting really, really nice people and dropping in anywhere. I travel internationally and I always find the local swing dance and making a group of friends. And even in countries where we speak different languages, to have this shared language of dance is really, really cool. So I highly recommend anyone if you're interested. Google search, Lindy Hop, Lindy Hop, and then your city, and you will find something really good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Is your husband enamored with swing dancing as well, or not?
Toni Okamoto:
He humors me. He learned how to dance right before we got married. And I think he was putting in the work because he knew that I really love it, but has not really stuck with it. But as I mentioned, my birthday's this week, so on Friday you do what's called a birthday jam where everybody dances with the birthday person. So he'll go and he'll dance with me for my birthday jam.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. How often would you say you swing dance? Once a week or once a month? How often?
Toni Okamoto:
At the least it's once a week, but there have been times of my life in the past decade where I was dancing four nights a week.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Toni Okamoto:
It's now about once a week.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the worst injury you've ever sustained swing dancing.
Toni Okamoto:
I was trying to do an aerial, which is where they throw you in the air, and I landed a little bit funky and hurt my leg, but that is not common. People are not usually getting thrown in the air at these swing dances, so you have to be a little bit more advanced to try that. So at social dances, there is a policy where your feet can't leave the floor.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Toni Okamoto:
And oh, another thing about it is that they're usually live bands that you can go and see play, swing jazz music, which is typically '30s, '40s, '50s jazz. And that's really, really fun too, even if you're not enthusiastic about the dancing part.
Rip Esselstyn:
Have you ever taken your father swing dancing?
Toni Okamoto:
He has gone. I had my 30th birthday was at a swing dance, and I also had a swing band at my wedding. So they have seen me dance. They think it's really cool. I've also had some performances they've gone to see, but they don't want to swing dance themselves.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, we might see you on Dancing With the Stars sometime soon. So that's the perfect transition to sheet pan dishes and casseroles, which as you say here, make for great leftovers. I want to start with sheet pan fajitas, that coming from Texas and Tex-Mex, I love fajitas. Can't get enough. So talk to me about this sheet pan, and I'm going to show hold it up here for our listeners.
Toni Okamoto:
A lot of people think that fajitas have to have a meat protein, but it's not true. In fact, you can go to a lot of Mexican restaurants and order the fajitas without the meat. That's something that I have relied on. But with my recipe, I have crumbled in big chunks, extra firm tofu that has been slightly pressed. So buy the kind that is in, it doesn't have as much water, so it's not in the bucket style container. And so I slightly press it and I rip the chunks apart so that it has a chunkier meatier texture instead of slicing it.
And that is a way that I can sometimes, if not fool my family, my meat-loving family, have them not comment about how it's tofu and I season it with the same seasonings that they are familiar with, so they don't think twice about it. They know bell peppers, they know mushrooms, they know taco seasoning packet because that's what they use for their chicken fajitas or their beef fajitas. And they don't even comment on the fact that it's tofu. You throw all of those things mixed together on the sheet pan, bake it, and you can do a lot with them. You can put them on nachos. I put them in tacos in my recipe, but they're very, very versatile.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, my wife is out of town right now, and so I'm the cook tonight. And last night I was, so I will be going to the store and I'll, I'm going to get make sheet fajitas tonight because my kids love this stuff. Next one, chili cornbread. I think it's casserole, right?
Toni Okamoto:
Yep.
Rip Esselstyn:
Chili, cornbread, casserole. I mean, I just look at that and I think that is going to stick to my ribs and be super satiating and taste incredible.
Toni Okamoto:
It is. And what is a nice thing about that recipe and a few other recipes in the book is that you can batch cook a big batch of the chili and use it in different ways. You can eat it one night with brown rice. You can eat it one night with a lot of different garnishes on it, like sliced avocado and cilantro and diced onions. And then you can use the batch that you have left to make into a casserole with cornbread baked on top. And it is so good.
And I am not someone who loves to eat the same thing every day. And I have a lot of tips and tricks to take a recipe that you've batch cooked and change it up. So especially in that one pot section because there are people who make their one thing and that's what they eat throughout the week. I still encourage them to make a bland pot on the first day, and then the next day ladle out a bit of it and cook that on the stove top with some spinach and with some maybe croutons on it. And then the next day, that same ladle will bring you sriracha and lemon juice and some black pepper, and you can change it up, add different ingredients, add different flavors, and not hate that pot of soup at the end of the week.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I think that's so smart to take one recipe and then you can basically utilize it for four days and every time that you have it, you've changed up the texture and the flavor. That's really, really smart. This one reminds me of a recipe that we make in our house over a open fire. It's called hobos, but this is vegetable and garbanzo bean foil packets.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So what's the story here?
Toni Okamoto:
You can freeze these packets filled with vegetables. I also put garbanzo beans, but you can put any kind of bean that you want, and then when it's time to cook some dinner on a weeknight, you just grab one of those, toss it into the oven, and if you have a grill, you can toss them onto your grill too. And they cook up nicely.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, we love when it's getting cold outside. We have put a little fire in our backyard and we throw in sliced up potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, whatever. And then we throw it in there for maybe 15, 20 minutes and pull it out, open it up, and it is awesome.
Toni Okamoto:
What else do you cook on your fire?
Rip Esselstyn:
The kids do smores.
Toni Okamoto:
Oh yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Vegan smores. I'm trying to think what else lately. That's really about it. But we have a grill where we do about everything, but actually in the fire, the hobos are really the ticket. You literally, you throw it into the coals, into embers.
Toni Okamoto:
That's really cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right. So before we go to mix and match bowls, I want to take a slight departure again as we've been doing throughout the podcast and ask you about, so you and your husband, I love the fact that you talk about how you are, you're alcohol-free, you're drug free, smoke-free, and you're also child free by choice. I'll leave the floor open for you to talk about that however you want.
Toni Okamoto:
Okay. Well, I have never consumed alcohol in my whole life. I'm 36 and I-
Rip Esselstyn:
Good for you. That's awesome.
Toni Okamoto:
Thank you. And my husband doesn't drink either, which is really nice. I actually remember when I was single, I was talking to my dad and he was very concerned that all of these things, I'm vegan, I don't drink, I don't want kids. "How will you ever find someone? Can you just give on one of these things?" And here I am, I found my person. And so he's not only supportive, but he has the same lifestyle as me. And so it just shows that you don't have to compromise what you want to find a mate, and there could be someone out there for you. So anyway, I got into punk rock music when I was 15 years old and I became straight edge. It was super cool among my friends. And-
Rip Esselstyn:
What does that mean? I don't know what straight edge means.
Toni Okamoto:
Straight edge means that you don't consume alcohol, you don't do any drugs, and you live a more clean lifestyle, more sober lifestyle. But it comes from the punk rock scene where it was a counterculture to what rock and roll was. Rock and roll was all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And this was a different way of doing it where you were really conscious about how you treated your body. And a lot of people who were straight edge, not everyone were also vegetarian or vegan. So that's also how I got more into vegetarianism and veganism and became more supported outside of my college campus was in my early 20s I was into punk rock and met more people who supported me.
So that was the early days of me not being wanting to drink, but I have stayed true to it and really feel like I don't want to partake, not only because of the health benefits, but also I've seen addiction very closely. I've seen what could happen if you drink and drive and don't know your limits, and I don't want to put myself in that position. So I like to be very in control and it's in line with how I want to live my life. And actually, I was just listening to one of your previous episodes with Kristi Funk.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yeah.
Toni Okamoto:
Yeah. And she was talking about how alcohol impacts women and can cause breast cancer. And every time I hear something like that, it's very validating for me to continue being sober.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, huge congrats to you. I don't know too many people that never had never imbibed or had alcohol. So I mean, that's... My sister actually Jane is one of them, which I always-
Toni Okamoto:
Oh wow. I didn't know that.
Rip Esselstyn:
... which I've always found to be super impressive, but super proud of you for that.
Toni Okamoto:
Oh, thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
Especially in a society and a culture that we live in that makes it very, very difficult to not drink, especially every turn that you take. You're being asked to drink this beer, have some wine, or "Hey, why don't you want to socialize with us?" And yeah, that says a lot about you, Toni.
Toni Okamoto:
Thank you. It was hard to online date because so much of dating is surrounded by alcohol. You go wine tasting, you meet at a bar, you have wine with your dinner at the restaurant. And so that was a bit of a challenge, but again, I'm glad I found someone who's very in line and supportive of how I want to live my life.
Rip Esselstyn:
Love it. Next section that we have moving on is mix and match bowls, which you say this is the way that you eat for the most part more than any other way. And why is that?
Toni Okamoto:
I don't have a lot of time in my life right now to invest a couple hours into meal prepping and meal planning. So what I do is I make sure that I have a protein and a grain cooked, whether that's canned beans or store-bought baked tofu, or I cook them from scratch myself. And I usually do quinoa or brown rice throughout the week. And in the pressure cooker, I'll do maybe one day back-to-back-to-back where I'm only putting in 15 minutes of active prep time where I'll do brown rice in 20 minutes, quinoa in five minutes, pinto beans in an hour. I'll cook all of those store them in the refrigerator and have something to pull from throughout the work week. And I do bowls mostly where I'll put in some, we'll say frozen vegetables that I saute up really quickly with some baked tofu, quinoa, and then I'll put in a sauce and that whole chapter is devoted to that style of eating. If you want to have something that's quick, want to mix things up still and have the sauce, protein, grain, and veggies.
Rip Esselstyn:
I want to ask you about this recipe on page 158. It's something that was in, I think, inspired by your grandmother calabecitas, if I'm pronouncing it right. And what can you tell me about this recipe?
Toni Okamoto:
Calabecitas is a zucchini dish, and it is very, very, very delicious. You can put it in a bowl. You can also put it in tacos. You can eat it straight up as it is. You can add some black beans if you wanted protein to it, but if you wanted to add protein to it. But I love that dish and eat it at least once a week during the summer when zucchini is abundant. And as I mentioned, I grew up around fresh food with my grandparents, and that's something that reminds me of my childhood, and I want to share those fond experiences and memories with my audience because it's not a dish that's well known outside of the Mexican culture yet it's delicious and it's a great way to use up your zucchini.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, no, I love the simplicity of that dish, and I'm not a huge fan of eggplant or zucchini or yellow squash, but I was like, "All right, I need to ask her about that one, even though I don't love zucchini." Let's talk about your, because this is part of your mix and match bowls, and that is dressings that are so vitally important. You have a bunch of Toni's favorite go-to dressings, what share one dressing with us that you really, really love.
Toni Okamoto:
I would say that peanut sauce is my favorite. I can do-
Rip Esselstyn:
So that's what I have open to.
Toni Okamoto:
I can do so much with it throughout the week. You can put it in a stir-fry, you can add it to a burrito, you can do a mix and match bowl, but it is-
Rip Esselstyn:
You can drink it.
Toni Okamoto:
You can drink it. It's very flavor packed and super tasty.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Peanut sauce smoothies, why not, huh?
Toni Okamoto:
Yep.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. So you have said that one of your favorite things in the world are avocados.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And we want to prevent that cilantro from dying, as your husband says. So let's do a little avocado cream, shall we?
Toni Okamoto:
Yep. That is very, very good. It is something that I was inspired by my friend De Nora. She's from Mexico City, and it is basically just blended up avocados. Some people would make their guacamole this way, but instead of making it chunky, you would blend the whole thing until creamy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. It's got a nice-looking consistency for sure. And on this one, you have some of your testers tips. They say, you know what? Double the lemon juice if you feel like it. And you can also add some chili powder to give it a nice little bit of heat. Love that. All right. Let's move on to make and take snacks. I just going to want to ask you about one, and that is your date bars on page 208 right here, because I am always looking for really healthy, fun snacks for my three kids.
Toni Okamoto:
Yes. I get very hangry if I don't have snacks. Everyone knows that if you're going to be with me all day, it's in everybody's best interest if I have snacks on the go. And those are very good for transporting, so you can pop them in your purse and well, maybe not you, but you could put them in your glove compartment. And when you feel a little bit hungry throughout the day, you can pull those out. They're great to take to work, and they're very simple to make as well.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right. The last section you have are simple desserts. Everybody loves simple desserts, especially tasty ones. You've got everything from banana ice cream, three different ways, Depression Era Vanilla Cupcakes, chocolate chip banana bars. But I want to ask you about these because these because these seem to be super popular these days, and this is right chocolate dipped stuffed dates. Hold me back. I think I could eat eight of these without even knowing it.
Toni Okamoto:
I had a lot of different stuffed dates in the book that did not make the cut from my recipe testers, but I just want to stuff dates with everything. I had one that was pureed pumpkin with some pumpkin pie spice, and then dipped in chocolate and slightly frozen, and that one didn't make the cut, but it's really good. You can do so much with dates, but universally, everybody loves the peanut butter or any nut butter stuffed in a date, dipped in chocolate drizzled with the peanut butter.
Rip Esselstyn:
And then you got this one. This is your banana peanut butter chocolate dipped. I mean, wow. Are these frozen?
Toni Okamoto:
Yep. They're frozen bananas. And then you dip them into the melted peanut butter and let it solidify just a bit, and then you put the chocolate on and cover it with the nuts of your choice. And it tastes just like a vanilla bar. I'm not joking.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I think I'm going to make the sheet pan fajitas for dinner tonight. We'll have those for dessert for the kids.
Toni Okamoto:
That sounds like a meal. That sounds really good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I'll have to post it and let you see it, see how it works.
Toni Okamoto:
Please.
Rip Esselstyn:
Toni, is there a TV series you're watching right now that you'd recommend to everybody that's out there?
Toni Okamoto:
I am not usually a fan of gruesome television, but my husband is watching Last of Us on HBO, and I cannot stop from looking over and watching it. I keep saying, "This is your show." And he's like, "No, it's our show." And it's because I am glued to the TV, have my computer out wanting to be working. But it's so interesting. It's about a post-apocalyptic world and how people survive, and it's really, really, I would say engaging and the storyline keeps changing. So you stay interested.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes. I will echo everything you just said. I'm actually watching it myself right now, and it's basically some sort of like a mushroom, right?
Toni Okamoto:
Yep.
Rip Esselstyn:
Fungus that takes over in people's brains and bodies. And I watched the first episode. I was like, "Ah, I don't get it. I don't get it." And then a friend of mine said, "Listen, you got to hang in there to at least episode three." And I watched the third one, and I was so moved by episode three that I was like, "Okay, these guys got something pretty special here. So yeah, I'll engage."
Toni Okamoto:
Did you know that at the end they have commentary? Have you been watching that?
Rip Esselstyn:
I haven't.
Toni Okamoto:
So if you scroll past the credits you get to see how the storyline was formed, and that is really interesting too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. Very, very cool. Toni, you know what? This has been an absolute blast Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy, your brand, everything that you're doing, it's really, it's a testament to, I think, just the way that you live so authentically and subsequently the kind of opportunities that have presented themselves to you. You've obviously been moving in this direction for a long, long time, and huge congrats on your success and how you're helping people eat plant-based and save time and save money, because that is what it's about.
Toni Okamoto:
Thank you. And thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. You are amazing and do amazing work, and I'm grateful to know you and that you're so supportive of everybody.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you deserve it. You are worthy of it way to be. Well, Toni, give me a little fist bump on the way out. Let's keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Toni Okamoto:
Boop. Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Toni's book, Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy, comes out on March 7th, and we'll be sure to put a pre-order link in the show notes today. What a great resource to help you save time, energy, and of course money. Thanks so much for listening today, and remember, you can keep it simple, economical, and PLANTSTRONG.
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 PLANTSRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous, truth 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 Esselstyn Jr. And Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
