November 2015 - Local Mouthful

Episode 117: Vegetarian Dinners, Homemade Food Gifts, and Annelies Zijderveld

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Annelies-hires-1-stephanie-shih — Annelies Zijderveld, author of Steeped

We talk about the pressure to reinvent Thanksgiving. People like what they like.

Joy talks about how she has snapped out of her weeknight cooking slump. It’s vegetarian dinners. Two recipes in particular have floated her boat. Specifically Shredded Tofu and Shiitake Stir Fry and Trini Chana and Aloo. Marisa hearts Martha Rose Shulman for vegetarian recipe inspiration.

Marisa describes the adorable homemade food gift her father gives annually. (You will definitely want to steal this idea.) She also describes how to make homemade kahlua. Want more ideas? Check out Food Gift Love by Maggie Battista.

Annelies Zijderveld fills us in on cooking with tea and her terrific cookbook, Steeped.

We wrap up with a conversation about local cranberries.

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Episode 116: Rice, Food Swaps, and Leanne Brown

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LeanneBrown_highres_credit Jordan Matter — Leanne Brown, author of Good and Cheap

Recently, the food world learned that Mark Bittman, longtime scribe for the New York Times, was leaving journalism to join a tech start up, and now we know what it is. He’s now with vegan meal kit service, Purple Carrot. Joy and Marisa discuss.

Few simple foods are more vexing to cook than rice for whatever reason. Recently, Marisa tried a new Tiger rice cooker that takes all the guess work out of that job. Joy covets the Instapot, which is a rice cooker/slow cooker/pressure cooker in one. What do you think? Should she get one?

Have you ever been to a food swap? That’s a community event when home cooking fanatics get together to trade some of their stash of good eats for some of yours. Marisa co-organizes one in the Philly area, but if you are interested you can probably find one close to where you are. Find yours (or start one) here.

This episode features an interview with Leanne Brown, whose food-stamp-themed cookbook Good and Cheap has really struck a chord with people in all income brackets. We talked to her at the Philadelphia Free Library’s amazing Culinary Literacy Center.

Finally, we sang the praises of our favorite winter greens.

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Episode 115: All About Thanksgiving

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In advance of every home cook’s favorite holiday, we talked over every aspect of Thanksgiving.

We started, naturally, with planning and strategy–how far out do we start thinking it through? What do we do in advance? What are the key Thanksgiving organization tools?

Appetizers or no appetizers? Should we start with soup? That is the question. One of Joy’s favorite holiday recipes is these Sausage Potato Puffs.

We talked turkey: Both Joy and Marisa ordered their birds via Fair Food Farmstand. (Philly listeners can still pre-order their very own by clicking here.) We also address brining methods (wet or dry?) and whether to roast the turkey whole. One of us stuffs the turkey with stuffing; one of us does not.

We review all the sides we must have–some from childhood, some we’ve adopted later in our lives. Marisa is especially fond of these vanilla mashed sweet potatoes from the blog 101 Cookbooks. Joy swears by the Cook’s Illustrated Classic Bread Stuffing for a Crowd.

Gravy. Like everyone, we love gravy. Joy makes Mark Bittman’s Make Ahead Turkey Gravy every year.

Check out Marisa’s astounding canned cranberry fake out recipe for the people in your lives who can’t kick the can.

If you like what you hear, make sure to subscribe! Bonus points if you rate us or leave a review. Follow us on twitter @localmouthful and help us spread the word about the show.