Episode 124: Winter Stews, The Instant Pot, and Cooking While Sick

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Green Chicken Chili at Joy’s House

We talked about the Mast Brothers’ scandal. The Brooklyn-based, bearded chocolate “makers” have been under intense scrutiny for the past month or so. Read all about it.

The cold weather is really here now. We are all about the winter stews and we dish about our favorite recipes. Here’s the black bean, chicken and cashew chicken chili recipe Joy mentioned.

Joy got an Instant Pot for Christmas, and she shares her first experiences cooking with this multi-cooker. Her favorite so far: chicken stock.

Marisa is struggling with a pesky winter cold, and she and Joy talk about the things they cook and eat when they aren’t feeling well. Of course, soups are discussed. Joy looks forward to making Rotisserie Chicken Ramen from our January book club pick, 101 Easy Asian Recipes.

It’s winter. At the store, we’re buying cabbage. And we’re talking again about the many different ways we like to cook and eat it. Marisa provides Joy some coaching for her first batch of kimchi.

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Episode 123: Winter Salads, Using Your Leftovers, Cookbook Club

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First we talked about a controversial recent study that suggested a vegetarian diet is worse for the environment than a meaty one. We are suspicious.

Winter salads–Joy and Marisa love salads all year long. Here’s the warm winter bread salad recipe Joy mentions.

Leftovers are a vexation for some people, but Joy and Marisa know what to do with them. They share their favorite tips to kick your food waste to the curb. One of the best: Make Marisa’s rye crepes and hide those leftovers inside them.

We proudly introduced the Local Mouthful Cookbook Club, and we hope you’ll become a member simply by picking up each month’s chosen book and join our conversation about the book and the recipes. First up: 101 Easy Asian Recipes by Peter Meehan and the Editors of Lucky Peach. We’re going to try to organize a cookbook pot luck as part of the club, so stay tuned for details.

Our seasonal ingredient crush of the moment is pomegranate. Marisa tells us how to pick a good one.

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Episode 122: Year End Special!

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happy new year!

In this extended special episode, Joy and Marisa review all their favorite food things from 2015, including restaurants, recipes, cookbooks, gadgets, blogs and websites, podcasts, and more.

We want you to listen to the episode, so we are not making a list of everything here, although Joy did say she’d provide a link to the Nom Nom Paleo Cracklin’ Chicken recipe, so here you go. If you want more information about anything we talked out, say so in the comments here and we will help you out 🙂

We hope you have an auspicious and delicious New Year! Happy 2016.

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Episode 121: Cooking Resolutions, Food on TV, and chef Sara May

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SaraMay
Chef and author Sara May

 

In today’s episode, we marveled at this New York Times story about the trend toward “micro kitchens.”

We shared food and cooking resolutions–Joy and Marisa have both made them. Have you made any for 2016? If so, tell us in the comments here.

Are we in the Golden Age of food on TV? We think so. We talk about shows including Master of None, The Great British Baking Show, and Top Chef.

We talk with Sara May, Philadelphia chef and the co-author of Barkday Cakes, a forthcoming cookbook about treats for your dog.

We are really loving cooking with cold weather vegetables. This week our darling is the gnarly celery root.

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Episode 120: Frozen Vegetables, Cooking for Comfort, Chinatown

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Has indie coffee been swallowed up by corporate coffee? According to this recent story in the LA Times it sure has.

Frozen vegetables. Joy shares her favorite (unexpected) frozen vegetables. You will need to listen to this episode to learn the surprising frozen vegetable even restaurant chefs rely on.

We talk about the kinds of food we cook when we need to be comforted or when we need to care for others.

We compare notes on our favorite places (and must-have menu items) in Philadelphia’s Chinatown.

And finally, we talk about the brightest spot of the darkest season of the year: Citrus fruits. Marisa discloses her source for Meyer lemons: The Lemon Ladies.

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Episode 119: Casseroles, Edible Gifts, Holiday Drinks

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Marisa’s Tomato Jam from Three Springs Fruit Farm is just one suggestion from this episode’s gift guide. Photo courtesy of Albert Yee.

Chris Kimball is out at Cook’s Illustrated and Dana Cowin has moved on from Food & Wine. We try to make sense of these seismic shifts in food media.

We also talk over the topic of classic casseroles. You don’t actually need a can of condensed soup to make one!

Here are our picks for our favorite store-bought edible holiday gifts:

We also chat about our favorite festive holiday drinks.

Marisa schools Joy about Fromage Blanc.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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Episode 114: Apples, Sauces, and Erica Strauss

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In today’s show we kicked off with some apple talk, covering our favorite apple varieties. We also discussed using apples in salad as well as cooking and baking with this fall fruit, too.

We shared our strategies for when kitchen inspiration fails us–which it often does.

Here’s that meatloaf recipe Joy mentioned and a link to the wonderful cookbook Mastering Sauces by Susan Voland that Marisa has been enjoying.

Here’s the “Yummy Sauce” Alana Chernila that Marisa mentioned.

This episode’s interview was with writer Erica Strauss of the blog Northwest Edible Life and book The Hands-On Home.

And finally, we talked about the virtues of eggs for dinner.

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.