transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is brought to you with support from Rouxbe Online Culinary School. If plant-based cooking is your passion or your future, Rouxbe's plant-based professional certification is the next step you need to work professionally as a plant-based chef. This self-paced, expert-led program gives you industry-recognized credentials and helps you dial in all the techniques you need. You'll refine your knife skills, gain confidence with fermentation, learn to build flavor without animal products, and graduate ready for professional kitchens or your own culinary venture. If you're a serious cook who's ready to go pro, get certified at ruby.com/dinnerplan. That's rouxbe.com/dinnerplan. Enter code DINNERPLAN30 for 30 percent off. Welcome to The Dinner Plan, where we start every week with fresh cooking inspiration. I'm Maggie Hoffman, and my guest today is Isa Chandra Moskowitz, the creator of Post Punk Kitchen, which started as a cooking show in 2002. And she's the author of so many cookbooks, including Vegan Omicon, Vegan Cookies, Vegan with a Vengeance, I Can Cook Vegan, Isa Does It, and a new one, The 29-Minute Vegan, which is out April 28th. Isa, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:
[01:28] I'm so excited to chat. I love to hear what cookbook authors really cook at home when they're not working. Tell me, what have you been cooking lately?

Speaker 2:
[01:37] Sure, yeah, well, this is also my first year as not a restaurant chef, so that's huge for me. And I've just really honestly been keeping it simple because I'm working on a baking book. So my savory cooking, I've just been keeping super simple. It's going to be like roast some veggies, make a little sauce or a hummus, grill up or bake up some tofu, some sort of protein, a pot of beans. That's really how I've been cooking, like super, super simple, just easy components that could be either simmering away or baking away, done in a blender real fast.

Speaker 1:
[02:12] And then you have those all ready. How do you sort of mix and match during the week?

Speaker 2:
[02:16] It really is craving based. So as far as the beans go, I just like try and have fun with mixing it up. And I do black beans probably more than anything. So it'll just be like a rice and beans, cilantro, avocado situation with what stir fry some greens. And then, yeah, whatever I pop in the oven, it's going to taste good. So sometimes it'll be hummus and root vegetables. And sometimes it'll be like couscous and greens.

Speaker 1:
[02:46] Not a bad formula.

Speaker 2:
[02:48] What have you been cooking lately?

Speaker 1:
[02:49] Have you seen Gurdie Ployal's book, which is called Flavor Heroes?

Speaker 2:
[02:56] I haven't seen that.

Speaker 1:
[02:57] It's really cool. I really like it. It's not brand new. But each chapter focuses on one big flavor, ingredients, sort of modern pantry. So there's like harissa, toasted sesame oil, Calabrian chili paste, instant espresso, gochujang. And you get a bunch of different recipes for each ingredient so that you can really use it up, which I think is one of the things people struggle with. But one of the chapters is dark roasted peanut butter, which we always have around. And he uses it to make like a quick romesco. You know, so with a jar of roasted peppers. And then so like instead of using almonds, he's using this peanut butter. And it's really smoky, because it has smoked paprika and smoked salt in it. And it just was so good. So I made that. And the whole recipe is like with charred scallions, sort of like Spanish style, which was really good. But then I had extra of the sauce. And I actually froze some. But I did some with roasted broccoli, which was, it was just so nice to have around.

Speaker 2:
[04:10] Yes. I think that's great having, like I was saying, a hummus or a sauce that you can just throw on anything, however you feel. And getting those done early in the week, like whenever you have a moment, is always so helpful.

Speaker 1:
[04:23] And then the rest, you know, you can just crisp up some tofu. It can be so simple if you've got this big sauce, you know?

Speaker 2:
[04:32] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] So you have been cooking vegan for four decades, which is not a thing a ton of people can say. Can you tell us a bit about, like, what it was like for you in the food world when you first started?

Speaker 2:
[04:46] Yeah, I had a lot of fun. I think people expect it to have been harder back then, but it was not. It was fun and people were excited. And I loved it. The community loved it. I think it was a very different vibe from today because obviously there was no internet. There was nobody telling you, you're doing it wrong. There was really, you were at the beginning and inventing and just having so much fun with it.

Speaker 1:
[05:15] So much experimentation. So what was the main problem you were aiming to solve with this new book?

Speaker 2:
[05:23] To make really good food really fast. For me, being a restaurant chef also at the time of writing this was huge and a big reason why I didn't feel like cooking a two-hour meal. But I also didn't want to always end up eating at the restaurant. So I tried to make these shortcuts that I was really happy with, that still boosted flavor and it really made me think a lot about efficiency and a lot about what we think about, like simple flavors and simple flavor boosts.

Speaker 1:
[06:00] Tell me more about that. What are some ways that you've found to be more efficient?

Speaker 2:
[06:06] My biggest one was like, mise en place is supposed to be like everything's in its place before you start. But what I learned was you can do it as you go along. So basically, you're cooking as you go and going as you cook. So prepping as you go. Seemed more important to me than prepping everything first. So the recipes are written in a way that you're never, there's never a down moment and it's fine. You're something's roasting in the oven or simmering up top and you're prepping for the next thing. So I just tried to make the recipes written as efficiently as possible. And I think that was the main difference. Like, oh, don't tell somebody spend 20 minutes prepping. Instead, you know that this sauce is simmering, and now you have time to prep for your tofu or the opposite. So just really being efficient in the recipe writing. Instead of up at the top, the ingredients are listed, you know, one onion diced. Instead, you're saying, here's the ingredients, and it's cast in order of appearance, is how I like to think of it. And so you preheat the oven, put the onions on, while those are sautéing, you're preparing, you're chopping the tofu, because you know that's going to come next, or you're opening the can of lentils.

Speaker 1:
[07:28] I love that you're explicit about that because so many recipes sort of make an assumption that people are going to sort of figure out how to multitask in that way. But then people are like, oh no, I have to do the thing that they didn't realize they were actually supposed to prep ahead or whatever. And so actually telling people when to do things is actually like a huge innovation.

Speaker 2:
[07:51] When I looked at some of these 30-minute meal cookbooks, a lot of them were very inspirational. But a lot of them were like, oh, there's no way because you're listing four different things and you're not saying how to do it. So yeah, it was really helpful for me to be like, this is when you do it.

Speaker 1:
[08:07] Yeah, it's funny. It's kind of an old tradition for the prep to be sort of hidden in that ingredients list. And I don't think it's meant to trick people or anything. It probably was saving space in newspaper pages or saving space in magazine pages or whatever. But it can leave a cook sort of wondering when they're supposed to do things.

Speaker 2:
[08:30] That's true, yeah. And I think the idea that you're supposed to do everything up front, really, it's a good idea in theory. But in practice, I think the home cook that cooks a lot, we'll just kind of figure it out. But I think for newer cooks or cooks that haven't quite thought about it, it helps.

Speaker 1:
[08:51] Thanks to Dirty Labs for supporting this episode. On busy nights, the last thing I want to do is stand at the sink, pre-washing dishes before they go in the dishwasher. Dirty Labs makes a non-toxic two-in-one dishwasher detergent and booster that's designed to out clean conventional detergents without the harsh chemicals. I love that I can skip the pre-rinse and everything comes out clean with no soapy residue. If you've tried green dish detergents in the past and weren't impressed, visit dirtylabs.com and use code THE DINNERPLAN to get 15 percent off your first order. Thanks to Maiden for supporting this episode. You've probably realized it's time to outfit your kitchen with pro-level stainless cookware, like Maiden's premium 5-clay stainless-clad pans, which are oven-safe to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The 10-piece set includes 8 and 10-inch frying pans, 2 and 4-quart sauce pans, a 3-quart saucier and an 8-quart stockpot. Head to Maiden.cc slash Dinner Plan. That's M-A-D-E-I-N dot C-C slash Dinner Plan to unlock your discount offer. You mentioned in the intro to this book that cooking is a superpower. Tell us more about that.

Speaker 2:
[10:16] I think it's very, I mean, simply that you can kind of make everybody happy with a magic wand, but it's your spatula. So I think the idea that you don't have to order in, the idea that you can make yourself feel healthy and fulfilled, and not depending on others to satisfy your cravings, being able to make others happy with the food, and just really creating magic for your taste buds. And it's just such a, it uplifts your mood, it uplifts like the people around you.

Speaker 1:
[10:54] Yeah. And this book is full of things that I am craving. We'll talk about some of the sandwiches later. Besides this sort of embracing the meanwhile and prepping while you're cooking, what are some other things we can do to speed up our cooking just more generally?

Speaker 2:
[11:12] One of the things is just coming in, preheating the oven, getting the water boiling. Maybe even if you don't know what you're doing quite yet, just getting those things started. Having a few prepped ingredients that you just grabbed from the grocery store that are prepped for you. Like I let myself do that with this book, which was really great. Big bowl energy is one of them. So that's just like having, having the biggest bowl that you can and just kind of throwing everything into it. Like all your garbage, all your scraps and dealing with it later. Optimal surface area, so having enough surface area in your pans, on your cutting board, just having the biggest cutting board you can. I think a lot of times people don't think about the actual physical space of your cooking area and having that be like, I'm not saying it needs to be clean because it doesn't, but it needs to be big enough so that you can make a mess. I have kind of a hot take about preheating the oven, which is that you don't have to preheat the oven all the way for absolutely everything. So that's my hot take, and I really learned that with this book. You know what? I'm going to roast this broccoli. I see that the oven's only at 220, but I'm putting it in anyway, and it's going to be just fine. Obviously not with baking, but a lot of the times you can just put it in and it'll get the process started.

Speaker 1:
[12:37] I really like that point about the cutting board because I think if you were tiptoeing around a small amount of space and you have ingredients piled on your cutting board, you're not going to chop as cleanly, you're not going to chop as efficiently, and you might cut your finger.

Speaker 2:
[12:53] Absolutely. Yeah. Then that's also a part of prepping while you go because you're not prepping all this stuff on your cutting board and putting it into a little corner. You're most, for the most part, prepping one or two things and then throwing them into the pot or throwing them into the saute pan. So that was another part of just getting efficient.

Speaker 1:
[13:12] Right. And I mean, love a little bowl. But if you line up ten little bowls, number one, they're all over your counter and number two, then you have to clean them.

Speaker 2:
[13:20] Yes, exactly. That was another really important thing with this cookbook, was cutting down on the amount of dishes you have. Once in a while, there's like a Thanksgiving turkey tofu thing that takes a lot of dishes. So if that's going to happen, I do tell people upfront, assuming they're in a rush, they also don't want to do dishes. So I'm usually like, hey, this does take a lot of dishes. So be warned.

Speaker 1:
[13:42] One other tip that you include is operation never measure. How do we train ourselves to do that?

Speaker 2:
[13:50] Yeah, I think, well, Rachel Ray, obviously the queen of 30-minute meals, made it pretty simple of just like measuring in the palm of your hands. And this is what this looks like. You know, there's things like your thumb is a teaspoon or whatever. But I really think measuring in the palm of your hand is very smart and you can take something like salt and measure it and see, oh, that's a teaspoon. With spices and things like that, if you're a little bit off, it's really not the biggest deal. So that feeling what a pinch is like, like a quarter teaspoon is a pinch generally. So just, I didn't write the cookbook like that, but I do mention it. You'll go a lot faster if you're not measuring everything out perfectly. If you can put a tablespoon of curry powder into the palm of your hands, you're gonna move a lot faster. If you feel confident with your glugs, you know, you don't need to measure the oil out, and that really speeds things up. And I think most people cook like that anyway. I think, again, with the you're doing it wrong thing, the you're doing it wrong culture, people have, get maybe a little too precise with their spice measurements and not trusting themselves enough. So I just think, you know, if you're a little bit worried, go a little bit under. Obviously, it's easier to add than take away, so.

Speaker 1:
[15:08] I will say, I like the idea of sort of knowing what it looks like in your hand, both because you can sort of guess the volume and also because then you're not pouring from a spice container into a pan where it could accidentally like all fall.

Speaker 2:
[15:23] Oh, for sure. Never happened to me. Yes, absolutely. Who hasn't ended up with an entire curry bottle in their sauce?

Speaker 1:
[15:33] Yeah, I mean, we were talking to Sana Javeri-Cadre from Diaspora Co. the other day. And the point that she was making is that spices vary so much in their intensity depending on how much volatile oil they have and how old they are. And so, in fact, like a teaspoon of cumin and a teaspoon of old cumin are not really the same thing.

Speaker 2:
[15:55] Exactly. Or like from where you buy the spices.

Speaker 1:
[15:59] So, when you are trying to cook quickly on a week night, store-bought shortcuts can make the difference between deciding to cook and not cooking. What are some that you think are worth buying?

Speaker 2:
[16:13] So, that was a big deal for me to be like, you know what, I'm going to just grab these broccoli florets. Even though I can prep broccoli florets pretty quickly, it's nice to have and time is money. And then you think about the part of the broccoli that you're not using, it doesn't end up that much more expensive. So, long story short, broccoli for sure. Most cruciferous vegetables, so cauliflower, brussel sprouts, prepped wonderful. Sliced mushrooms, sliced cremini, cremini mushrooms, are such a time saver. I know a lot of people have issues, just even with the conundrum of washing, should you be washing your mushrooms, just having a little eight ounce of sliced mushrooms is such a time saver. Even for a chef because mushrooms take a long time to slice. Butternut squash, more expensive, but oh my God, time is money and you're sitting there peeling it and getting your hands all butternut squashy, chopping it, seeding it, just having a thing of butternut squash is just like, oh, thank you, chef. Frozen sweet potatoes, obviously corn, peas, people have those all the time. Spice blends, instead of having six different spices using the garam masala.

Speaker 1:
[17:28] The book begins with a whole chapter of really appealing sandwiches. What are your rules of making a sandwich that'll be really satisfying and fun to eat?

Speaker 2:
[17:42] Having the right bread, great bread is not cooking but super important to the sandwich. Then just textures, so keeping things saucy, keeping things crunchy and fresh and then also satisfying, so keeping things meaty and obviously full of flavor. I would say having those sauces, keeping maybe the meaty components a little bit simple, and then having freshness and crunch, so having really great lettuce, pickled onions, or just fresh onions. You're never going to go wrong with all of those components. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:23] I feel like you always need a little more, right? It's like if you're being kind of shy about the sauce, if you're being kind of shy about the onion, then you're going to be like, oh, this isn't really what I was hoping.

Speaker 2:
[18:34] Spill over is always wonderful. You mentioned the barbecue sandwich, the spill over is great. Oh, no, I dropped some barbecue onto the plate. Then you have your second meal. I love that about sandwiches. I love that sandwiches are messy. I love that you get a little extra at the ends, and you can scoop it up with your fork, or with a potato chip, or with a carrot. It's just nice.

Speaker 1:
[18:59] Tell us about those barbecue sandwich. What goes into that and how does it come together?

Speaker 2:
[19:05] Jackfruit, that was a really, really popular vegan ingredient. But I could never, it's very light, it's a vegetable, it's just not a filling ingredient. So, but I'm never going to turn my back on a vegan ingredient. I'm going to mess with it. So, I really like to combine jackfruit with something. In this case, it was seitan. So, I love the texture of jackfruit. It's very shreddy, very pulley. It has a pretty neutral flavor. So, I mixed that together with the shredded seitan, and it gets you this really nice meaty, pulled pork kind of situation that doesn't feel too filling, because sometimes a ton of seitan is like, bleh. So, it was nice to cut through the seitan and also add this other texture. And what I really love about that sandwich is that everything comes together in the pan. I love a homemade barbecue sauce, and you think homemade barbecue sauce in 30 minutes is not going to be possible, especially while you're making a sandwich, but I should be saying 29 minutes. But for this sauce, it's some chipotle, a little gave, lime for tanginess, the sauteed onions and peppers. So you get this really convincing pulled pork sandwich with really smoky, sweet, tangy flavors. There's a coleslaw in there for a little crunch, like I was saying, just so saucy, crunchiness, big sturdy bread. Yeah, I love that sandwich. And like I was saying about that one, there's always some on the plate for you to scoop up after.

Speaker 1:
[20:38] Yeah, I feel like in that situation, I would want to make double and then you could do like, one night it's on a bun and one night it's on a bowl, or one night it's in a pita, or like, I mean, that's good stuff.

Speaker 2:
[20:49] Yes, I think that's a really good point too. It's like a lot of these recipes in this book, but also in general, if you're making something, why not double it so you have it for later on, and can use in another way or in the same way.

Speaker 1:
[21:02] The fastest 30-minute meal is the one that you made yesterday.

Speaker 2:
[21:05] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[21:06] Well, we're going to reprint the recipe for that one in our newsletter. Another one that I'm obsessed with is your shroom ruben. I have to make that. Tell us about that one.

Speaker 2:
[21:16] Portobello mushrooms got a pretty bad rap, I think in the 90s, just with, I don't know, a lot of vegetarians would complain like, that's all I get is this Portobello mushroom, that's the option everywhere. But I love them. I think they were the vegan meat standard for a long time because they're great and they sometimes were over treated. So I think like a lot of times it was just like a lot of balsamic vinegar and you got to marinate them forever and you have to treat them in these really overpowering ways in order to make them delicious. But actually, it's just how you cook them is what makes them delicious. So they are just as good as any expensive oyster mushroom or these other mushrooms that people love. Portabellas are sometimes people look down their nose at them. So with these ones in particular, I think roasting is always wonderful for portabellas. First of all, it's hands off, they're in the oven, they're just roasting away, bubbling with some oil. And with the Ruben meat, I did just a few pastrami-type flavors. So it's got fennel, smoked paprika, garlic, onion, the oil. I think there's a little, I think it's salt in that, not soy sauce. And then just roast them and the spices absorb. And again, hands off, they're in the oven, just you can be making the sauce. I mean, honestly, that is like a cheater of a recipe. There's hardly, there's not much that goes into that. How you slice them is very important. And yeah, I love that recipe. And I cook portabellas like that often. I think it's important to take like some of the lessons from the book and use them for other things. So that portabella in particular, you can use other spices with it. You can use it plain with just salt and pepper, but just knowing I can roast these, they'll be done quickly. I can thinly slice them and then I can, you know, have a blast.

Speaker 1:
[23:23] And a roasted mushroom is so great, but yeah, like some of these mushroom varieties have gotten really expensive, or maybe they were always expensive. And portabellas are a great deal.

Speaker 2:
[23:32] They really are.

Speaker 1:
[23:34] So why do you slice them on the bias like that? What does that mean if people can't picture it?

Speaker 2:
[23:38] Oh yeah, just instead of slicing them into like these, like clean, like up and down slices, the bias gives you a really different texture. The bias just means like on a diagonal. So I didn't go, so I could, if I wanted, slice like 20 really thin, like carpaccio style slices. But I didn't do that in the book. I was just like, you know, slice it into six. And then it gives you like the bottom, like softer texture. On the top, you get like a meatier texture. And it's just more pleasant to eat, like when you think about like vegetable butchering, just having these different layers in that way, without like this straight cut, it's just, I think texture is so important with food. And maybe, I know it's something that's important to people, but maybe something people don't think about that much when they're eating vegetables.

Speaker 1:
[24:31] Yeah, and how to get there. So cashews add creaminess to like a lot of vegan dishes, and you even use them to make a vegan sour cream. But if you don't have a high speed blender, like a Vitamix, it can be a little tricky. What's your advice if we picked a recipe, it's 5 p.m. and we need cashew cream fast?

Speaker 2:
[24:54] Yes. So forever I didn't have a high speed blender for that reason, because I was like, I'm a cookbook author, not everybody has this. But I do have one now. But if you don't have one, you can boil the cashews for 20 minutes, you can microwave them in water, and you can get pretty close to what it's like to use the high speed blender. Just drain them. I used to say always be soaking, so I'd always have cashews soaking in the fridge. Now I don't because I have the high speed blender. But boiling, microwaving them in water, that gets them pretty soft. If they're not completely silky smooth, I think as long as you're not feeding Gordon Ramsay, you're fine. I don't think your family is going to complain.

Speaker 1:
[25:40] So the goal of the soaking was to soften them a little. And if you could do that in a microwave, you're almost there.

Speaker 2:
[25:45] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[25:46] Amazing. Talk to me about some methods for preparing tofu that some people might not have tried yet.

Speaker 2:
[25:54] I do a tofu feta in there. So that is cubed extra firm tofu, just marinated for a short time. It does absorb really quickly. Those are eaten raw on a Greek salad. So it's got like za'atar and it's got a little mayo for creaminess, some vinegar. Oh, I use olive brine in that. That's another thing I love to do is just never waste pickling sort of briny things. So I use olive brine, oregano, and it is this really beautiful feta to throw all over your Greek salad.

Speaker 1:
[26:31] The idea of using brine is so smart because then it's like well-seasoned and, you know, bright.

Speaker 2:
[26:38] Yeah, and it's complex and somebody went through all the trouble of making this pickle juice or this brine, so we might as well use it.

Speaker 1:
[26:45] Totally. So besides tofu, what are some other plant-based proteins we could be adding to our rotation?

Speaker 2:
[26:52] Depending on the type of person you are, if you're not gluten-free, then seitan is excellent. I think that's like the meat-eater's favorite vegan meat. So just like it's called wheat meat for a reason, it sears up beautifully, it absorbs flavor. It is very meaty. When I first went vegan, it was one of the first, maybe the first vegan protein I tried and it convinced me. There's TVP, textured vegetable protein, that's really wonderful and easy and convenient. Always, it's so cheap too. A pantry item that you can just always have on hand. So throwing that into a spaghetti sauce, tacos, just bulking stuff up, chili, again, absorbs flavor, tastes really meaty, tastes like ground meat. If you don't want to spend the money or have the flavor of a store-bought meat from one of those impossible whatever, then TVP is really great to have on hand. There's soy curls, a little harder to get. They're comparable to seitan, but they are soy-based, obviously, and gluten-free, and they've got this really nice shreddy texture, so great for chicken or heroes or just like stir-fries.

Speaker 1:
[28:12] That's such a handy thing because they're dried, right? So they can sit in your pantry forever.

Speaker 2:
[28:17] Yeah, exactly. Yuba also, maybe even more accessible. Yuba is dry tofu skin. You can get it fresh, but it's a very expensive fresh. But if you can get it dry, you can get it at H Mart. It's like, it's the best. In this book, I use it for chicken soup. I use it, I don't remember what else I use it for, oh, in pad thai to create more of like an eggy situation. But in other books, I've used it, they come in sheets. So you can use it to wrap a roast, which is really nice. So it's really great for gluten-free protein.

Speaker 1:
[28:54] You guys, this is the 99th episode of The Dinner Plan, and next week we'll start celebrating the 100th episode with a huge giveaway. It includes my favorite glass storage containers from OXO, a three-quart stainless-clad saucier from Maiden, fresh spices from Diaspora Co, saucy beans from Hay Day Cannon, some really special Italian pantry staples from Gustiamo, and a seven-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven from Stove. There's so much more for your pantry and your cookbook collection too, but you've got to be a subscriber to The Dinner Plan's newsletter to enter. Go sign up right now at thedinnerplan.substack.com so you don't miss the details. So for each of these, how do you sort of think about, like, okay, if I want something crispy, what do you reach for? If you want more chew, what do you reach for? How do each of these things shine?

Speaker 2:
[29:51] So I think for if you want something really meaty, I would do the TVP if you want like the ground meat thing. For the crispiness, I would say if you're like soy curls work really well, like you can hydrate them in like a little broth and then they have like the flavor of the broth inside and they crisp up really beautifully in a cast iron pan or a super hot pan. But I just love cast iron. I think everybody should have a cast iron pan.

Speaker 1:
[30:20] Yeah, I feel like I see those in tacos pretty frequently as sort of a carnitas substitute. You have a soup in this book that takes all the flavors of eggplant parm, but it's much quicker and less fussy. Walk us through it.

Speaker 2:
[30:34] That one is a funny, was an accident. So I wanted to, again, like talking about cooking in the 90s, you're just cooking, you're just like, oh, I saw this thing. I want this thing. I'm going to make it. I'm not going to look it up. I'm just going to make it. So that was me trying to make eggplant parm in the 90s. So basically, I sliced the eggplant. I should say eggplant was not my favorite vegetable at the time. But I did love eggplant parms from the, I grew up in Brooklyn, getting them from the pizza shop or whatever. So I basically sauteed the eggplant, then put the breadcrumbs in, realized the breadcrumbs really don't stick to it. And then I just was like, poured some spaghetti sauce in and was like, oh, ultimately the eggplant parm is kind of like that because you're mushing it all together on a sandwich or like whatever on a plate. And this is how it tastes. And like one of the beautiful things that eggplant parm is, the toasted breadcrumbs soaking up the marinara. So it works out like that. So yeah, so for that soup, that's the base and then building with the tomatoes, the basil, topping it with the garlicky croutons and like a cashew mozzarella.

Speaker 1:
[31:51] Delicious. What do you cook when you want something comforting?

Speaker 2:
[31:56] I think most often I'm going to reach for noodles of any sort. So, you know, an Italian pasta, pad thai, there's a kasha varnish gus, which is like a traditional Jewish bow tie pasta tossed with kasha. I wish kasha was more popular. I absolutely love it. It's gluten-free, it's toasty, it's so earthy. I would love to see a kasha revolution. So that with mushroom sauce. So long story short, noodles.

Speaker 1:
[32:29] Have you ever had a moment of cooking burn out? Where you just didn't want to cook, couldn't think of one more idea for what to cook?

Speaker 2:
[32:37] Yes. Again, with the restaurant, mostly, it was just like that is a completely different life than being a cookbook author. It is exhausting. It's like, especially going through the pandemic with the restaurants. It was a lot. I, for a long time, was just microwaving a burrito or eating at the restaurant. So for sure, have been through that. A big result of that was this cookbook of just trying to get my spark back.

Speaker 1:
[33:10] Yeah. So how do you find your spark again?

Speaker 2:
[33:14] Yeah. I think being easy on yourself. So when you do need to order in, order in. Then when you're ready, like I think forcing yourself to cook sometimes can lead to make the burnout even worse. So it's kind of like do something little, do something small. So make a hummus. Just make a perfect hummus, the hummus that you absolutely love and absolutely crave. Just doing these simple things which is like a little bit about what I was talking about at the beginning of how I'm cooking now. I'm still just being very simple and doing what I can throughout the day, getting it done and having it on hands. And remembering, like, you know, your food is the best food, your food is the food that you want to eat. So I think starting simple and just making those simple things as yummy as you can for yourself.

Speaker 1:
[34:06] And then it just sort of comes back. And it can come back one day and then be bad again the next day.

Speaker 2:
[34:12] Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:14] I've definitely been there. Who are some vegan cooks, cookbook authors, chefs, online folks whose food you find inspiring?

Speaker 2:
[34:24] My one of my best friends, Mississippi Vegan. I just love his flavors, his humor. It's all like, not all, but it's mostly homemade. I really just love when people are making, using homemade ingredients, using like family traditions. He's from the South. I'm not. So I just love hearing about the kind of food he had access to and the kind of food he ate growing up. I really like watching people that I know or have been following for a while. So Insatiable Vegan, her food just always looks so good. I just know she can cook. And I know that the food is tasting good. Just watching all of the garlic sautéing in a sauce. And just like when I can smell the food through the screen, that's who I want to watch.

Speaker 1:
[35:10] Do you have any go-to recipes that you've been making over and over?

Speaker 2:
[35:15] In all of my life, yes, absolutely. Like, there's stuff. So again, like, not to keep talking about how long I've been doing this, but I started in 1989, and I still make a few of those recipes. For me, a big deal, and I talk about this a lot, is, I mean, if you've read any of my cookbooks, people will know that I make these tofu, tofu balls and spaghetti that my family has been making forever. We've like changed the recipe a little bit, but it's basically from Louise Hagler Tofu Cookery, and it's these mushed up tofu meatballs. They have peanut butter in them. They have soy sauce. They shouldn't work, but they work so well, like some spices. I think my family added nutritional yeast to it. Basically, you're mushing everything in a bowl, rolling them into balls, so frying them in olive oil. That is like my absolute go-to. There is Madhuri Joffrey. So she taught me how to toast mustard seeds. I think it was for samosas that I first started, probably like chana masala, samosas, things like that that I still cook. Also, the methods, always like I never really use a curry recipe, but I know that she's who taught me how to make it proper. And then Molly Katzen had this cauliflower sauce that sounds so simple, but I just love it. I love it more than a meat sauce. So it's basically like you're roasting the cauliflower in the pan and then building this marinara on it. And it's like a bolognese, but with cauliflower. And I make that all the time.

Speaker 1:
[36:53] I love that. I love to hear about, you know, cookbooks that you've read so long ago that have just become part of your own routine and sort of, you know, muscle memory.

Speaker 2:
[37:05] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[37:06] Tell me about any other cookbook favorites.

Speaker 2:
[37:09] Philuptuous Vegan. That is a cookbook that really changed how I think about vegan cooking, because before that, I was using a lot of like meat analogues in the 90s. And even there weren't that many, but I was using them. And then that book taught me, oh, you can use always from scratch ingredients. I think that book came out 2000, 2001. I was working at a cafe at the time, and it just blew my mind, oh, I never have to use store-bought chicken without the E. Like, I can like use chickpeas. It really taught me to use beans and whole grains and oils in my baking instead of like margarine. So that was life-changing for me. Philuptuous Vegan. I'm going to mention the Molly Katzen books, Enchanted Broccoli Forest and Moosewood Cookbook. Just all handwritten, just the stories. It was just, you know, again, those are all like from scratch. They were vegetarian, but I would like veganize something if I had to. So those for sure. Vegetarian Epicure and Vegetarian Cooking of the East. I think of as sister books. They look really similar. They both have like the whimsical illustrations. And they were always together on my bookshelf. So those for sure influenced me in a big way.

Speaker 1:
[38:29] I grew up with Vegetarian Epicure and it's such an amazing to look back at it now. It's like kind of shocking. You know, there's these sort of like luxurious illustrations that are like, you know, it's all very, it's luxury vegetarian.

Speaker 2:
[38:45] Absolutely. Yeah. I love that about it. And I love that you can look back and see how fun the vegetarian vegan cooking has always been.

Speaker 1:
[38:54] Okay. So the last thing we do on every show is play a voice memo from a listener who's looking for a dinner idea.

Speaker 2:
[39:01] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[39:02] You ready?

Speaker 2:
[39:03] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[39:09] Hey, this is Maggie. You've reached the dinner plan. Tell us what's in your fridge.

Speaker 3:
[39:13] Hi, this is Laura in Denver. In my pantry, I have a few different kinds of dried seaweed. I have okame and kombu and dulse flakes. I have dried oyster mushrooms, tbp soy curls, sun-dried tomatoes, millet, rice, oats, some nutritional yeast, some toasted sesame seeds, some homemade tahini, some homemade pecan butter, lots of spices like sitar and gochugaru. I have in my fridge, I have almond milk, miso, firm tofu, and silken tofu. I have some homemade almond milk yogurt. I have kimchi, I have some homemade preserved lemon paste, and I have some rice paper rolls in the pantry.

Speaker 2:
[40:22] I think I would do a hero bowl situation, or gyro if you prefer. So saute the soy curls up with the za'atar, probably make a sauce with the tahini, silken tofu, some of the kimchi brine, like I love to use brine, yeah, some preserved lemon in there maybe. Blend that up, get the millet, turn into a pilaf with sesame seeds. I think the sundried tomatoes, I'd probably use two ways, maybe in the pilaf as well as cut it into strips and saute it with the soy curls and some onion. Yeah, she didn't mention any veggies. I think I would take the kimchi, maybe saute that a little bit separately without the brine to cut down on the pungency a little bit and use that as the veggie. And I would probably add cilantro to that. I don't think she said cilantro, but I just like fresh cilantro on everything. Obviously, sprinkle some more sesame seeds over that.

Speaker 1:
[41:35] That sounds delicious.

Speaker 2:
[41:37] The dulce, I'd want to get a little bit of seaweed in there. I don't know exactly where, but maybe just throw it on the soy curls.

Speaker 1:
[41:45] Why not? A little savory? That sounds so good. Well, Isa, thank you so much for chatting today. The book is called The 29-Minute Vegan. If you pre-order it now, it'll arrive next week. Do you want to tell everyone the best place to find you online?

Speaker 2:
[42:01] Yeah. I'm on Instagram as Isa Chandra, and my website is The Postpone Kitchen, so that's theppk.com.

Speaker 1:
[42:10] Fantastic. Thanks so much for chatting today.

Speaker 2:
[42:13] Thank you. That was so fun.

Speaker 1:
[42:14] Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's show. Be sure to sign up for The Dinner Plan's newsletter so you don't miss our big upcoming giveaway. You'll find it at the dinnerplan.substack.com. Thanks to Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio and to my guest today, Isa Chandra Moskowitz.