Hey there! We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of over three dozen cookbooks and tens of thousands of recipes. Back in the day, we were contributing editors at Eating Well and Cooking Light--and we have the longest-running column on weightwatchers.com.

We're still writing cookbooks! And we'd love to share our passion for food and cooking with you. In this episode of our podcast, we welcome Kat Ashmore to our kitchen. She's a TikTok celeb and the force behind both "Hungry Lady Salads" and "Kat Can Cook." She's just published a new cookbook: BIG BITES. If you'd like to snap up a copy, click this link right here.

We've also got a one-minute cooking tip about powdered bouillon. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

[01:33] Our one-minute cooking tip: bouillon cubes!

[03:36] Bruce's interview with social media sensation Kat Ashmore of "Hungry Lady Salads" and "Kat Can Cook" about her new cookbook BIG BITES.

[19:30] What's making us happy in food this week? New dinner plates and crunchy breakfast cookies from Spain!

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Skarbrough, and together with Bruce, we have

written three dozen cookbooks.

We have written, I don't even know, millions of original recipes.

Oh my goodness, at least.

Um, it's, it's unbelievable.

What's really unbelievable is every now and then someone will

stop us and say, you know, I made that recipe of yours for chicken.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I remember that one.

Which one of the 37, 36 cookbooks now going on to the 37th.

I don't know.

If you got, Hey, if you got a new air fryer or if you got a new instant pot

for Christmas, did you know that we have tons of books on the instant pot

from copycat recipes to our big, great book, the instant pot Bible, and even

a sequel, the instant Bible, the next generation, we've got a book all about

cooking everything frozen, right out of the freezer in the instant pot pot

roast from frozen in the instant pot.

And we've got a ton of air fryer books, including the look and cook

air fryer book and the essential.

air fryer cookbook.

All of these books are available wherever books are sold and you can make the most

of your new appliances from the holidays.

We have got in this show a one minute cooking tip.

Bruce has an interview with Kat Ashmore, Hungry Lady Salads.

We'll talk about that and we'll tell you What's making us happy in food this week.

So as always, let's get started.

Today's one minute cooking tip is all about using something

that will gross most people out.

Powdered chicken bouillon is a fabulous.

Substitute for salt, because of course it contains salt.

It contains MSG, which is kind of like salt and enhances flavor.

And it is so great like to use instead of salt in mashed

potatoes, in rubs, in stews, in

dips

and Bruce become more and more adept at cooking regional.

Chinese authenticity cuisine.

We have discovered more and more that bouillon is a constant ingredient.

It's a way to get MSG and chicken flavor and all that into food.

And in fact, if you go to Asian markets, there are giant containers,

like not the little ones, but court size, a couple of pounds of

chicken powder, really good stuff.

And if you buy bouillon, this is going on too long, but if

you ate always does, doesn't it?

If you buy bouillon in the cubes, what we're talking about is chipping

off a piece of the cube, not dropping the whole cube necessarily

into a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Try chipping off a little and then see where that.

takes you.

And if you need more, you can add more.

It adds a depth of flavor.

Right.

Exactly.

Okay.

Before we get to Bruce's interview in this episode of our podcast, let me

say that would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast, if you could

rate it, like it, and if you could write a review, that would be the best

way you can support this otherwise free and unsupported and ad free podcast.

It helps us stay current.

in the analytics.

We really appreciate that.

No matter what country you're in.

And we see the listeners in Canada and Australia and New Zealand

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Thanks for tuning in to this us based podcast and please write a review.

Okay.

Up next Bruce's interview with Kat Ashmore of hungry lady salads on Tik TOK.

She has more than 3 million.

followers.

That's impossible.

But okay, 3 million followers and she's got a brand new book out.

Big bites, wholesome, comforting recipes that are big on

flavor, nourishment, and fun.

You may know her as TikTok food celeb behind Hungry Lady Salads, but Cat

Ashmore is so much more than that.

Well, today she's my guest and her mission is to empower hungry readers everywhere.

to feed themselves and their loved ones well and have fun doing it.

And to help, she's got a fantastic new book called Big Bites, wholesome,

comforting recipes that are big on flavor, nutrition and fun.

Welcome, Kat.

Thank you so much.

It's great to be here.

Hey, you say in your book that great food doesn't have to be complicated.

So what, in your opinion, makes great, satisfying, healthy, fun food?

I think a lot of it is technique, knowing how to make the most out

of the ingredients, really knowing how to make them sing, and how to

create a story with every recipe.

I look at every recipe as a story.

You've got your different characters.

They interact with each other.

They bring out different things within each other.

And I think once you start to learn how to properly create a recipe and the

importance of the different ingredients, you realize that you just don't

need all that much stuff oftentimes.

I've never heard anyone talk about ingredients as characters and stories.

That's really kind of interesting.

Yeah.

I, I think it's really important because oftentimes when we will try

something at a restaurant or we'll make something at home, we think

to ourselves, it's not that good.

And I encourage people to really take it a step further and

say, you know, what's missing.

Is it missing some brightness that I could add some acidity to,

is it missing a little bit of.

spice.

Is it missing?

You know, some coolness to counteract the spice.

So just looking at it that way, I really encourage people to go beyond just

following a recipe and understand the importance of the different ingredients.

Well, let's talk about an interesting ingredient you have in one of

the first recipes of your book.

It's a familiar recipe, but yet unique avocado toast.

Sure.

We all know how that works, but I've never seen anyone do it the

way you do with hot melted honey.

Interesting ingredient.

Tell me how that works to tell me how that character works for you in that story.

The way that that works for me, so it was really born out of the idea that

we have been seeing avocado toast everywhere, and it's been around now

for a while, and it's usually, um, terrifically expensive wherever you go,

and, you know, I would, I would moan to my husband, like, I can't believe they're

charging 18 for avocado and toast, and yet three quarters of the people in this

Cafe are sitting here eating it, and so I wanted to do something that felt

a little bit different and take it up a notch and make it a little bit more.

A bit romantic.

I'm a romantic at heart.

And so adding the ingredients, something like a really beautiful floral honey,

and then a little bit of spice from the chili, the way that they counteract

with the cool creaminess of the avocado, because you probably know when

you're dealing with an ingredient like avocado, Or salmon or egg, something

that has a good amount of natural fat.

You need some components to really wake up the flavor, right?

Whether it's acid or spice.

So I think that the simple combination does it beautifully.

You call the first chapter of your book, morning person.

I am not one of those people, but if you're serving your homemade

turkey sausage with apple and sage, I'm getting up for that.

Is it hard to make your own sausage from scratch?

It's really not.

If, if you're, if you're taking it really far back, I mean, there's an expression,

you know, seeing how the sausage is made.

And sometimes that's not very pretty.

I really try to meet people where they are and say, you know, let's meet you

where you are in your kitchen with the appliances you have, you know.

I'm not going to make you source out any special equipment to make it, but it's a

really fun way to just take something like ground meat, which so many of us use, we

probably have in our freezer and add a little bit of flavor and ingredients to

make something that feels unique at home.

And do I have to worry about casing or is this going to be just really free form?

It's going to be very free form.

I wanted people to be able to make them up just like patties.

Again, meeting them where they are.

A lot of people make burgers at home.

They know how to do that.

So it's really not much different than forming a burger.

Um, so you've got that little bit of maple, that sweetness

that of course plays so well.

Maple is very much a breakfast flavor in my mind.

And the little bit of sage, it's that herbaceous.

woodsy component that just kind of hangs out in the background.

One of my favorite appetizers when I go out is spinach dip.

But it's always so rich and I never feel very good after eating it.

So tell me about your lighter, healthier version.

That sounds amazing.

Yeah.

So really the spinach dip, which is mostly spinach dip really is mostly spinach.

So we are just saying, you know what, we're going to give spinach

main character energy here.

We are going to let the spinach really be the bulk of the dip, um,

rather than something that just kind of binds together all of these

not so great ingredients for you.

And I am all for indulging, but let's be honest, spinach dip is an appetizer.

So the idea is that you're supposed to be able to eat afterwards.

And you probably know from what you've expressed, if I'm having spinach dip

at a I'm not very hungry afterwards.

So we want to.

You know, kick off the meal with something really fun and comforting and cheesy

and enjoyable, but also leave a little bit of room for what's to come next.

So what's in there that lightens it up besides just the spinach?

So I, I like to use Greek yogurt oftentimes as a base, something

that is like nice and creamy.

Of course, you know, you add in things like cream cheese and lots of

cheese and all of those components.

It is very traditional in a spinach dip, but I am.

I am not of the mindset of needing to remove ingredients completely.

I am always looking at a recipe and saying, how much can I scale back on

these components while still keeping the integrity of, of the recipe?

And that's really what I try to do here as well.

Hey, I can't talk to the hungry salad lady about her new book

and not talk about salads.

So it is one of the largest chapters in your book.

What's the secret to a perfect salad cat?

The secret to a perfect salad is, as I was saying before,

about the story of a recipe.

I think a salad is a perfect example of that.

I often share with people that I think you can tell a lot about a restaurant

by ordering the house salad and seeing how they represent themselves there.

So I think a great salad should have a good amount going on.

It doesn't mean that it needs to be terribly complicated, but these particular

salads are meant to be full meal in a bowl salads where you can make it

on, you know, a Sunday night and you can enjoy it oftentimes for most of

the week because we're busy, right?

And I think when we are pressed for time, oftentimes that's when we

make choices that might not be as mindful as we would otherwise make.

Well, I want to talk about one of the salads in your book, your shaved

Caesar with fennel crispy chickpeas.

Typically Caesar salads are very rich, very creamy.

How do you create this salad that looks so fantastic, but it's also healthy.

Well, I think the thing with Caesar salad, which is a beloved salad for a

lot of reasons I have very rarely have I met a Caesar salad that I didn't

like, I'll be honest with if I'm at a diner, if I'm at a restaurant with my

kids where we're going there because there's chicken fingers and French

fries, and I don't know what to order.

It's usually a Caesar salad and French fries.

Um, so really, for me, it's about when you're taking away fat or sugar or

whatever it is, making sure that you're supplementing it with lots of flavor.

So we've got lots of garlic going on.

We've got the anchovy, which is, I don't know about you, but I feel the anchovy is

absolutely a non negotiable with Caesar.

Do you agree?

No, absolutely.

Yeah, it's, it's a non negotiable for me.

I mean, that's really what makes a Caesar dressing a Caesar dressing.

So, um, everyone, that's probably one of my favorite recipes in the book.

And I think the crispy chickpeas are just such a nice

ingredient to know how to make.

It adds that crunchy, crispy thing to the salad and Can be

used in so many great ways.

I love to top homemade hummus with the crispy chickpeas.

Um, you know, you can put them on a sheet pan with some chicken thighs and

vegetables, and you've got a full dinner.

So it's a great technique to be able to learn as well.

Meatballs can make me weak in the knees.

And what I love about your recipe for chimichurri meatballs is you

roast them, you broil them, they get a beautiful brown crunch on them.

But for most people not familiar with chimichurri, can you talk

about what that is and how your version's a little different?

Yes.

So every country has a form of a fresh green sauce.

In Italy, it's pesto.

You know, in Spain and Mexico, you have salsa verde.

In France, you have sauce verde.

So this is the Argentinian version.

It's very prominent all through Latin America.

My uncle lived in Buenos Aires.

It was served with meats.

all the time.

And I, I love to have these concoctions that are sort of secret weapons you

can have on hand that really just kick up the flavor of whatever protein you

feel like cooking that that night.

So it has that nice fresh herb base of parsley, and then you've got

oregano and you've got garlic and you've got some nice, you know,

acid going on there and olive oil.

It's so quick to put together, you know, spoon it over roasted potatoes.

You can use it so many ways.

Speaking of secret weapons, you actually have a chapter at the end of your book

called Secret Weapons, which are your ingredients that really make food pop.

Can you give us one or two of your secret weapons right here and tell

us what you like to use them with?

I would say if I had to pick a favorite and it's very difficult to do, I

would say pickled onions are one of my favorite things to have in the fridge.

If you like to do tacos, if you like to do fajitas, you know, sheet pan

fajitas, having, uh, pickled onions on hand is a no brainer for me.

Put them on a burger, that beautiful, sweet, like slightly sweet, acidic.

combination just wakes up and brightens up so many different dishes, especially

in the wintertime where it's cold out, we're doing a lot of slow braised meats,

which can feel a little bit heavy.

Adding a fresh sauce or pickled onions is one of the ways

that I like to brighten it up.

Hey Kat, your recipe for French onion soup starts off by saying that most people

don't make it at home because it never tastes as good as it does in a restaurant.

So what's your secret to getting that restaurant flavor onion soup at home?

The most important thing is knowing how to properly caramelize your onions.

And I think in a world where we're in such a rush, you know, most people will

Put their onions on and then 10, 15 minutes later, they take them off and

they think that they're caramelized.

They're just cooked.

They're not caramelized.

I mean, you want them to be really jammy and sweet.

The process of caramelizing onions is such a beautiful thing.

Don't you agree?

I mean, the way that it just transforms onions is unlike anything else.

And if you're, if you're cutting that short, you're missing out on So much

that the flavor and something I'll do too is, um, making sure that if, if you feel

like your onions are starting to burn a little bit, just add a little bit of

water, you know, and just deglaze the pan.

It should just hang out for a good minimum 30 minutes.

You want to go 45, even 60 minutes and you just continue to see it take

on more and more of a flavor profile.

Kat you are not afraid of bold flavors.

You've got your harissa roasted carrots, asparagus with capers and

raisins, sweet potato agrodolce.

So, as an adventurous chef and as a mom, what advice do you have for parents

facing non adventurous eating kids?

Mm.

One of the one of the most important things and I have

a five and a seven year old.

So I, this is very much up my alley and I'm very honest and open about the

fact that, you know, my kids don't eat everything and sometimes they will eat

something and I'm like, oh, they love it.

So I buy it in bulk and they look at me like, why did you buy this?

I would never eat this.

So, I mean, their taste buds are very fickle.

Getting them involved in the process.

Yes.

of cooking at home, preparation at home, and then when you're eating it

to explore, what does it taste like?

Is it creamy?

And just removing a lot of the stress and removing a lot of the pressure

around trying different foods.

I will often just Put a new food on a plate for my kids and I'm

thinking to myself, there's no chance they're going to eat it.

But if I have, I call it a safe food, something that I know that they

will eat, whether it's, you know, a piece of sourdough toast and butter,

something that feels safe and familiar to them and then just back off and

you all just enjoy your meal together.

And oftentimes they will find their way on their own toward the food.

And it takes a while.

You know, don't count it out after two, three times.

I mean, sometimes it takes 15, 20 times before they come around.

That's great advice.

Kat Ashmore, your new book, Big Bites, wholesome, comforting recipes that are

big on flavor, nourishment, and fun.

Great.

Good luck with the book.

And thanks for talking with me this morning.

So great to be here.

I had a blast.

Thank you.

Wow.

I mean, you know, from hungry lady salads to so many other foods and all of this

on this amazing Tik TOK platform, I, if you don't following recipe developers

on Instagram, I really encourage you to do it because Instagram reels has.

great content about food.

So does TikTok.

And I save dozens of recipes.

Oh, Mark has found great stuff to make for dinner.

He's been cooking more and more.

And the recipes he finds on, on social media are really great.

I do.

I've been cooking a lot of vegan food and I'm following all

these UK vegan chefs and even U.

S.

Vegan chefs and I'm really having a great time with their recipes and

plus the videos are really fun to watch So check out Kat Ashmore's work

at Hungry Lady Salads and even check out her book Big Bites Okay, before

we get to our last segment, What's Making Us Happy in Food This Week?

Let me remind you that we do have a newsletter Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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Okay up next our final segment what's making us happy in food this week,

and I'm gonna start off Oh, okay, I get to start off and my what's made

me happy our new plates We bought new plates over the holidays I don't know.

And I know this isn't anything you eat, but so, you know, it's a holiday sales.

We bought a whole new set of dinner plates and yes, I know we're gay.

We have like 5, 000 plates as it is and we bought more, which is really crazy.

But we did throw out a set of plates in buying.

So nothing comes in unless something goes down.

We're at that age.

A set of scratched up terracotta plates went out and these came in.

I don't know, we, it's just been fun having new plates in the house and it's

really perked up even just weeknight meals between the two of us because we

had some salmon last night with some green beans on it and it just looks so

pretty on the new plates and I don't know, the plates made me very happy so that's

what's making me happy in Food This Week.

Check out the January sales.

Maybe you should consider getting a new set of plates.

Actually, the best part of those new plates were the old ones we kept on

the counter and instead of washing them as we used them, we threw them out.

We did.

And it's just like Let's have dinner on the old terracotta

plates and then throw them out.

It was amazing, just throwing plates out.

I felt like I was a billionaire.

I was Elon Musk for a moment.

Okay.

Anyway, that's what's making me happy in food this

week.

What's making me happy is something very silly.

Um, I just ate the last of these little integro, meaning whole grain,

sweet breakfast biscuits that we brought home from Madrid, where

we were a few months ago, and then

it was

like a Euro.

Yeah, it was like a euro fifty for this box of like four pounds of these

little sweet breakfast biscuits and I couldn't leave them in the Airbnb.

They were so good.

So I packed them and brought them home.

You packed sleeves of them.

I did.

They're actually sometimes called Maria biscuits and

these said they were integral.

So they were whole grain Oh, we did every morning in Europe.

We had like two or three of them with espresso for breakfast.

I did.

So I was doing the same thing we can and I just finished

them.

I bought, I bought them and I bought, and this will just kill it.

This is a story I have to tell you.

I bought this, I went to this really nice food store.

Well, department store with a food store in it, in Madrid.

And I went to the food stores on the bottom floor of this particular location.

And I went down there.

It's really high end stuff, but also low end stuff.

But what killed me is that they had these beautiful packages of red

currants, beautiful, big, ripe red currants for a Euro 32 a package.

And what are we talking?

That's like a dollar 50, a dollar 70 a package.

Uh, for current, red currants, so we would have red currants on these

biscuits with espresso for breakfast.

We were pretending like we were Spanish, Madrid citizens,

that's what we were doing.

Yes, we were pretending that we were that, although we're far from that.

Okay, that's our podcast for this week.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for being a part of Our food journey.

We hope we're a part of your food journey and we hope that

you will join us again next week.

You can be part of our food journey at Facebook on our Facebook page, cooking

with Bruce and Mark, where you can share photos of foods that you're enjoying.

We tell you what's making us happy in food each week.

Tell us what's making you happy in food this week.

We'll continue to do that again on the next episode of

cooking with Bruce and Mark.