@ForkReport Hour 1 | When Eating Read The Directions

Technique of the Week:DIY Home Salad Bars, and Salad Dressing. Paquito Mas Plug – What not to do at Trader Joe’s. Real Syrup goes in the fridge. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Neil Savedra. You're listening to KFI AM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
How are you happy Saturday? To you, I'm Neil Savedra.
Thanks for hanging out with us today. This is a
place where you can come a sanctuary if you will,
every Saturday for three hours from two to five right
here on KFI, we get to celebrate food, the people

(00:22):
that make it, the culture behind it, all while enjoying
whatever you want to enjoy on a Saturday. All right,
Technique of the week is how we start. Technique of
the week today is dealing with salads. Don't wait, don't
don't a bunch of dudes reach for knob there, don't
turn us off. Hold on a second. So there's this

(00:44):
trend going on, and yes, of course shows up in
social media and the tick and the talk and everything
else about diy salad bars. And I thought, you know what,
At first, I kind of rolled my eyes. What's a
diy salad bar? Is just a bunch of stuff that
you put on a salad? Right? But I thought about
this more and I kind of I kind of dig it.

(01:06):
So we're going to get into that and then I'm
gonna teach you some simple things about making salad dressings
as well, and vinaigrettes, and how easy it is to
do this stuff at home. So this trend is basically
showcasing how to prep your fridge to keep your family
stocked with fresh, healthful, nutritious options. And the guide kind

(01:28):
of breaks down this way. You end up having this
wonderful fridge full of toppings and additives to your salad.
So you start with base greens, of course, mix of
leafy greens. You can use romaine, red leaf, lettuce, ridikio,

(01:49):
whatever it is. You wash and dry them well. You
store them in a seilable bag with paper towels to
keep them fresh longer. And that's going to be your base.
Pretty simple. And then you go onto veggies. Your prep
a variety of vegetables, shredded carrots, radishes, beats, thinly sliced

(02:11):
red cabbage. You can add in other veggies like chopped
broccoli or cauliflower. I like bell peppers. Cucumbers are also
really great. Tomatoes and cucumbers, though you want to keep
whole until you use them. You don't want them to
lose their freshness, and you know you're going to be
turning this stuff over depending on who's using it in

(02:31):
the house, but you want to make sure that everything
is fresh. You get your proteins so you can make
your salads more filling, give you a little more energy
boost with proteins, like grilled chicken. You can use tofi
tofu rather I like grilled tofu. Otherwise you know it's tofu.
It's more like a dense substance than it is anything else,

(02:56):
And tofu really takes on the flavor of other things.
So maybe I'll do a little tariaki or something like
that and seer off the tofu. You do beans, canned fish.
Some people like sardines or salmon or tuna. Tuna's fine
for me, Salmon's fine for me. Sardines aren't really my jam.

(03:17):
You can also use crunchy seasoned chickpeas, homemade roasted tofu,
like we talked about crumbles, or things like that. If
I'm going to do if I want a little green
a different kind of bean in there. Something you can
also use at a mummy, which is great. Okay. As

(03:39):
far as extras go, you can put things like crotons,
of course, dried avocado or diced avocado rather pomegranate seeds,
if you're into that. Nuts, you can use different cheeses,
and you can be creative with some leftovers as well,
like if you've got sliced steak or roasted veg cheese

(04:00):
or whatever, you toss that in there as well. Now,
when it comes to dressings, dressings are great to make,
and I'm going to teach you that in just a second.
But you can buy store abot stuff. That's there's no
problem with that. It's just when you're controlling. If you
want to control the things in there, whether it's salt,
whether it's sugar or anything like that, the preservatives, then

(04:22):
you can do it yourself. But there are some great
dressings out there as well, So you keep your refrigerator
stocked with all these essentials and it just makes it easier.
And you can buy these little trays like, for instance,
sometime ago, I got this long like toppings tray and

(04:44):
you can get it at your you can get it online,
but you can get them at your local restaurant supply
store as well. And they just have little containers set
into like a metal sleeve that they kind of sit
or container. They all sit in and then it has
a plexiglass lid that goes down on them. And sometimes
when I'm making you know, when we have kids over

(05:05):
for my son Max or something like a birthday party
or gathering, then I'll put pizza toppings in there, and
I'll make custom little pizzas for everybody, and the kids
get to point to whatever they want. Right. Well, you
can do the same thing here. Another thing is is
that you can use this so called refrigerator salad bar
as a way to dress up your sandwiches as well.

(05:27):
You kind of have this built in sandwich shop in
your refrigerator as well. Okay, when it comes to toppings,
not toppings, when it comes to dressings. Rather, I want
to talk about very simple salad dressings because this is
one of the things that a lot of people, maybe
not you because you listen to the program and you
may make this yourself, but a lot of people don't

(05:48):
think of making themselves. And it's pretty easy to do.
You control everything, it's fresh for one, You control the ingredients,
and it can be very simple. So here's what I like.
A Dijon mustard dressing, so honey mustard dressing, things like that,

(06:08):
fantastic but it's super simple. You just need olive oil
and now in acid. Lemon juice is what I prefer.
But you can use vinegar if you want, garlic, some
Dijon mustard, some salt and pepper and that's it. It's
very easy to put together your own salad dressing and

(06:30):
you mix it up in like five minutes. Works pretty
much for everything and anything that you're going to be
putting into your salad bowl. So the cool thing about
this basic recipe is that you can change it up.
You can use different vinegars, you can use different mustards,
throwing some herbs here and there, you know, for your
fancy self. You can even make a large batch and

(06:53):
use it throughout the week. On the dietary end, these
the breakdown that I've given you. The dressing is naturally
gluten free, it's vegetarian, and it's even vegan, so you
can kind of control those things if you have dietary
restrictions or desires there. So what you need is three
tablespoons of good olive oil. It does make a difference

(07:15):
if you have the good stuff. California olive oil is
very good. Don't a lot of the Italian stuff and
the things you see in the store are garbage, and
try and get you in on the fact that they're
imported or they're Italian or something. California olive oil is fantastic.
One small garlic clove minced, or you can use a

(07:35):
half teaspoon of garlic powder if you're in a rush
and that's what you have on hand. One tablespoon of
fresh lemon juice, or you can try like a red
wine vinegar, one teaspoon Dijon mustard, half teaspoon salt, quarter teaspoon,
black pepper, and just kind of throw everything into a
bowl and you can toss it together with a little

(07:57):
whisk there, or you could put it in a jar
if with the lid, you put in the jar and
just shake it up. You want to mix it really
well and pling those things together and that's it. And
you can keep it in the fridge for a few
three days whatever and bring it out when you want
to enjoy it. And it's quite simple. Okay, I'll come back.
We'll break down a little bit more about the solid

(08:18):
dressing and a very simple way to memorize how to
make a vinaigrette. When we return.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
You're listening to the fork report with Nil Sevedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
How do you do? Thanks for hanging out today, all right,
we were talking about technique of the week. We're talking
about this trend of having salad bars in your refrigerator,
basically breaking down all the elements of a good salad
and having them set aside in your fridge, quick and
easy to go, and how it can make it easier

(08:54):
to put nutritious food in your body simply there at
the house for you and your family. We got through
that and we started getting into making salad dressings, which
is super duper easy and the cool thing is you
can control all the flavors yourself. So it's something I
think that is worth learning to do because it's not

(09:16):
that difficult. I got into a particular one that I
came across online that is delicious and it's just a
simple Dijon mustard salad dressing. So you can go back
and listen to that at KFI AM six forty dot
com in the podcast area, or of course I Heart
Radio dot com as well, so you can listen to

(09:39):
that when you wish to break that one down. But
one of the tips I want to talk about because
it does have they do have acids in them. In
this case, I say, using a little lemon juice as
your acid. You can use other things like vinegar as well.
Just think of it this way though. If you're using
a vinegar instead of lemon juice, you can keep it

(10:01):
in the fridge fro up to a week. And that
is because the actual natural or fresh lemon juice is
going to break down after a while, and the acid
in the vinegar is gonna hold up a little longer.
If you want it sweeter, you can add a little honey.
You can add a little maple syrup to your dressings
there if you like it's spicy, some red pepper flakes

(10:24):
or maybe a little siacha in there will do you
Just write, play around with different herbs, different spices and
things that you like. You make it your own, and
then just make sure you write everything down, your proportions
if you're adding to something, because you may just stumble
across the perfect salad dressing for you and your family
and everybody's oh, I love it, I love it, and

(10:44):
then you can't remember how to make it again. But
give it a try. Now I want to talk to
you about making your own vinaigrettes. Not only did this
blow my mind. Some time ago, I learned about ratios
and Michael Rohlman wrote a book called Ratio and it

(11:05):
basically breaks down I've talked about it on the show before.
I've even had Michael on the program before. Bright just
super smart guy, and he basically breaks down the concept
of any recipe for the most part into ratios and
everything from a basic cookie to a bread to a

(11:29):
cake that are basically ratios. And we come across this
and things like pound cake. Pound cake was originally pound
of butter, I think pound of flour, pound of sugar,
something like that, and that's why they call it pound cake. Well,
those are ratios. That's a one to one to one ratio. Well,
when it comes to the ratio for vinagrette, it's just

(11:51):
three parts oil, one part vinegar. That's it. So three
parts oil, one part acid, So the oils can change,
the acid could change, and then the things that you
want to put in there to add whatever you want
is how you build it. So it's super easy to remember.
And I've seen chefs whip this up before and I've

(12:15):
been blown away, like just at the table they go Okay,
well we've got these things. We're going to throw this together.
So that's all you need to do. You could play
around with it if you want it tangier, maybe a
little less oil you want if you're using lime juice
instead of vinegar, you might want more oil. It's all
about that taste in the balance. But you can do
it based on that three to one principal. Three parts oil,

(12:39):
one part vinegar. So if you want to get an
idea of whipping up some of these vinegrettes, just start
thinking of it this way. Start with two tablespoons of
sherry vinegar and six tablespoons of olive oil as your base,
and then you can do all kinds of things. You
can mix in cement, minced shallat, some salt, some pepper,

(13:04):
add to your vinegar, you give it a quick stir,
you whiske in your oil. You want to make sure
that it's moving fast because it's not going to be
like a it's not going to be an emulsion like
a mayonnaise or something like that. But you just want
to kind of bring them together. They will separate in

(13:25):
the fridge and then you shake them up and they'll
be good. A tarragon, mustard vinaigrette. You take that first
recipe two tablespoons of sherry vinegar six tablespoons of olive
oil as your base, and then you add some whole
grain or Dijon mustard, You chop some fresh tarragon, and
you drizzle it over fish or a salad or whatever

(13:47):
you're doing. Grabche vinaigrette, maybe a little fancier if you want.
You start with that cherry shallat base. You add some mustard,
then you mix in chopped hard boil egg, tiny little
those tiny little pickles, some capers, and you could put

(14:09):
that on pork, or you could put it on a
salad with bacon. And the cool thing is that once
you get comfortable with these ratios and building these things yourself,
like a salad dressing, then you're kind of in control
of all of it because oftentimes you're going to have
these things in the fridge. How many times do we
do that? I know I do this a lot at

(14:30):
the house. When you go to the refrigerator for a
dressing and then you pull them You've got like ten
of them and you pull them out and they're all expired,
and I mean expired expired like nineteen. No, i'd be
way expired, like twenty twenty. Let's say almost like my

(14:51):
mom's house, is this spice from nineteen forty, so this
you'll be able to put them together. They're quite simply,
and you could try different oils as well. Tons of
different oils out there. Walnut oil, there's avocado oil, there's
different herbs. Sometimes you can even get flavored oils. I

(15:12):
love great flavored oils as well. So think about that.
And this is how you put something fun and delicious
together and more helpful because you're controlling all the ingredients.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
At home, you're listening to The Fork Report with Neil
Savedra on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday to you. It's the Fork Report.
I am your well fed host, Neil Savedra. How do
you do. Thanks for hanging out on this Saturday. Happy
to be with you. I can't believe it. I'm looking
at some of my notes and coming up in the
three pm hour, we're gonna talk about Octoberfest, and I'm like,
October October. It's already September twenty first. Can you believe it?

(15:53):
We're looking at October. I've already and she's I think
probably in August and stuff for Halloween. But any who,
October is coming. I can't believe it. So we're gonna
be talking about october Fest in just a little bit. Plus.
I think on the fifth of October, I'm going to
be out at a Piqito Moss broadcasting live. It might

(16:13):
even be here in Burbank, but I haven't gotten the
confirmation just yet. We'll let you know where that's going
to be. What else is coming up? Oh Amy King
from Wake Up Call and Yours Truly, we will be
going over the Edge this coming Friday, like a week
from yesterday. We will be going over the Edge at

(16:38):
the Hilton off the one to one freeway there in
Universal City, right by Universal Studios. Why are we doing that?
That is for the Union Rescue Mission. Just help one
is their goal. And you know, if you what Mother
Teresa said, if you can't feed a thousand, feed at

(16:58):
least one. And so we're part of the Union Rescue
Mission to get awareness out there and to build awareness
that they need your donations desperately. They are a dry mission,
which means people that go to them for help commit
to not using drugs, commit to not using alcohol and

(17:19):
go in there and really want to change their life
and get off the streets. And isolute that so much
so that when I saw their presentation for this project,
they became one of my regular charities, one of my
regular local charities, and I've data dedicated some money to
them each month, and if you feel moved to do that,
I encourage you to do that as well. But to

(17:41):
get awareness, we're going to go over the edge and
we're going to repel down the side of a twenty
five story building approximately two hundred and fifty feet. It's
scary as heck. I looked over it and I'm scared
of heights, but I am down to do it because
I think it's a fantastic cost. Now, if you want
to donate, super duper simple. All you do is go

(18:04):
to just Help and the number one just Help one
dot org dot org and you'll see donate and you
can click on donate. Then you can look for the
teams and you go to the team and it says
iHeartMedia and our buddy Patrick set that up here, and
you can donate there and we're really just you know,

(18:28):
whatever you can spare would be great, And if you
want to go. You ever thought, wow, I want to
repel down a building. I think if you raise one
thousand dollars you can repel down the building as well.
So that's kind of cool. I'll tell you more about
it coming up as well. But if you do that,
just help the number one, Just help one dot org

(18:51):
and donate. That would be very very cool. All right.
Trader Joe's. Who doesn't like Trader Joe's, Right, Trader Joe's
has great food, great prices, horrible parking, you know the
one I'm talking about. Well, there is also a lot
of well, let's not say frustration. But here's some tips

(19:11):
on what not to do. And this is from a
former employee of Trader Joe's and I thought they were
pretty reasonable, probably good tips for all of us to know.
One is complaining about the crowds, they can't do anything.
The whole thing about Trader Joe's, and the reason why
their parking lots are so small, by the way, is
because their stores are small, and the store dictates how

(19:34):
many parking spaces you have. So when they go to
fill a store somewhere, and usually it's a building that's
already been built, but sometimes they go into a place
that they build. They're looking. They don't want to compete
with the big grocers. That's their whole thing, right, So
they have a smaller store, which means smaller parking, which

(19:55):
means bigger crowds. Because everybody loves them. Don't complain to them.
There there's nothing they can do, and you're just part
of the problem as well. But they're help They're there
to help you if you need anything, to point you
in the direction you need to go. One of the
things that I thought was cool is one of their
pet peeves is skipping on the samples. You got to

(20:18):
take advantage of the samples they want you to and
this is a cool thing. This is beyond even sample stations.
The crew members can often provide, if you ask nicely,
samples of new products too. And if you don't like something,
there's no need to return it because you can sample
it and they, you know, often get to enjoy the leftover.
So they open them up and if you want them

(20:40):
to open you as nicely and they can open something
up for you to taste it. Okay. Another thing not
to do? What not to do? So, says an employee.
A former employee of Trader Joe's overstepping with employees. So
grocery workers at Trader Joe's are specialized, their folk. A

(21:00):
lot of the things that they do you may not notice.
Some of them may even be in the restaurant industry,
maybe even chefs, things like that. And if they're looking
at something in their hand or they're looking over they're
looking for code. They know what the product is, they
know what they have there. Keep in mind their experts

(21:22):
and that you can ask them questions. Any social media
trend that comes their way is going to clean out
certain parts of the store. If there's some sort of
TikTok trend on cheese, those cheeses are going to be gone.
They're going to be wiped out. And don't complain to them.
Ask for alternatives. They'll do what they can. Hoarding products.

(21:43):
You don't need to stockpile items, and this is something
I think people miss. If you know you're going to
have a party or you want something a lot of something,
go ahead and ask. And I think you can do
this at any store if you give them enough time.
If you need large quantities of something special, order it.
A lot of people don't think you can do that.

(22:05):
You give the store a call ahead of time and
you say I want a certain amount of this, and
they will help you set that aside or take care
of that, because otherwise what you end up doing is
cleaning out the store of that thing, and now other
people can't get it because they're not planning for your party.
They're planning for the regular usage and all of that. Okay,

(22:29):
so don't just order more of something. Call store and
say I need a large amount of this. Can we
order it? And they will take care of you. Discount
discontinued items. Don't take it personally. Things come and go
at Trader Joe's. And even if you love them, sorry,
reausable bags are great. A couple of things to think

(22:49):
about is keep them clean, keep them organized, don't put
them on you don't put them on the table there
to check out and then put all your growth she's
on top of them. That defeats the purpose. Cart etiquette.
Don't share carts without separating items at checkout, or have

(23:11):
the kids sitting on the groceries or things like that.
Let them kind of take care of it, because if
you're sneezing all over the food and then handing it
to them, that's kind of gross as well. And respecting
personal space. Keep in mind that sometimes I've seen this
actually personally. You'll have somebody that works at Trader Joe's
and they're up on a small step stool or something

(23:33):
reaching for something, and people reach between their legs or
cross their body, cross check their body a little bit,
say excuse me, not during the reach, but before the reach.
Excuse me, may I reach here or whatever? And last,
but not least, one of my all time favorites, don't
assume that because the cashier is being nice to you,

(23:54):
they are flirting with you. Their demeanor is supposed to
feel warm and inviting. It's not flirty or coquettish look
at me using the big words. It's just being kind.
So unless you're super, super handsome or beautiful, who knows.
But most of the time, for the rest of us
ugly normal folk, it is just them being kind, all right.

(24:19):
Stick around. Another thing that kind of ties into Trader
Joe's because they have fresh syrup as well, is something
you should not do with real syrup because it can
make you sick. I'll tell you that when we come back.
You've been listening to the Fork Report, you can always
hear us live on KFI AM six forty two to
five pm on Saturday and anytime on demand on the

(24:41):
iHeartRadio app. This is where we get together every Saturday
and just celebrate food today. Yay food. So thanks for
hanging out. We got a lot to get to today.
As I said, we're going to get into some october
Fest celebration in southern California. Here I want to get
to the border's head stuff. Some of the conclusion of

(25:01):
new information that came out this week a week some
issues with cinnamon, what spicy food does to your body.
All kinds of things coming up, So go know where
right now. Syrup. I love syrup. I love real maple syrup.
Who doesn't now. As a kid growing up, I liked

(25:23):
the not so real maple syrup, you know, pancake syrup
and things like that that we had. It tastes yummy,
is sugary and sweet, but it's not necessarily the real stuff.
And we sometimes accidentally poison ourselves in the pantry because
we don't know what goes in the pantry and what doesn't,

(25:44):
so you might be causing problems. There's a story that
was in the news about a week or so ago
of a woman named Anna, young woman she learned surprising
lesson about her maple syrup. She's a TikToker, of course,
aren't they all, And she had a growing following, and
she shared a video she basically revealed this big blunder

(26:06):
that was making her sick. She had been keeping her
Trader Joe's ties into her last segment, Trader Joe's Maple
Syrup in the pantry. I know you're probably thinking, well,
what's wrong with that? It actually needs to be refrigerated.
The difference is because this syrup is fresh and real

(26:27):
and without a bunch of preservatives that depending on where
you're storing at once it's open, it should be in
the refrigerator. So even though the expiration date on it
is in the clear, it may be growing mold on
the inside and causing a problem. And the thing with
Anna is she had been using this syrup on the daily.

(26:50):
She does the overnight oats, you know what those are,
overnight oats, and she would make chia seed dishes, homemade granola,
all those things, and she put them together and every
time she had her oats that she would put syrup on,
she would feel nauseous by the time she left for work,

(27:10):
and she thought maybe it was the energy drink or whatever.
I love when people have all that real nutritious stuff
and then suck back, you know, nuclear energy drinks, So
she thought it was that. But it wasn't until she
was finishing the bottle of the syrup that she actually
saw these little floating molds in the last drops, and

(27:36):
it finally hit her. The bottle was well within its
expiration date. The expiration date was probably years away at
that point, but she did not see where it said,
please keep refrigerated after opening. And that's a big deal.
Two things you should be looking for keep refrigerated after opening.

(27:58):
For instance, mayo and ketchup. Often you put them in,
you know, especially for mayo, you put them in the
refrigerator after you open them. So look for these two things.
Refrigerate after opening. And then the other thing you should
look about and look at is use within seven days
use or freeze within seven days of opening, or things

(28:21):
like that. When they say these these are giving you
reasons to keep them refrigerated or to use them by
a certain time. So you don't just look at the
expiration date. Because the expiration date. Oftentimes if it's not
usually an expiration date, it's a best by date or
a spoiled date or something like that. Those are it
for the sealed product, usually not for the open product.

(28:44):
So after this young lady Anna, who was talking to
her mom and talking about all that, her mom was shocked.
She's like, I didn't even know that you're supposed to
put syrup bottles in the refrigerator, But that is the case,
especially if you're using the good stuff. So the deal
with maple syrup and refrigeration. Unlike fake syrups that we

(29:06):
probably grew up on, they got tons of preservatives in it,
a bunch of artificial sweeteners. Real maple syrup doesn't have that,
and so it's more prone to spoilage. It can spoil,
especially goshther, I know it's cooled off, but whether we'd
been having about a week or so ago that it

(29:27):
was so hot outside that even with your air conditioning on,
it seemed like it was still warm everywhere. That these
things can change a lot of people don't think about
that catch up, especially if it is organic soy sauce.
It won't spoil, but it can lose its freshness after
a while there's a lot of sodium in that. Nut flowers,

(29:50):
whole wheat flowers, they spoil faster because the wheat germ
in there and some of the oils, and they can
go rancid. Citrus fruits, womonds, oranges, limes, they last much
longer in the fridge. Butter. It's dairy, so it benefits
from refrigeration. But for me, I don't flip out about that.
I keep the long term stuff in there. But the

(30:12):
stuff that I'm using on the daily for my you know,
toast in the morning or something, I don't worry about
that because it's not going to be out there very long.
Just isn't you're using it on the daily and there's
enough of you in the house that it turns itself
over and you're fined. Organic nut butters they can go
ran sid if left out too long. That's for the
same thing. They keep four about four months at room temperature,

(30:37):
but you know a year or so if they're in
the fridge. Tortillas stay fresh much longer when refrigerated. So
as far as expiration dates, they're not always right because
sometimes they're best if used by best before you know
the quality is going to change, and your tongue should
tell that, tell you that. But the stuff that will

(30:58):
make you sick is the stuff that gets moldy and disgusting. Yeah,
so keep that in mind with your fresh creator Joe's
maple syrup or any organic or maple syrup that is
the real deal and not coming in a bottle shaped
like an old woman or something like that. All Right,
more to come, we come up, coming up. In just

(31:19):
a few minutes from now, we'll get into Octoberfest here
in southern California, So go know

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Where you're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra
on demand from KFI AM six forty