July 9, 2025 • 49 mins
Miami is a sun-drenched melting pot of tropical flavors and diverse cultures as a gateway to Latin America, South America and the Caribbean. Who doesn’t love a Cuban sandwich, arroz con pollo or seafood ceviche? But did you know that Miami is also among the top 10 plant-based cities in the U.S.A.? Ellen Kanner, a fifth generation Miami native and 25-year vegan (Substack: Broccoli Rising), shares tips for creating tropically inspired plant-based recipes from her cookbook, “Miami Vegan.”
Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN
Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comment should
(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I hope you're having a wonderful morning
and day wherever you are. I love spotlighting interesting people
and talking about some of my favorite things, which include eating, drinking,
and explore like I do here if fear Less Fabulous
(01:02):
You and also on the Connected Table Live my other podcast.
And I'm dressed in all these beautiful colors today because
we're taking you somewhere that is so much fun in
the United States. We're taking you to the tropical paradise
of Miami. Now. I've been to Miami a lot. I
used to produce many many events there for all my
clients when I had my Puppet Relations agency, and I
(01:25):
love the flavors the new Floridian food. I'm very good
friends with Chef Norman Van Eigen and many many people
in the colony world. My guest today is one of them.
Her name is Ellen Canner. She has a great She's
an author and a food expert. She's a great substat
called Broccoli Rising that you should check out, and a
(01:46):
really terrific book called Miami Vegan Plant Based Recipes from
the Tropics to Your Table. Now, this topic interests me
because I love eating plant based food dishes. Try to
do it a lot when we're home here in New Orleans,
because everything is just laced with meat, especially pork when
you go out. Miami just lends itself to this, you know,
(02:09):
because it's a melting pot of cultures and a gateway
to Latin America, South America and the Caribbean. There's so
many amazing flavors that come in from there. But I
didn't know until I got Ellen's book and did some
research that Miami is also among the top ten plant
based cities in the United States. That's amazing and great,
(02:30):
particularly if you do like to travel and like to
find plant based restaurants in your area or cook. So
Ellen Kanner joins me today on Fearless Fabulous Shoe and
that's going to be our topic, how to cook delicious,
tropically inspired plant based dishes in your home, and we're
going to get tips from Ellen on where to go
when you visit Miami. So Ellen, welcome to Fearless Fabulous.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
You hello, fabulous Melanie to be here.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, it's really great. I'm surprised seven Cross were both
members of the Don Dascoffier. We've been in the industry
a long time. Talk to me about you. Where did
you grow up? Are you a Miammi native? I think
you're like a multi generation Miami native, right.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You're right? Uh, And that makes me a bit of
a like people like a generation Miami native. How is
that even possible? U? Yeah, I guess my great great
great grandfather came here when there was more mosquitoes than people.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But yeah, we said, what was it like growing up there?
I mean, you know, it's funny, like, my husband's from
New York. He actually grew up in New York City,
and nobody's from New York and grew up in New
York City. Uh So, what was it like growing up
by Mammy? Because when I used to go there with
my mom, dad, grandparents, it was very different from where
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Now diplomatically put, and when I was growing up it
was too. It was still you could still see vestiges
of it being like a small, easy, tropical town. It
is gotten so built up and so glitzy and glam
but there's still like little hints of flavor of what
(04:07):
we used to be, and I wanted to get all
that into Miami Vegan.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well you did, Now, I also understand you have been
vegan for twenty five years, right.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yes, And believe me, it was not cool to be
vegan then. It was there were no celebrity vegans. Then
there weren't very many vegan products on the in the stores,
or at least anything you would want to eat.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, I'm curious why you decided to go vegan and
what it was like for you, because that that's a
big choice and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
When you've been doing it a while, it's a breeze,
and I wanted to be a breeze for everyone. But
you're right, it's a big mind set change and it's
a big change in your diet. I started out when
I was twelve because I love animals and I didn't
want to eat them anymore. And also, when you're a
(05:02):
tween and you're looking for ways to push your parents' buttons,
this is a good one and you get so many
benefits out of it. I learned so much more about
our food system. I certainly learned how to cook and
all the things that vegan offers, health, sustainability, which matters
(05:23):
a lot when you are in the hurricane strength zone.
As we both are, animal rights, you get all that
and you can get a great dinner too. It's a
win win.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Well, Ellen, I'm curious as twenty five years, let's take
it to now, how has embracing vegan been benefit for
your health like your skin, your hair, your your overall
well being. I'm curious what you think the long term
benefits have been.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
I think they have been great. I think I told
you I had a running nose forever as a little kid.
I never associated that with dairy. I don't think my
parents did either. We didn't really know any better. When
I gave that up, that all went away. I wasn't
looking to lose weight, but I was sort of that
awkward teenage tween age and it just melted off me
(06:17):
without any issue. I take no medications. I feel great.
That tells me a lot right there.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I think it's so interesting because I did a lot
of research on this when I was doing the health
coaching program to be more aware of the different aspects
of health and wellness, and I learned that many who
are vegan actually have a thirty percent less body fat,
which I thought was fascinating. And the dairy mentioned you
mentioned it is true dairy can. I love dairy cod
(06:49):
because I love cheese, but when I have too much
of it, I get a hoarse voice, I get congested,
my skin gets very red. So I've learned to while
I'm not vegan, I do tend to be more plant
based and had maybe seventy five percent plant based in
my diet now whenever I can. It's at hard sometimes
when I'm traveling for work. But I think it's great
(07:12):
and wonderful. Thing about it is the sustainability which you
talk about, which is so important, and the affordability. You're
actually saving money when you're doing.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
This, right. Thank you for pointing that out. I know
one of the myths about a vegan diets, Oh, it's
so expensive. Beans and rice are my love language. They
are very much a part of Latin and Caribbean cuisine,
and you know what New Orleans cuisine too. I have
It's not in Miami vegan, but I have a plant
(07:42):
based red beans and rice recipe that I absolutely adore.
These foods have been part of our culture, every culture,
and they're so affordable, they're pantry friendly, they're a wind.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We always have beans, a pot of beans for the
You know, it's a great source of plant protein, which
is so important because everybody always says, well, how do
you get your protein if you're vegan. Well, there's plenty
of ways to get plant based protein. You just have
to be wise about it. And beans is one way, right,
what are some other ways?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Quinoa? That's sort of what we forget about. It was
sort of in for a while, and I guess I
don't know, the pr person got moved on to something else.
It is a wonderful source of protein. And there are
bean pastas now that are really high performing, so you
can have a bowl of noodles and not feel bad
(08:37):
and get super protein.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And I.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Know there are still tofo skeptics out there. I think
it is so versatile. It does the same thing my husband,
who is an omnivor, says it does the same thing
at chicken breast does it just does it without the chicken.
It's a blank slate, so you can do anything with it.
It takes on flavors of anything you cook with it.
(09:02):
I think so too.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think a lot of it's how you cook. And
you know, I travel to Italy a lot for want
my wine work and over there, particularly in Sicily, and
suddenly checchi with your chickpeas or Garbonzo's are a staple.
They make him a chickpea, flour, pancakes, beans, everything and
very high in protein, very affordable, and I'm sure a
big staple. And now I'm going to hold a book
(09:24):
up Miami Vegan. It's going to be also I actually
have it on my Melanie Fabulous Instagram with a link
to purchase, and I'll also be doing a little Q
and A with you on the Connected table, which you
kindly sent to me. How did you organize the book?
Let's start with that. And let's start with since it's
(09:44):
tropically inspired, some of the basics that you would recommend
purchasing that you could get anywhere, not just the tropics.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
A good spice cabinet and some pantry stables will see
you through anything. So some of the spices that are
part of Miami vegan recipes often are all spice, which,
even though it sounds like a spice blend, isn't even
a spice. It's a berry. It's a tropical berry that's
kind of earthy, kind of mildly sweet kuman, which is
(10:19):
used a lot in Middle Eastern cooking. It has a
sort of low, funky, earthy note and chilies and citrus
and maybe some olive oil. You got it made.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think that's great. And you know, spices were always
used to preserve food in the tropics and everywhere, so
that was like how it all came, and they all
kind of Miami as well as New Orleans. There's a
big port where a lot of the spices came in
from the Caribbean and also from Africa. So there's a
lot of markets, I would think, probably in Miami as
well as New Orleans where you can get you know,
(10:53):
good quantities of these spices. Right, So let's talk about
something that I love in Mammy, which are the fruit
in vegetables. I mean, there's so many great tropical fruits there.
Some of them make it to New Orleans. They very
rarely made it to some other places I used to live,
of course, New York. Everything's available. Let's talk about you know.
(11:14):
First of all, I asked you how you organize the book,
So let's start with that, because I think it's good
to kind of let our viewers and listeners know what
to expect when they open the pages. And I'm sorry,
it's a little blurred. I just realized that my background's blurred.
Oh there it is there.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
It is great. Thank you for getting me back on track.
One of the things I want people to know about Miami.
First of all, I want you to love it, and
I want you to love these big, bold flavors. But
you've been to Miami, you know, we don't really follow
a lot of rules. So if you're hungry in the
(11:53):
middle of the afternoon, if you're hungry after one of
your fabulous late night parties, there's going to be a
restaurant open that's going to feed you and make sure
you have a great time. So I say, there are
no set meal times in Miami, which is why I
start the book with a section called Bokadito's Little Bites
(12:14):
so they can be I have a mango bread that
you can have in the morning with your capacito. I
have a vegan version of a Miami classic, which is
smoked fish dip, which of course we make without the fish,
so you can get something wonderful to eat anytime at
(12:34):
the day or night.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So what do you use instead of the smoke fish allan,
If you've ever.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Had sushi, you get the outside is nori. It's seaf
it's seeing and it does have that briny taste if
you toast it and grind it into a powder, and
you can also buy it commercially as a powder. It
gives you that brininess, It gives it that seafood hit.
(13:00):
In fact, it is so close to the real deal
for me that I can't eat it. But my husband
loves it, and all our guy friends do too.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
We eat The one that I'm looking at is called
smoke Sea Dip, and it's got artichoke carts, which I
think are just fabulous, and tempe and nori dust. You've
got a lot of dust in the book, which is
got magic dust nor dust, which is kind of fun.
Liquid smoke is another great ingredient to have, and vegan mayonnaise.
I think you know I'm a big artichoke eater, so
(13:28):
that just sounds fantastic you are. So I noticed I'm
a biscuit maker and you have a vegan cat head
biscuit in here, So to try that, because I make
a lot of biscus minor with buttermilk. So how do
you in a cat head biscuit? How do you get
the same texture without the milk in the in the dairy?
Speaker 4 (13:46):
There's a I can't remember now because I've done it
different ways different times. If I use vegan your heart
which does have that claver taste more on with oat
milk that you claver with a little lemon juice or
ben as it's vegan buttermilk, and yeah, you do want
richness in that tang.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Well, that's interesting because you can make butter milk by
adding lemon or vinegar to another type of milk product. Right,
So that's kind of a I think you got a
practice for that that you definitely can do it. I'm
gonna one of the things I'm gonna do. We haven't
been shopping. We got to go shopping. But I have
(14:27):
your tropical granola on my list because I can't stand
store bought granola. It's usually too much sugar. I don't
really a lot of sugar. But yours looks really easy
to make and very flavorful and has a little bit
of a gabby, so I can adjust it. But it's
got all the things I like, the rolled oats and
sweet and coconut, the cashews, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon oil and
(14:48):
coconut oil, and of course dried fruits like mangoes and papias,
which I think are really great to add into anything
like salads and breads. So you start with bogatidos and
bogaetita means little bites for your mouth, right, So take
me through, because a lot of the references in here
(15:08):
really do refer to the cross cultural aspect of Miami,
which you say actually has its own dialect, which I
thought was interesting.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, because we're the crossroads of Latin America and the
Caribbean that all winds up on the plate and it
winds up on the street, and we wind up kind
of taking little bits from all these languages and dialects
and putting them together in a Miami way of speaking.
(15:36):
I don't even I'm not even that aware of it.
There's a linguist who pointed it out to me. It's like,
that's just how people talk.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Well, when I've been to Miami, I know, like everybody
I know speaks Spanish, and it's kind of like, if
you want to move to Miami, learn Spanish because it
is important to embrace having a dual lingle life down there,
because it's such an important part of a culture and heritage.
Now I've got to see a dialect, because all the
Caribbean countries have different dialects, and even here in New Orleans,
(16:05):
which is sim where you've got you know, the Haitian
community has their dialect, You've got people who've come from
Central America, Vietnam. Everybody has their own way of and
then of course you have the Cajun dialect, which is
its own thing. Now you go really straight. And by
the way, I love the pictures in here. Thank you
for having nice photographs. I actually don't like cookbooks that
(16:27):
don't have photographs. I don't know why, although I do
love the Silver Palate. It's a classic and has no photographs, but.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
That's an example of it wasn't that long ago, but
it was quite possible until not too long ago to
sell a cookbook without photographs. Now you absolutely have to have.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, like the Joy of Cooking, mastering around the French cooking.
All the classics don't have photographs. But now in this
new visual world, photographs really help, and you know, and
they sell and they sell the dish, and also they're instagrammable,
which is so important. You go right into succulents, which
I love that term because succulentce means so many things.
(17:04):
You'd say, juicy, fresh, ripe tastes of the tropics, and
succulent is not just fruit. How do you define succulent?
And let's talk about some examples in this very specific chapter,
which has got lots of things that I like.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It can also be like the bright tropical flavor as
you're talking about, that can be present in salads and
often is it's very fresh stuff that kind of makes
your mouth pop, makes your mouth water.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So let's talk about some examples. You know, there are
a few in the Seven Seed Quinoa because we were
talking about the practicality of quin wa, which I happened
to love. My husband doesn't, but quinoa seven seeds and
it is with spinach and sesame dressing. Okay, that's succulent
to me because I happen to love spinach and I
love sesame, and that's a really great example. I'm going
(18:01):
to go some page fifty two. Let's talk about that
dish and maybe also one that kind of struck me
because I've been back and forth Italy lot is the
sheet pan panzanella.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Oh you know what, I love that recipe. Thank you
for pointing it out. I know it gets buried under
some other more obviously Miami choices, but yeah, panzanella is
a great Italian origin dish that basically makes use of
stale bread, right, but it doesn't have to be like
(18:33):
an artisanal a loaf of French bread. I had some
cornbread that needed to be used up, and I thought,
you know, what, can we do this another way? And
you know, there's great summer vegetables in there. There's zucchini
and onions and peppers and stuff. And I thought, instead
of just like doing something Italian or even rattatweet, which
(18:56):
I made the other day, what if I just sort
of claimed the the southern part of it and toasted
the corn bread for crutons. Roasted the vegetables so easy,
and it was so good, and it's very very pretty
because you've got all the bright colors from the vegetables.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
It's pretty. And also it's a great way to repurpose
food that may not be ideal because you can maybe
take some of those fresh vegetables that maybe you're several
days old. And you know, I'm big on repurposing and
trying not to use everything before it goes bad. And
I learned that just being trying to be fabulous and frugal,
(19:35):
which we're doing right now, will the last night we
made a don't less be of corn bread. We really
have nothing left in the house because I'm trying to
limit our shopping right now, and we really eating everything.
And I ended up making tomato pie. We had a
creat tomato, We had vidali onion, we had basil, we
had olives and some great parmesan and I took Chiffy
(19:58):
corn mix. It was the only thing we had. I
feel like making crust, and I just spread it all up.
It was like this. It was like my version of
a panza was it was so good. I think the
only thing I would have added was the Duke's mayonnaise.
But if you know, but you make vegan mayonnaise. By
the way, how do you make vegan mayonnaise or do
you just buy it?
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Why? Usually just buy it, But you can make it.
And the secret is aqua faba. That is the liquid
in a can of chickpeas. And that stuff is magical.
Talk about not wasting. That was stuff we were told
to throw out for years and it is a brilliant
egg substitute. It binds, it lifts, it whips. That and
(20:40):
lemon juice, you can make some fantastic vegan mayonnaise. I
use aqua faba for mooses, especially in the dessert section.
I mean, I can't believe we were losing the opportunity
to use this stuff. I freeze it now so if
I can't use it right away, I've freezed it in
(21:02):
ice cream ice cream if only ice cube, right, and
then I pop out what I need. It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well, I think that's interesting. I did a story on
ankle faba many years ago, and I tried. You have
to work it a lot like with that, I've quite
a bit to get toward, but so so just to
recap alco faba, everybody is the juice in your can
of chip piece, don't throw it out. You can actually,
as Ellen said, freeze it. You can whip it up
and use it as an egg substitute. I also like
(21:33):
my uh, I call it pot liquor. It's the gravy
left when you're seeming vegetables or the bottom of that
we had caught up watermelon in the bottom of the drippings,
as they say, I use all of that, uh, And
sometimes I just drink it as juice, and sometimes I
just save it and use it, freeze it and put
it cooking and cooking water. You know, everything's repurposable, just
(21:56):
about right it is.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
And kudos to you for doing that, because yeah, you know,
we waste up to half our food in this country,
and we cannot afford to do that, not not at home,
not for our country, not for any of it. We
need to use what we have.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah. I grew up in a house with extreme food waste,
so it pacted me deeply in my life. So let's
talk about there's so I just touched on the seven
seen quemoa with spinach and sesame because I think Queenwah
is really one of the great Uh make one big
pot and reuse it and create different things with it
all week, much like beans or really great brown rice
(22:36):
or forgotten forbidden rice, and you can just mix it
up different ways. And we do that here a lot
because when we cook at home, because we do travel
so much. When we get back, particularly from Italy, we
go clean, green, protein, simple to get our bodies back
(22:57):
because you know, you go into carb shock you go
to Italy and everybody wants to wine and dine. You
what I like about this seven seed quinoa. There are
a lot of seeds in it, so if you're not
into seeds, this won't be your dish. But there's cuban seeds,
fennel seeds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, sem flower seeds, pumpkin seeds,
and then of course the quewa pomegranate, and then my
(23:19):
favorite spinach. I love spinach like the Popeye girls.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Green, so versatile, Yeah yeah, yeah, wilt it down. You
can have it nice and fluffy and fresh. It's it's
so friendly.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Could you do this with kale also or collars, which
are some other widely available greens in our neck of
the woods.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Absolutely you could what I would suggest with the collared
since I like a good fibrous collared actually, but I
know other people do not. I have a recipe in
there for collared confetti is shredded collars made a little
more pliable because they're shredded, but with lemon juice and
just a lick of olive oil, and it makes them
(24:02):
like convetti. They're very soft and fluffy. So yeah, you
could totally fold that in with the keene wand it
would be bright, it would be green fabulous.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So I'm curious. So I like collared wraps, which are
a great vegan technique too. And also if you don't
want to do carbs, but how do you soften properly
soften and tenderize collars and kale to get them less
fibrous if you don't like the fiber. I know my
husband David hates fiber. He just hates chewy, chewy chewy salads.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Well, just like we relax and soften when someone massages us,
so do these greens.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
M h.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
If you massage them in your hand with a little
lemon juice or salt, it breaks down the cell walls
and just sort of makes them like you can see,
like the bright green comes up. You can see that
they yield more in your fingers. Just takes a couple
of minutes. I think the greens like it. I like
(25:04):
doing it too.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Well. I'm lazy, but I'm going to try that. We've
been we gotta we got to mix up our green
situation here because we're in the arugula romain rut and
we get you know, I like collins when they're season
They sure are plentiful, and I don't like to have
them with pork, but I like to I like to
cook with little vinegar and sugar, and that's really nice too,
(25:28):
kind of gets the bitterness tempered. So what are some
good meat substitutes? Uh, you know, particularly something like jackfruit
or tempa? What what would you? What are your key
ones and what are the best ways to work with them?
And maybe give some examples.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
I do like tempe. It is another fermented soy product.
It's got more of the density, so if you have
textural issues with with tofu, it's got some umph to it.
And I have my recipe in Myaman Vegan for how
smoked tempe. Because of course, we all love our bacon,
(26:05):
unless you're bacon and this has smoked paprika and liquid
smoke in it, so you get a double pal of
smokiness with a little miso for saltiness. I think another
little bit of a gave for balance, and that's great
(26:27):
in a collared wrap. That's great in a couple of
different recipes. You can it's so it's whatever you would
use lunch meat for, you can use this for.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah. I think you just have to practice to get
it right, because I think many people are intimidated by
tempe and tofu a trying to figure out what it
is and b is it really okay for you? Because
everybody goes, oh, soy, soy, it's fine, and and just
understanding the different textures. And it's just finding what you
(26:59):
like and learning you know, and Tofa comes in different textures.
So obviously the firmer wins are better for some things,
and the softer ones are better for scrambles, like instead
of eggs. As an exceptitude, they make great scrambled eggs. Now,
you have a section in Miami Vegan called sizzles, hot pots,
and potcakes. First of all, what is a potcake? Because
my idea of a potcake, maybe it'd be different from
(27:20):
you I have a potcache.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Actually, I bet it's the saying I'll really make a
pot of rice and beans, and there's always say you
wind up chatting with your friend Melanie for a few minutes,
and the bottom you get some stuff that's stuck, not potcake.
But it's always the best parts. It's all the best
(27:42):
parts stuck together. And to me, potcake is a metaphor
for Miami cuisine in general, because we do have such
a mix. So I do have some great rice and
beans recipes in there. I have a vegan ados compoyo,
which is a Cuban class thick chicken rice, except this
(28:02):
doesn't have chicken. You can make it with jackfruit one
I I love it with fresh jackfruit. Green jackfruit is
very needy and it's very vegetable. When jackfruit is ripe,
it gets to be sweet and you can do other
things with it. I could not find enough commercial green
(28:24):
jackfruit on the market to make it accessible for everyone,
and I do want this to be accessible for everyone,
So I say, if you can use jackfruit, doo, but
you can make it with firm tofu. You can make
it with tempe. What makes it is the rice and
the way you season it not the chicken you're after.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Well, jackfruit's tough. I've been some samples of it, not
great samples, so I haven't embraced jackfruit as much as
I like tempe over tofu. Now what I do like
and what you do talk about here? My ideal meat substitutes,
particularly when I'm dealing with wine wine events, and particular
wine events in Italy where everybody's eating me. I love
(29:04):
asking for mushrooms and egg plants. Mushrooms and eggplant are
great because they also have a little bit of a
tag aspect to them that helps when dealing with red wine.
Now you have a dish here called John John d
j o in dj o in not John John. John John?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Is that right, perfectly pronounced? John John's a party dish too,
John John mushrooms are black mushrooms that grow in Haiti,
and just as you'd make a risotto, maybe John John
rice isn't quite as rich, but it's a very simple
mushroom and rice recipe that comes out so rich and
(29:44):
flavorful that, yeah, it's served to guests. I liked serving
it to people when they visit because the mushrooms are black,
so you have this very inky thing, but as soon
as someone takes a taste, it's like, oh wow, it's
truffles without the truckles.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, again, really great for
when you're drinking a red wine dish and everybody's having
meat and you don't really want to have fish with
that beautiful bottle of red wine. If it's a certain
type of fish that you know, usually people may serve
me fish and their sauces don't really work with the
red wine, so it's very difficult, you know, And a
(30:22):
lot of it is the seasoning and the sauces as well.
Now you have something in here that I think would
go over really well in what I call vegan New Orleans,
which I'm always looking for because I always do it,
look for the vegan places here because I have friends
who are vegan who want to come, and I actually
love eating vegan food. It's mushroom etou fe. Okay, that
just sings to my soul for many many reasons, because
(30:43):
it's a classic Creole dish, as you note from the
French ettufe, but here you have instead of crawfish or shrimp,
you have mushrooms. So talk to me about that and
how that you know, how you create that wonderful umami there.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Well, mushrooms have umami bill in and I get to
New Orleans frequently. I love it, love it there. But
you're right, it can be a little vegan unfriendly. But
the techniques and the spices, yeah, I'm afraid I borrowed some,
or at least I observed how dishes were being made,
(31:19):
and I have you know, I brought that imagination and
that palette back to my kitchen. I thought, how could
I do this a little differently? And I didn't want
this seafood. I wanted something a little richer. So yeah,
mushrooms make a great stand in and you know what,
it cooks up quicker than a crawfish, a dou fe.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Oh really mm hmm, well we had Yeah, you don't
cook mushrooms long otherwise they shrivel up.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yes, but you mushrooms are extremely forgiving, so if you
do wind up cooking them too long, they'll still be delicious.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Well, we have a we have we have the Crescent
City Farmers Market here on Sundays and there's a very
very good mushroom grower with all sorts of exotic mushrooms
and even has a grow your own mushroom kit. We
gave one to our brother and sister in law for Christmas,
and they're harvesting mushrooms. You know, I'm curious. In Miami,
are there really great farmers markets and where are they located.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
They're located everywhere.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
New Orleans is a little like this. Miami is a
bigger city than you realize. It's very spread out. So
there's a farmer's market on Miami Beach, maybe two. There's
one in North Miami, there's one in Coral Gables, there's
one in South Miami. And they're certainly plenty down by
(32:42):
the Redlands, which is where a lot of our food
comes from. So wherever you are in the city, you
can get access to fresh, just picked food.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
You know, I miss, you know, growing up right by
the Union Square Green Market in New York City. I'm
spoiled living in the Hudson Valley where there were just
farm stands everywhere in trucks. I'm spoiled. I'd like to
see more of that in New Orleans. There's less of
it than I had expected. I mean, you know, I
(33:13):
have my little Crescent City farmers market, but I want
that big, growing up. I grew up in Tennessee and
we had something called the curb market, and you just
draw up to the curb and there was just long
lines of farmers. And they still have that in shad Nanoga.
It's just you don't drive a curve, you go into
a pavilion. They don't quite have that here, which I
wish they did, and I think a lot of it.
(33:34):
Ellen I learned big shock is the growing seasons are
different in the South. In the North, it's you know,
we're heading into prime tomato season. Thank god, it's so
creole tomatoes here. But no corn on the cob. I'd say,
if I missed anything from the north right now, it's
corn on the cob. Even from Tennessee, corn on the
cop and my Georgia peaches. What are the growing seasons
(33:54):
like down there? In Are there certain dishes that are
more seasonal in a city that's hot all the time.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
We were talking about collars, so thank you for reminding me.
I need to pull mine up and eat them, because yeah,
we're getting to the point where things are burning up
out here, or this is our tropical fruit season and
we are just swimming in mangoes. I can't think of
anything more succulent and decad and delicious than a ripe mango.
(34:25):
We get beautiful fresh avocados now, but our growing season,
the tomatoes and eggplants and green beans and all our
wonderful tender lettuces and greens, that doesn't happen until the fall.
You got to wait until it tools down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
It's really kind of a It was really a shock
to be because I grew up always in the mid
South Northeast, and so coming here and learning I'm in
a subtropical lately, seems like tropical area is a shock
to meet. Let's talk about mangoes, because I used not
to light mangoes matter. Jeffer he did a whole essay
on mangos, and I learned to like them. But I
(35:04):
only like them when they're seasoned a certain way. I
like them with chili spices and lime. Lime for me
is good on everything. Any fruit, particularly tropical, I limet
it to death. Give us some examples of how you
like to cook mango in both savory and sweet dishes,
because they haven't talked about any sweet dishes. So let's
savory and sweet.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Well, you had mentioned I've got a thing for dust.
I do. And there's another recipe in Miami Vegan called
magic dust, which is very much what you talk about.
It's lime juice, it's chili, it's a little salt, it's
a little cuman And you think, Okay, how do these
guys go together? Beautifully? They're good on salads if you
(35:45):
want to add a sprinkle to some rice. But man,
if you dip fresh fruit in them, it just sort
of adds a whole other dimension. It's fantastic with mangos
or propaphya.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, I did it actually with cantle oap too. We
have a lot of fresh candle bright now and I
was putting some chili on there. And just for your listeners,
we're talking about magic dust. That's food and potcakes that
are food, not the other kind, which is some other
kind of there's some listeners. Do you can know a
lot pineapple down there? Because pineapple people think It's like
when people think about tropical fruit and they think about Florida,
(36:18):
they think about grapefruit. I think it's for the North, right,
it's great fruit for the North or is it.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
More like central Florida? Although we do grow it, we
grow it, but not in the abundance that you get
more upstate. You can grow pineapple here, Like if you
cut off the top of one that you get and
plant it, it will take, but you're gonna have to
wait a couple of years before bear's.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Oh. I know my mother in law who's super frugal.
She's like the most Newland frugal person ever. She would
cut off the top of everything and plant it. She
eventually grew an avocado tree and probably took her like
thirty years.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
But to say, good for her, because most of us
don't have like the patience.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I remember when I was little and avocados were discovered
in Tennessee and they're being toued everything from you know,
healthy meals to face cream. We planted a lot of
avocado seeds. I was excited and hoping I would water it.
Nothing ever happened. But Florida avocados are very different from
(37:20):
Mexican avocados. They're bigger, How do they taste different?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Botechnically speaking, avocados are fruit. I know we don't think
of them that way. And has avocados get all the
love and all the guacamole? So good for them? But
green green, Florida avocados are bigger, so you get more
avocado for your buck. They keep their shape and their
color longer too, so they're great if you want to
(37:49):
scoop out the seeds and fill them with something. They're
good diced on savice. I have three different cavice recipes
in there, and they won't turn like that kind of
said brown that acosta does. So they're great with a
lot of things. They have less fat, so people who
are watching their fat content even you know when it's
(38:10):
healthy that like avocado is you get, you get more
for less.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
That's interesting because I was always trained to go get
Haas avocados, which are really expensive. And I think they're shrinking.
I swear to god, these avocados are getting smaller. It's
smaller in the supermarket.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
So I totally agree with you. I mean, like I
hold them up like what happened to you?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
It's it's all hard. I mean, I think all the
food is shrinking in the supermarket, and the prices are
growing and the foods are shrinking. You know, it's growing
bigger and less flavorful. Strawberries. I have yet to find
a strawberry that I can stomach. You know what the
hell is going on. Even the my Ponchatoula strawberries here
in New Orleans and Louisiana, they weren't as good as
they used to be. Like this, you know, when I'm
(38:57):
tasting wine. We were tasting wine and in Sicily and
people are going on it tastes like well, strawberries taste
with grass strawberries, and I couldn't get it. I said,
you know why, I haven't had a strawberry that tastes
like this.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
In years, So it's a problem. You know, we got strawberries.
We get strawberries in winter, and you know when people
talk about January strawberries, you know most of them are lying,
but we do get them, and they were spectacular this season.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Oh it's interesting because I was not happy with the
strawberry situation. Let's talk about Let's see I want to
just before we go into sweet tech. What is tacoo tacoo.
I'm looking at this picture and it looks like a
bean burger. Tacoo tacoo.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
It's very, very similar. It's a rice and beans burger.
And I cannot remember which Latin country it originates from.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Peru, Peru, My dear.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
You think I'd write my own cookbook, I'd remember everything.
But it's a great use for rice and.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Beans leftover rice and beanes is what do you even
say there? And I think that's funny because and great
because when David moved in with me and I never cooked,
he used to make rice. He loves to make rice.
I didn't grow up with rice. Rice was not part
of my culture in Tennessee. Neither was pasta beans. Yes,
and the rice would just sit and sit and sit
in refrigerator and I'd be like, this rice is still here.
(40:20):
So for me that I did repurposing rice into a burger,
a bean and rice burger sounds great. And of course
the photos, who did your photos? Because this looks really succulent.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
That one I think was mine that somehow blew up.
And well, most of these photos I did with my iPhone.
I'm not, wow, really good food photographer. But I did
have help on the back end with my editor and
who gets credit? And oh, the cover of the book.
(40:54):
I have to talk about the cover of the book
because it's.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Very pretty there. You can kind of see it in
my blur there we go.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
I like it because it is very pretty and it's
very real. Everything in it came out of my photographer's
garden or mine. So I want you to know you
can create these recipes the way they look in the picture.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
How big is your garden?
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Not very probably bigger than your dining room table, but
not a lot. I have a little raised bed garden
in back. I don't have a whole lot of sunlight
because we have a huge oak tree, which I love,
but it eats a lot of shade. So I really
if anyone can grow a little of their own food,
(41:39):
if it's a couple collars, if it's the mint, you
keeping a pot on the windowsill, right, it's so important.
It saves you money, it creates a little more awareness
of where your food comes from.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, you know, I wish we don't have much of
a yard here, but we have herbs and uh so
we're doing a lot with herbs. I I wish we
had more, but we just we have a pool and
that's to get better swimming pool. So I'm happy with that.
Let's just talk briefly about desserts, and then I want
to ask you about where to eat and enjoy in Miami. Okay,
(42:15):
I'm not a dessert person, so I'm going to ask
you three big questions of the dessert spectrum for someone
like me who doesn't eat a lot of sweets, what
are some desserts that are maybe less unctiously sweet? Because
in New Orleans it's all about anxiously sweet desserts. So
what are some maybe from that end of the spectrum
(42:36):
to wow, you really want to blow it out with
sugar love?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You know what? You and I have that in common, Melanie.
I'm not a big dessert person, but I knew to
sell this book, I better up my game. There is
a triple gingerbread in there that is not Handsel and
Gretel gingerbread. It's very gingery and it's not that sweet.
I don't like be a good thing for you.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
I love gingerbread. I love gingerbread. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
know what else you haven't here. I'm not a big
chocolate ey girl, but you know what, I do like
the idea of chocolate orange olive almond olive oil cake
because I love oranges, almond and olive oil. And so
the cocoa you use Dutch process cocoa, which is like
(43:23):
the type of cocoa I would want in chocolate that
looks delicious.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
That one is very good, and you know what, it's
very easy to make. So if you're having someone over,
you need to impress this is the desert for you.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Usually I tell people to bring dessert. I do make cobbler,
and you do have a cobbler recipe in here. I
haven't made one this year because I made one from
some New Orleans celebrity on TV and it was just
awful cobbler because it was just too sweet. I like it.
Butter right, your summer fruit cobbler, which is vegan, has
(43:58):
vegan butter on leach, all purpose flour, baking powder, a
cup of evaporated cane sugar. I'd probably have less sugar,
oat milk, and then fresh fruit. Now it's interesting yours.
You know mangoes. You mentioned mangoes and blueberries. I like
peach cobbler. David brought me some cherries that are sitting
in the refrigerator right now. Love plumcake. Let's just say
(44:21):
the best plumcake recipe in the world is Marion Burrows
plumcake in the New York Times, which is the most
requested recipe in the New York Times ever. But you
know you can make that vegan as well, and I'm
sure you have an option in here for a fruit
like a fruit type bread or cake, and you've got
a cookin in here. A strawberry coocan puddings are kind
(44:42):
of palatable for me as well. I like putting instead
of ice cream. You have a strawberry pudding, which I
never would have thought about. That's kind of an interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
That's a great use for like slightly tired strawberries. You
purpose them and totally refresh them. And if you do,
you like a quick bread that's slightly sweet. I have
like three or four recipes. I have a mango one.
I have a blueberry one. I just did this week
because I had some blueberries that needed some love. And
(45:11):
to me, they're just sweet enough so they can be
like a treat, but they're they're not cloying.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
So I don't understand. So this is not putting like
j E l O pudding. This is British pudding, so
it calls for bread, which is a kind of their
great use for stale bread. So this is more of
an English type pudding. So how would you describe that
to someone that doesn't know it and is thinking about
J E l O pudding?
Speaker 4 (45:37):
This is a crazy recipe and it's very very old.
You cook down fresh fruit with a little orange juice
and maybe a little bit of sugar, so you get
sort of a nice soupy fruity thing. You add fresh bread,
you kind of push everything into a mold and you
(45:58):
leave it overnight the fridge. This was a great Depression
era recipe because you didn't need eggs, you didn't need dairy, right,
and it's mildly sweet, it's very refreshing. It's a summer pudding.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
That looks like some fun thing that I could be
now in a few little bit of time we have
left at a minute or so, talk to me about Miami,
and talk to me about Miami. I want to go
to Miami. Where are some vegan plices that you would recommend?
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Okay, My very favorite place is a French bakery called Lartisan.
This woman does the best croissants that even when a
blind tasting and the French judges were like, how could
you know? How can you make a croissant this flicky
without butter? Because she's magic. She does gorgeous vegan macarlan's beautiful, beautiful,
(46:50):
jewel like pastries and a brunch All day. I was
just there meeting some friends. Gosh, was it yesterday? And
the place was. You can get vegan omelets, you can
get vegan sandwiches. It's just it's delightful. It's called Amazon Bakery.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Where is it located? Where, as long as I'm makering
located It is.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
In Coral Gables, which is a little bit past downtown Miami.
And it's very French and very adorable.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I love Coral Gables and you kind of live near there.
You kind of live in a very old area of Miami,
you said, I think it's a beautiful area. So many
people just go straight to South Beach, which is fine,
but it's that South Beach is its own aura and sizzle.
I like old Miami. I like old elegant Miami personally.
(47:40):
Anywhere else you want to mention before we close out?
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Oh gosh, I don't want to leave anyone out.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Oh okay, well, you know maybe on Broccoli Rising you
can have something about that. Do you have a post
about that?
Speaker 4 (47:54):
I have been asked to do that, so I want
to make sure I have all my favorites in there
and not leave anybody out, because no one should come
to Miami and be hungry.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Gosh, absolutely not. I mean I can't wait to go
back down there sometime and just you know, just to
go down there and go to the arts district, which
I just lose myself. And I don't even have to
go to the beach. I can get to miammy just
eat and bicycle around and go to the arts district
and see friends and relatives and probably yeah, never see
the beach. But it is a great, great city and
(48:26):
a gateway to so many wonderful places I want to
visit in South America. I think it's going to be
one of my new gateways because now that we live
in New Orleans, we can fly from Miami somewhere. So
I look at that all the time, and all those
cruises that are there. I mean, it's crazy. It's an
amazing place. You're lucky to live there, Ellen, I want
everybody to know again, the book is Miami Vegan plant
(48:46):
based Recipes from the Tropics to your Table. Congratulations on
this book, and I hope it's a big success, and
I hope to connect with you over a great vegan
meal sometime soon.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
You come down to Miami and we will make it happen.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
And you come over to New Orleans and we'll make
it happen because ive got some good vegan places here too.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
It's a deal, all right. You've been listening to Fearless,
Fabulous You with Melanie Young and my guests Ellen Canner.
Are you hungry? I am. I'm hungry. My mouth is watering.
I want something succulent. That's the word of the day, succulent.
As always, you have the choice to live life the
way you want, not the way other people want you
to live. Always live it on your terms, and always
(49:30):
choose fearless and fabulous. Thank you very much, have a
great day.
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN
Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comment should
(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I hope you're having a wonderful morning
and day wherever you are. I love spotlighting interesting people
and talking about some of my favorite things, which include eating, drinking,
and explore like I do here if fear Less Fabulous
(01:02):
You and also on the Connected Table Live my other podcast.
And I'm dressed in all these beautiful colors today because
we're taking you somewhere that is so much fun in
the United States. We're taking you to the tropical paradise
of Miami. Now. I've been to Miami a lot. I
used to produce many many events there for all my
clients when I had my Puppet Relations agency, and I
(01:25):
love the flavors the new Floridian food. I'm very good
friends with Chef Norman Van Eigen and many many people
in the colony world. My guest today is one of them.
Her name is Ellen Canner. She has a great She's
an author and a food expert. She's a great substat
called Broccoli Rising that you should check out, and a
(01:46):
really terrific book called Miami Vegan Plant Based Recipes from
the Tropics to Your Table. Now, this topic interests me
because I love eating plant based food dishes. Try to
do it a lot when we're home here in New Orleans,
because everything is just laced with meat, especially pork when
you go out. Miami just lends itself to this, you know,
(02:09):
because it's a melting pot of cultures and a gateway
to Latin America, South America and the Caribbean. There's so
many amazing flavors that come in from there. But I
didn't know until I got Ellen's book and did some
research that Miami is also among the top ten plant
based cities in the United States. That's amazing and great,
(02:30):
particularly if you do like to travel and like to
find plant based restaurants in your area or cook. So
Ellen Kanner joins me today on Fearless Fabulous Shoe and
that's going to be our topic, how to cook delicious,
tropically inspired plant based dishes in your home, and we're
going to get tips from Ellen on where to go
when you visit Miami. So Ellen, welcome to Fearless Fabulous.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
You hello, fabulous Melanie to be here.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, it's really great. I'm surprised seven Cross were both
members of the Don Dascoffier. We've been in the industry
a long time. Talk to me about you. Where did
you grow up? Are you a Miammi native? I think
you're like a multi generation Miami native, right.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You're right? Uh, And that makes me a bit of
a like people like a generation Miami native. How is
that even possible? U? Yeah, I guess my great great
great grandfather came here when there was more mosquitoes than people.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But yeah, we said, what was it like growing up there?
I mean, you know, it's funny, like, my husband's from
New York. He actually grew up in New York City,
and nobody's from New York and grew up in New
York City. Uh So, what was it like growing up
by Mammy? Because when I used to go there with
my mom, dad, grandparents, it was very different from where
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Now diplomatically put, and when I was growing up it
was too. It was still you could still see vestiges
of it being like a small, easy, tropical town. It
is gotten so built up and so glitzy and glam
but there's still like little hints of flavor of what
(04:07):
we used to be, and I wanted to get all
that into Miami Vegan.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well you did, Now, I also understand you have been
vegan for twenty five years, right.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yes, And believe me, it was not cool to be
vegan then. It was there were no celebrity vegans. Then
there weren't very many vegan products on the in the stores,
or at least anything you would want to eat.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, I'm curious why you decided to go vegan and
what it was like for you, because that that's a
big choice and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
When you've been doing it a while, it's a breeze,
and I wanted to be a breeze for everyone. But
you're right, it's a big mind set change and it's
a big change in your diet. I started out when
I was twelve because I love animals and I didn't
want to eat them anymore. And also, when you're a
(05:02):
tween and you're looking for ways to push your parents' buttons,
this is a good one and you get so many
benefits out of it. I learned so much more about
our food system. I certainly learned how to cook and
all the things that vegan offers, health, sustainability, which matters
(05:23):
a lot when you are in the hurricane strength zone.
As we both are, animal rights, you get all that
and you can get a great dinner too. It's a
win win.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Well, Ellen, I'm curious as twenty five years, let's take
it to now, how has embracing vegan been benefit for
your health like your skin, your hair, your your overall
well being. I'm curious what you think the long term
benefits have been.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
I think they have been great. I think I told
you I had a running nose forever as a little kid.
I never associated that with dairy. I don't think my
parents did either. We didn't really know any better. When
I gave that up, that all went away. I wasn't
looking to lose weight, but I was sort of that
awkward teenage tween age and it just melted off me
(06:17):
without any issue. I take no medications. I feel great.
That tells me a lot right there.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I think it's so interesting because I did a lot
of research on this when I was doing the health
coaching program to be more aware of the different aspects
of health and wellness, and I learned that many who
are vegan actually have a thirty percent less body fat,
which I thought was fascinating. And the dairy mentioned you
mentioned it is true dairy can. I love dairy cod
(06:49):
because I love cheese, but when I have too much
of it, I get a hoarse voice, I get congested,
my skin gets very red. So I've learned to while
I'm not vegan, I do tend to be more plant
based and had maybe seventy five percent plant based in
my diet now whenever I can. It's at hard sometimes
when I'm traveling for work. But I think it's great
(07:12):
and wonderful. Thing about it is the sustainability which you
talk about, which is so important, and the affordability. You're
actually saving money when you're doing.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
This, right. Thank you for pointing that out. I know
one of the myths about a vegan diets, Oh, it's
so expensive. Beans and rice are my love language. They
are very much a part of Latin and Caribbean cuisine,
and you know what New Orleans cuisine too. I have
It's not in Miami vegan, but I have a plant
(07:42):
based red beans and rice recipe that I absolutely adore.
These foods have been part of our culture, every culture,
and they're so affordable, they're pantry friendly, they're a wind.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We always have beans, a pot of beans for the
You know, it's a great source of plant protein, which
is so important because everybody always says, well, how do
you get your protein if you're vegan. Well, there's plenty
of ways to get plant based protein. You just have
to be wise about it. And beans is one way, right,
what are some other ways?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Quinoa? That's sort of what we forget about. It was
sort of in for a while, and I guess I
don't know, the pr person got moved on to something else.
It is a wonderful source of protein. And there are
bean pastas now that are really high performing, so you
can have a bowl of noodles and not feel bad
(08:37):
and get super protein.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And I.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Know there are still tofo skeptics out there. I think
it is so versatile. It does the same thing my husband,
who is an omnivor, says it does the same thing
at chicken breast does it just does it without the chicken.
It's a blank slate, so you can do anything with it.
It takes on flavors of anything you cook with it.
(09:02):
I think so too.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think a lot of it's how you cook. And
you know, I travel to Italy a lot for want
my wine work and over there, particularly in Sicily, and
suddenly checchi with your chickpeas or Garbonzo's are a staple.
They make him a chickpea, flour, pancakes, beans, everything and
very high in protein, very affordable, and I'm sure a
big staple. And now I'm going to hold a book
(09:24):
up Miami Vegan. It's going to be also I actually
have it on my Melanie Fabulous Instagram with a link
to purchase, and I'll also be doing a little Q
and A with you on the Connected table, which you
kindly sent to me. How did you organize the book?
Let's start with that. And let's start with since it's
(09:44):
tropically inspired, some of the basics that you would recommend
purchasing that you could get anywhere, not just the tropics.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
A good spice cabinet and some pantry stables will see
you through anything. So some of the spices that are
part of Miami vegan recipes often are all spice, which,
even though it sounds like a spice blend, isn't even
a spice. It's a berry. It's a tropical berry that's
kind of earthy, kind of mildly sweet kuman, which is
(10:19):
used a lot in Middle Eastern cooking. It has a
sort of low, funky, earthy note and chilies and citrus
and maybe some olive oil. You got it made.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think that's great. And you know, spices were always
used to preserve food in the tropics and everywhere, so
that was like how it all came, and they all
kind of Miami as well as New Orleans. There's a
big port where a lot of the spices came in
from the Caribbean and also from Africa. So there's a
lot of markets, I would think, probably in Miami as
well as New Orleans where you can get you know,
(10:53):
good quantities of these spices. Right, So let's talk about
something that I love in Mammy, which are the fruit
in vegetables. I mean, there's so many great tropical fruits there.
Some of them make it to New Orleans. They very
rarely made it to some other places I used to live,
of course, New York. Everything's available. Let's talk about you know.
(11:14):
First of all, I asked you how you organize the book,
So let's start with that, because I think it's good
to kind of let our viewers and listeners know what
to expect when they open the pages. And I'm sorry,
it's a little blurred. I just realized that my background's blurred.
Oh there it is there.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
It is great. Thank you for getting me back on track.
One of the things I want people to know about Miami.
First of all, I want you to love it, and
I want you to love these big, bold flavors. But
you've been to Miami, you know, we don't really follow
a lot of rules. So if you're hungry in the
(11:53):
middle of the afternoon, if you're hungry after one of
your fabulous late night parties, there's going to be a
restaurant open that's going to feed you and make sure
you have a great time. So I say, there are
no set meal times in Miami, which is why I
start the book with a section called Bokadito's Little Bites
(12:14):
so they can be I have a mango bread that
you can have in the morning with your capacito. I
have a vegan version of a Miami classic, which is
smoked fish dip, which of course we make without the fish,
so you can get something wonderful to eat anytime at
(12:34):
the day or night.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So what do you use instead of the smoke fish allan,
If you've ever.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Had sushi, you get the outside is nori. It's seaf
it's seeing and it does have that briny taste if
you toast it and grind it into a powder, and
you can also buy it commercially as a powder. It
gives you that brininess, It gives it that seafood hit.
(13:00):
In fact, it is so close to the real deal
for me that I can't eat it. But my husband
loves it, and all our guy friends do too.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
We eat The one that I'm looking at is called
smoke Sea Dip, and it's got artichoke carts, which I
think are just fabulous, and tempe and nori dust. You've
got a lot of dust in the book, which is
got magic dust nor dust, which is kind of fun.
Liquid smoke is another great ingredient to have, and vegan mayonnaise.
I think you know I'm a big artichoke eater, so
(13:28):
that just sounds fantastic you are. So I noticed I'm
a biscuit maker and you have a vegan cat head
biscuit in here, So to try that, because I make
a lot of biscus minor with buttermilk. So how do
you in a cat head biscuit? How do you get
the same texture without the milk in the in the dairy?
Speaker 4 (13:46):
There's a I can't remember now because I've done it
different ways different times. If I use vegan your heart
which does have that claver taste more on with oat
milk that you claver with a little lemon juice or
ben as it's vegan buttermilk, and yeah, you do want
richness in that tang.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Well, that's interesting because you can make butter milk by
adding lemon or vinegar to another type of milk product. Right,
So that's kind of a I think you got a
practice for that that you definitely can do it. I'm
gonna one of the things I'm gonna do. We haven't
been shopping. We got to go shopping. But I have
(14:27):
your tropical granola on my list because I can't stand
store bought granola. It's usually too much sugar. I don't
really a lot of sugar. But yours looks really easy
to make and very flavorful and has a little bit
of a gabby, so I can adjust it. But it's
got all the things I like, the rolled oats and
sweet and coconut, the cashews, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon oil and
(14:48):
coconut oil, and of course dried fruits like mangoes and papias,
which I think are really great to add into anything
like salads and breads. So you start with bogatidos and
bogaetita means little bites for your mouth, right, So take
me through, because a lot of the references in here
(15:08):
really do refer to the cross cultural aspect of Miami,
which you say actually has its own dialect, which I
thought was interesting.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, because we're the crossroads of Latin America and the
Caribbean that all winds up on the plate and it
winds up on the street, and we wind up kind
of taking little bits from all these languages and dialects
and putting them together in a Miami way of speaking.
(15:36):
I don't even I'm not even that aware of it.
There's a linguist who pointed it out to me. It's like,
that's just how people talk.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Well, when I've been to Miami, I know, like everybody
I know speaks Spanish, and it's kind of like, if
you want to move to Miami, learn Spanish because it
is important to embrace having a dual lingle life down there,
because it's such an important part of a culture and heritage.
Now I've got to see a dialect, because all the
Caribbean countries have different dialects, and even here in New Orleans,
(16:05):
which is sim where you've got you know, the Haitian
community has their dialect, You've got people who've come from
Central America, Vietnam. Everybody has their own way of and
then of course you have the Cajun dialect, which is
its own thing. Now you go really straight. And by
the way, I love the pictures in here. Thank you
for having nice photographs. I actually don't like cookbooks that
(16:27):
don't have photographs. I don't know why, although I do
love the Silver Palate. It's a classic and has no photographs, but.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
That's an example of it wasn't that long ago, but
it was quite possible until not too long ago to
sell a cookbook without photographs. Now you absolutely have to have.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, like the Joy of Cooking, mastering around the French cooking.
All the classics don't have photographs. But now in this
new visual world, photographs really help, and you know, and
they sell and they sell the dish, and also they're instagrammable,
which is so important. You go right into succulents, which
I love that term because succulentce means so many things.
(17:04):
You'd say, juicy, fresh, ripe tastes of the tropics, and
succulent is not just fruit. How do you define succulent?
And let's talk about some examples in this very specific chapter,
which has got lots of things that I like.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It can also be like the bright tropical flavor as
you're talking about, that can be present in salads and
often is it's very fresh stuff that kind of makes
your mouth pop, makes your mouth water.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So let's talk about some examples. You know, there are
a few in the Seven Seed Quinoa because we were
talking about the practicality of quin wa, which I happened
to love. My husband doesn't, but quinoa seven seeds and
it is with spinach and sesame dressing. Okay, that's succulent
to me because I happen to love spinach and I
love sesame, and that's a really great example. I'm going
(18:01):
to go some page fifty two. Let's talk about that
dish and maybe also one that kind of struck me
because I've been back and forth Italy lot is the
sheet pan panzanella.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Oh you know what, I love that recipe. Thank you
for pointing it out. I know it gets buried under
some other more obviously Miami choices, but yeah, panzanella is
a great Italian origin dish that basically makes use of
stale bread, right, but it doesn't have to be like
(18:33):
an artisanal a loaf of French bread. I had some
cornbread that needed to be used up, and I thought,
you know, what, can we do this another way? And
you know, there's great summer vegetables in there. There's zucchini
and onions and peppers and stuff. And I thought, instead
of just like doing something Italian or even rattatweet, which
(18:56):
I made the other day, what if I just sort
of claimed the the southern part of it and toasted
the corn bread for crutons. Roasted the vegetables so easy,
and it was so good, and it's very very pretty
because you've got all the bright colors from the vegetables.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
It's pretty. And also it's a great way to repurpose
food that may not be ideal because you can maybe
take some of those fresh vegetables that maybe you're several
days old. And you know, I'm big on repurposing and
trying not to use everything before it goes bad. And
I learned that just being trying to be fabulous and frugal,
(19:35):
which we're doing right now, will the last night we
made a don't less be of corn bread. We really
have nothing left in the house because I'm trying to
limit our shopping right now, and we really eating everything.
And I ended up making tomato pie. We had a
creat tomato, We had vidali onion, we had basil, we
had olives and some great parmesan and I took Chiffy
(19:58):
corn mix. It was the only thing we had. I
feel like making crust, and I just spread it all up.
It was like this. It was like my version of
a panza was it was so good. I think the
only thing I would have added was the Duke's mayonnaise.
But if you know, but you make vegan mayonnaise. By
the way, how do you make vegan mayonnaise or do
you just buy it?
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Why? Usually just buy it, But you can make it.
And the secret is aqua faba. That is the liquid
in a can of chickpeas. And that stuff is magical.
Talk about not wasting. That was stuff we were told
to throw out for years and it is a brilliant
egg substitute. It binds, it lifts, it whips. That and
(20:40):
lemon juice, you can make some fantastic vegan mayonnaise. I
use aqua faba for mooses, especially in the dessert section.
I mean, I can't believe we were losing the opportunity
to use this stuff. I freeze it now so if
I can't use it right away, I've freezed it in
(21:02):
ice cream ice cream if only ice cube, right, and
then I pop out what I need. It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well, I think that's interesting. I did a story on
ankle faba many years ago, and I tried. You have
to work it a lot like with that, I've quite
a bit to get toward, but so so just to
recap alco faba, everybody is the juice in your can
of chip piece, don't throw it out. You can actually,
as Ellen said, freeze it. You can whip it up
and use it as an egg substitute. I also like
(21:33):
my uh, I call it pot liquor. It's the gravy
left when you're seeming vegetables or the bottom of that
we had caught up watermelon in the bottom of the drippings,
as they say, I use all of that, uh, And
sometimes I just drink it as juice, and sometimes I
just save it and use it, freeze it and put
it cooking and cooking water. You know, everything's repurposable, just
(21:56):
about right it is.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
And kudos to you for doing that, because yeah, you know,
we waste up to half our food in this country,
and we cannot afford to do that, not not at home,
not for our country, not for any of it. We
need to use what we have.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah. I grew up in a house with extreme food waste,
so it pacted me deeply in my life. So let's
talk about there's so I just touched on the seven
seen quemoa with spinach and sesame because I think Queenwah
is really one of the great Uh make one big
pot and reuse it and create different things with it
all week, much like beans or really great brown rice
(22:36):
or forgotten forbidden rice, and you can just mix it
up different ways. And we do that here a lot
because when we cook at home, because we do travel
so much. When we get back, particularly from Italy, we
go clean, green, protein, simple to get our bodies back
(22:57):
because you know, you go into carb shock you go
to Italy and everybody wants to wine and dine. You
what I like about this seven seed quinoa. There are
a lot of seeds in it, so if you're not
into seeds, this won't be your dish. But there's cuban seeds,
fennel seeds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, sem flower seeds, pumpkin seeds,
and then of course the quewa pomegranate, and then my
(23:19):
favorite spinach. I love spinach like the Popeye girls.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Green, so versatile, Yeah yeah, yeah, wilt it down. You
can have it nice and fluffy and fresh. It's it's
so friendly.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Could you do this with kale also or collars, which
are some other widely available greens in our neck of
the woods.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Absolutely you could what I would suggest with the collared
since I like a good fibrous collared actually, but I
know other people do not. I have a recipe in
there for collared confetti is shredded collars made a little
more pliable because they're shredded, but with lemon juice and
just a lick of olive oil, and it makes them
(24:02):
like convetti. They're very soft and fluffy. So yeah, you
could totally fold that in with the keene wand it
would be bright, it would be green fabulous.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So I'm curious. So I like collared wraps, which are
a great vegan technique too. And also if you don't
want to do carbs, but how do you soften properly
soften and tenderize collars and kale to get them less
fibrous if you don't like the fiber. I know my
husband David hates fiber. He just hates chewy, chewy chewy salads.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Well, just like we relax and soften when someone massages us,
so do these greens.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
M h.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
If you massage them in your hand with a little
lemon juice or salt, it breaks down the cell walls
and just sort of makes them like you can see,
like the bright green comes up. You can see that
they yield more in your fingers. Just takes a couple
of minutes. I think the greens like it. I like
(25:04):
doing it too.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Well. I'm lazy, but I'm going to try that. We've
been we gotta we got to mix up our green
situation here because we're in the arugula romain rut and
we get you know, I like collins when they're season
They sure are plentiful, and I don't like to have
them with pork, but I like to I like to
cook with little vinegar and sugar, and that's really nice too,
(25:28):
kind of gets the bitterness tempered. So what are some
good meat substitutes? Uh, you know, particularly something like jackfruit
or tempa? What what would you? What are your key
ones and what are the best ways to work with them?
And maybe give some examples.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
I do like tempe. It is another fermented soy product.
It's got more of the density, so if you have
textural issues with with tofu, it's got some umph to it.
And I have my recipe in Myaman Vegan for how
smoked tempe. Because of course, we all love our bacon,
(26:05):
unless you're bacon and this has smoked paprika and liquid
smoke in it, so you get a double pal of
smokiness with a little miso for saltiness. I think another
little bit of a gave for balance, and that's great
(26:27):
in a collared wrap. That's great in a couple of
different recipes. You can it's so it's whatever you would
use lunch meat for, you can use this for.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah. I think you just have to practice to get
it right, because I think many people are intimidated by
tempe and tofu a trying to figure out what it
is and b is it really okay for you? Because
everybody goes, oh, soy, soy, it's fine, and and just
understanding the different textures. And it's just finding what you
(26:59):
like and learning you know, and Tofa comes in different textures.
So obviously the firmer wins are better for some things,
and the softer ones are better for scrambles, like instead
of eggs. As an exceptitude, they make great scrambled eggs. Now,
you have a section in Miami Vegan called sizzles, hot pots,
and potcakes. First of all, what is a potcake? Because
my idea of a potcake, maybe it'd be different from
(27:20):
you I have a potcache.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Actually, I bet it's the saying I'll really make a
pot of rice and beans, and there's always say you
wind up chatting with your friend Melanie for a few minutes,
and the bottom you get some stuff that's stuck, not potcake.
But it's always the best parts. It's all the best
(27:42):
parts stuck together. And to me, potcake is a metaphor
for Miami cuisine in general, because we do have such
a mix. So I do have some great rice and
beans recipes in there. I have a vegan ados compoyo,
which is a Cuban class thick chicken rice, except this
(28:02):
doesn't have chicken. You can make it with jackfruit one
I I love it with fresh jackfruit. Green jackfruit is
very needy and it's very vegetable. When jackfruit is ripe,
it gets to be sweet and you can do other
things with it. I could not find enough commercial green
(28:24):
jackfruit on the market to make it accessible for everyone,
and I do want this to be accessible for everyone,
So I say, if you can use jackfruit, doo, but
you can make it with firm tofu. You can make
it with tempe. What makes it is the rice and
the way you season it not the chicken you're after.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Well, jackfruit's tough. I've been some samples of it, not
great samples, so I haven't embraced jackfruit as much as
I like tempe over tofu. Now what I do like
and what you do talk about here? My ideal meat substitutes,
particularly when I'm dealing with wine wine events, and particular
wine events in Italy where everybody's eating me. I love
(29:04):
asking for mushrooms and egg plants. Mushrooms and eggplant are
great because they also have a little bit of a
tag aspect to them that helps when dealing with red wine.
Now you have a dish here called John John d
j o in dj o in not John John. John John?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Is that right, perfectly pronounced? John John's a party dish too,
John John mushrooms are black mushrooms that grow in Haiti,
and just as you'd make a risotto, maybe John John
rice isn't quite as rich, but it's a very simple
mushroom and rice recipe that comes out so rich and
(29:44):
flavorful that, yeah, it's served to guests. I liked serving
it to people when they visit because the mushrooms are black,
so you have this very inky thing, but as soon
as someone takes a taste, it's like, oh wow, it's
truffles without the truckles.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, again, really great for
when you're drinking a red wine dish and everybody's having
meat and you don't really want to have fish with
that beautiful bottle of red wine. If it's a certain
type of fish that you know, usually people may serve
me fish and their sauces don't really work with the
red wine, so it's very difficult, you know, And a
(30:22):
lot of it is the seasoning and the sauces as well.
Now you have something in here that I think would
go over really well in what I call vegan New Orleans,
which I'm always looking for because I always do it,
look for the vegan places here because I have friends
who are vegan who want to come, and I actually
love eating vegan food. It's mushroom etou fe. Okay, that
just sings to my soul for many many reasons, because
(30:43):
it's a classic Creole dish, as you note from the
French ettufe, but here you have instead of crawfish or shrimp,
you have mushrooms. So talk to me about that and
how that you know, how you create that wonderful umami there.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Well, mushrooms have umami bill in and I get to
New Orleans frequently. I love it, love it there. But
you're right, it can be a little vegan unfriendly. But
the techniques and the spices, yeah, I'm afraid I borrowed some,
or at least I observed how dishes were being made,
(31:19):
and I have you know, I brought that imagination and
that palette back to my kitchen. I thought, how could
I do this a little differently? And I didn't want
this seafood. I wanted something a little richer. So yeah,
mushrooms make a great stand in and you know what,
it cooks up quicker than a crawfish, a dou fe.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Oh really mm hmm, well we had Yeah, you don't
cook mushrooms long otherwise they shrivel up.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yes, but you mushrooms are extremely forgiving, so if you
do wind up cooking them too long, they'll still be delicious.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Well, we have a we have we have the Crescent
City Farmers Market here on Sundays and there's a very
very good mushroom grower with all sorts of exotic mushrooms
and even has a grow your own mushroom kit. We
gave one to our brother and sister in law for Christmas,
and they're harvesting mushrooms. You know, I'm curious. In Miami,
are there really great farmers markets and where are they located.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
They're located everywhere.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
New Orleans is a little like this. Miami is a
bigger city than you realize. It's very spread out. So
there's a farmer's market on Miami Beach, maybe two. There's
one in North Miami, there's one in Coral Gables, there's
one in South Miami. And they're certainly plenty down by
(32:42):
the Redlands, which is where a lot of our food
comes from. So wherever you are in the city, you
can get access to fresh, just picked food.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
You know, I miss, you know, growing up right by
the Union Square Green Market in New York City. I'm
spoiled living in the Hudson Valley where there were just
farm stands everywhere in trucks. I'm spoiled. I'd like to
see more of that in New Orleans. There's less of
it than I had expected. I mean, you know, I
(33:13):
have my little Crescent City farmers market, but I want
that big, growing up. I grew up in Tennessee and
we had something called the curb market, and you just
draw up to the curb and there was just long
lines of farmers. And they still have that in shad Nanoga.
It's just you don't drive a curve, you go into
a pavilion. They don't quite have that here, which I
wish they did, and I think a lot of it.
(33:34):
Ellen I learned big shock is the growing seasons are
different in the South. In the North, it's you know,
we're heading into prime tomato season. Thank god, it's so
creole tomatoes here. But no corn on the cob. I'd say,
if I missed anything from the north right now, it's
corn on the cob. Even from Tennessee, corn on the
cop and my Georgia peaches. What are the growing seasons
(33:54):
like down there? In Are there certain dishes that are
more seasonal in a city that's hot all the time.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
We were talking about collars, so thank you for reminding me.
I need to pull mine up and eat them, because yeah,
we're getting to the point where things are burning up
out here, or this is our tropical fruit season and
we are just swimming in mangoes. I can't think of
anything more succulent and decad and delicious than a ripe mango.
(34:25):
We get beautiful fresh avocados now, but our growing season,
the tomatoes and eggplants and green beans and all our
wonderful tender lettuces and greens, that doesn't happen until the fall.
You got to wait until it tools down a little bit.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
It's really kind of a It was really a shock
to be because I grew up always in the mid
South Northeast, and so coming here and learning I'm in
a subtropical lately, seems like tropical area is a shock
to meet. Let's talk about mangoes, because I used not
to light mangoes matter. Jeffer he did a whole essay
on mangos, and I learned to like them. But I
(35:04):
only like them when they're seasoned a certain way. I
like them with chili spices and lime. Lime for me
is good on everything. Any fruit, particularly tropical, I limet
it to death. Give us some examples of how you
like to cook mango in both savory and sweet dishes,
because they haven't talked about any sweet dishes. So let's
savory and sweet.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Well, you had mentioned I've got a thing for dust.
I do. And there's another recipe in Miami Vegan called
magic dust, which is very much what you talk about.
It's lime juice, it's chili, it's a little salt, it's
a little cuman And you think, Okay, how do these
guys go together? Beautifully? They're good on salads if you
(35:45):
want to add a sprinkle to some rice. But man,
if you dip fresh fruit in them, it just sort
of adds a whole other dimension. It's fantastic with mangos
or propaphya.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, I did it actually with cantle oap too. We
have a lot of fresh candle bright now and I
was putting some chili on there. And just for your listeners,
we're talking about magic dust. That's food and potcakes that
are food, not the other kind, which is some other
kind of there's some listeners. Do you can know a
lot pineapple down there? Because pineapple people think It's like
when people think about tropical fruit and they think about Florida,
(36:18):
they think about grapefruit. I think it's for the North, right,
it's great fruit for the North or is it.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
More like central Florida? Although we do grow it, we
grow it, but not in the abundance that you get
more upstate. You can grow pineapple here, Like if you
cut off the top of one that you get and
plant it, it will take, but you're gonna have to
wait a couple of years before bear's.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Oh. I know my mother in law who's super frugal.
She's like the most Newland frugal person ever. She would
cut off the top of everything and plant it. She
eventually grew an avocado tree and probably took her like
thirty years.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
But to say, good for her, because most of us
don't have like the patience.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I remember when I was little and avocados were discovered
in Tennessee and they're being toued everything from you know,
healthy meals to face cream. We planted a lot of
avocado seeds. I was excited and hoping I would water it.
Nothing ever happened. But Florida avocados are very different from
(37:20):
Mexican avocados. They're bigger, How do they taste different?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Botechnically speaking, avocados are fruit. I know we don't think
of them that way. And has avocados get all the
love and all the guacamole? So good for them? But
green green, Florida avocados are bigger, so you get more
avocado for your buck. They keep their shape and their
color longer too, so they're great if you want to
(37:49):
scoop out the seeds and fill them with something. They're
good diced on savice. I have three different cavice recipes
in there, and they won't turn like that kind of
said brown that acosta does. So they're great with a
lot of things. They have less fat, so people who
are watching their fat content even you know when it's
(38:10):
healthy that like avocado is you get, you get more
for less.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
That's interesting because I was always trained to go get
Haas avocados, which are really expensive. And I think they're shrinking.
I swear to god, these avocados are getting smaller. It's
smaller in the supermarket.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
So I totally agree with you. I mean, like I
hold them up like what happened to you?
Speaker 3 (38:35):
It's it's all hard. I mean, I think all the
food is shrinking in the supermarket, and the prices are
growing and the foods are shrinking. You know, it's growing
bigger and less flavorful. Strawberries. I have yet to find
a strawberry that I can stomach. You know what the
hell is going on. Even the my Ponchatoula strawberries here
in New Orleans and Louisiana, they weren't as good as
they used to be. Like this, you know, when I'm
(38:57):
tasting wine. We were tasting wine and in Sicily and
people are going on it tastes like well, strawberries taste
with grass strawberries, and I couldn't get it. I said,
you know why, I haven't had a strawberry that tastes
like this.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
In years, So it's a problem. You know, we got strawberries.
We get strawberries in winter, and you know when people
talk about January strawberries, you know most of them are lying,
but we do get them, and they were spectacular this season.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Oh it's interesting because I was not happy with the
strawberry situation. Let's talk about Let's see I want to
just before we go into sweet tech. What is tacoo tacoo.
I'm looking at this picture and it looks like a
bean burger. Tacoo tacoo.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
It's very, very similar. It's a rice and beans burger.
And I cannot remember which Latin country it originates from.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Peru, Peru, My dear.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
You think I'd write my own cookbook, I'd remember everything.
But it's a great use for rice and.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Beans leftover rice and beanes is what do you even
say there? And I think that's funny because and great
because when David moved in with me and I never cooked,
he used to make rice. He loves to make rice.
I didn't grow up with rice. Rice was not part
of my culture in Tennessee. Neither was pasta beans. Yes,
and the rice would just sit and sit and sit
in refrigerator and I'd be like, this rice is still here.
(40:20):
So for me that I did repurposing rice into a burger,
a bean and rice burger sounds great. And of course
the photos, who did your photos? Because this looks really succulent.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
That one I think was mine that somehow blew up.
And well, most of these photos I did with my iPhone.
I'm not, wow, really good food photographer. But I did
have help on the back end with my editor and
who gets credit? And oh, the cover of the book.
(40:54):
I have to talk about the cover of the book
because it's.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Very pretty there. You can kind of see it in
my blur there we go.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
I like it because it is very pretty and it's
very real. Everything in it came out of my photographer's
garden or mine. So I want you to know you
can create these recipes the way they look in the picture.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
How big is your garden?
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Not very probably bigger than your dining room table, but
not a lot. I have a little raised bed garden
in back. I don't have a whole lot of sunlight
because we have a huge oak tree, which I love,
but it eats a lot of shade. So I really
if anyone can grow a little of their own food,
(41:39):
if it's a couple collars, if it's the mint, you
keeping a pot on the windowsill, right, it's so important.
It saves you money, it creates a little more awareness
of where your food comes from.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, you know, I wish we don't have much of
a yard here, but we have herbs and uh so
we're doing a lot with herbs. I I wish we
had more, but we just we have a pool and
that's to get better swimming pool. So I'm happy with that.
Let's just talk briefly about desserts, and then I want
to ask you about where to eat and enjoy in Miami. Okay,
(42:15):
I'm not a dessert person, so I'm going to ask
you three big questions of the dessert spectrum for someone
like me who doesn't eat a lot of sweets, what
are some desserts that are maybe less unctiously sweet? Because
in New Orleans it's all about anxiously sweet desserts. So
what are some maybe from that end of the spectrum
(42:36):
to wow, you really want to blow it out with
sugar love?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You know what? You and I have that in common, Melanie.
I'm not a big dessert person, but I knew to
sell this book, I better up my game. There is
a triple gingerbread in there that is not Handsel and
Gretel gingerbread. It's very gingery and it's not that sweet.
I don't like be a good thing for you.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
I love gingerbread. I love gingerbread. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
know what else you haven't here. I'm not a big
chocolate ey girl, but you know what, I do like
the idea of chocolate orange olive almond olive oil cake
because I love oranges, almond and olive oil. And so
the cocoa you use Dutch process cocoa, which is like
(43:23):
the type of cocoa I would want in chocolate that
looks delicious.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
That one is very good, and you know what, it's
very easy to make. So if you're having someone over,
you need to impress this is the desert for you.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Usually I tell people to bring dessert. I do make cobbler,
and you do have a cobbler recipe in here. I
haven't made one this year because I made one from
some New Orleans celebrity on TV and it was just
awful cobbler because it was just too sweet. I like it.
Butter right, your summer fruit cobbler, which is vegan, has
(43:58):
vegan butter on leach, all purpose flour, baking powder, a
cup of evaporated cane sugar. I'd probably have less sugar,
oat milk, and then fresh fruit. Now it's interesting yours.
You know mangoes. You mentioned mangoes and blueberries. I like
peach cobbler. David brought me some cherries that are sitting
in the refrigerator right now. Love plumcake. Let's just say
(44:21):
the best plumcake recipe in the world is Marion Burrows
plumcake in the New York Times, which is the most
requested recipe in the New York Times ever. But you
know you can make that vegan as well, and I'm
sure you have an option in here for a fruit
like a fruit type bread or cake, and you've got
a cookin in here. A strawberry coocan puddings are kind
(44:42):
of palatable for me as well. I like putting instead
of ice cream. You have a strawberry pudding, which I
never would have thought about. That's kind of an interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
That's a great use for like slightly tired strawberries. You
purpose them and totally refresh them. And if you do,
you like a quick bread that's slightly sweet. I have
like three or four recipes. I have a mango one.
I have a blueberry one. I just did this week
because I had some blueberries that needed some love. And
(45:11):
to me, they're just sweet enough so they can be
like a treat, but they're they're not cloying.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
So I don't understand. So this is not putting like
j E l O pudding. This is British pudding, so
it calls for bread, which is a kind of their
great use for stale bread. So this is more of
an English type pudding. So how would you describe that
to someone that doesn't know it and is thinking about
J E l O pudding?
Speaker 4 (45:37):
This is a crazy recipe and it's very very old.
You cook down fresh fruit with a little orange juice
and maybe a little bit of sugar, so you get
sort of a nice soupy fruity thing. You add fresh bread,
you kind of push everything into a mold and you
(45:58):
leave it overnight the fridge. This was a great Depression
era recipe because you didn't need eggs, you didn't need dairy, right,
and it's mildly sweet, it's very refreshing. It's a summer pudding.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
That looks like some fun thing that I could be
now in a few little bit of time we have
left at a minute or so, talk to me about Miami,
and talk to me about Miami. I want to go
to Miami. Where are some vegan plices that you would recommend?
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Okay, My very favorite place is a French bakery called Lartisan.
This woman does the best croissants that even when a
blind tasting and the French judges were like, how could
you know? How can you make a croissant this flicky
without butter? Because she's magic. She does gorgeous vegan macarlan's beautiful, beautiful,
(46:50):
jewel like pastries and a brunch All day. I was
just there meeting some friends. Gosh, was it yesterday? And
the place was. You can get vegan omelets, you can
get vegan sandwiches. It's just it's delightful. It's called Amazon Bakery.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Where is it located? Where, as long as I'm makering
located It is.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
In Coral Gables, which is a little bit past downtown Miami.
And it's very French and very adorable.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I love Coral Gables and you kind of live near there.
You kind of live in a very old area of Miami,
you said, I think it's a beautiful area. So many
people just go straight to South Beach, which is fine,
but it's that South Beach is its own aura and sizzle.
I like old Miami. I like old elegant Miami personally.
(47:40):
Anywhere else you want to mention before we close out?
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Oh gosh, I don't want to leave anyone out.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Oh okay, well, you know maybe on Broccoli Rising you
can have something about that. Do you have a post
about that?
Speaker 4 (47:54):
I have been asked to do that, so I want
to make sure I have all my favorites in there
and not leave anybody out, because no one should come
to Miami and be hungry.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Gosh, absolutely not. I mean I can't wait to go
back down there sometime and just you know, just to
go down there and go to the arts district, which
I just lose myself. And I don't even have to
go to the beach. I can get to miammy just
eat and bicycle around and go to the arts district
and see friends and relatives and probably yeah, never see
the beach. But it is a great, great city and
(48:26):
a gateway to so many wonderful places I want to
visit in South America. I think it's going to be
one of my new gateways because now that we live
in New Orleans, we can fly from Miami somewhere. So
I look at that all the time, and all those
cruises that are there. I mean, it's crazy. It's an
amazing place. You're lucky to live there, Ellen, I want
everybody to know again, the book is Miami Vegan plant
(48:46):
based Recipes from the Tropics to your Table. Congratulations on
this book, and I hope it's a big success, and
I hope to connect with you over a great vegan
meal sometime soon.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
You come down to Miami and we will make it happen.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
And you come over to New Orleans and we'll make
it happen because ive got some good vegan places here too.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
It's a deal, all right. You've been listening to Fearless,
Fabulous You with Melanie Young and my guests Ellen Canner.
Are you hungry? I am. I'm hungry. My mouth is watering.
I want something succulent. That's the word of the day, succulent.
As always, you have the choice to live life the
way you want, not the way other people want you
to live. Always live it on your terms, and always
(49:30):
choose fearless and fabulous. Thank you very much, have a
great day.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.