Podcast 31 – The Best Types of Food To Kick Off 2024

For many, a new year represents a clean slate and an opportunity to shift our focus to eating more mindfully and frugally. Here we explore some recipes that may help you stick to your goals in 2024! Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/M2Jjhi771Ys December is a month of indulgence. Making merry usually includes consuming sugary treats and alcoholic beverages, and spending a bit more money than we're accustomed to. So when the new year rolls around we find ourselves with an opportunity to hit the reset button, focus on what we're putting into our bodies, and what we're taking out of our wallets. Recipes for the new year Planning is an important part of reaching any goal, so thinking about some of the recipes you'll make in the next few weeks can help you stay on track. Soups and chilis are great for this time because they're easy to make, can be made in bulk, and taste great when left over. Some of our favorite recipes include split pea soup, escarole and bean soup, and minestrone. Frittatas paired with a salad are also a budget-friendly and healthy meal. Try incorporating a different frittata into your weekly rotation! Seafood also comes in handy when wanting to eat a bit lighter and ingredients like cod, salmon, and shrimp are all easy to prepare and for the most part can be ready in about 30 minutes. Eating lentils on New Year's Day I'd be remiss not to mention lentils when discussing the new year. Italians and Italian-Americans along with other nationalities believe eating lentils on the first day of the new year (some even start at midnight) can bring wealth and prosperity in the coming year. Some of our favorite lentil recipes include Italian Lentil Soup and Sausage Lentil Soup. Both are budget-friendly and so easy to make! Resources Pasta e Piselli Recipe Tuscan White Bean Soup Recipe Pasta Fagioli Recipe Spicy Sausage and Potato Kale Soup Recipe Beef Barley SoupRecipe Classic Chili Recipe White Chicken Chili Recipe Salmon Oreganta Recipe Cod Piccata Recipe Potato Frittata Recipe Sweet Potato Frittata Recipe If you enjoyed the Best Foods to Kick Off 2024 episode, leave us a comment below and let us know!   We love your questions.  Please send them to [e-mail] (remove the 11111 for our contact).  There’s no question not worth asking. If you enjoy our weekly podcast, support us on Patreon and you will get 2 more bonus episodes each month! Thanks for listening! For a complete list of all podcast episodes, visit our podcast episode page.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- Welcome back tothe Sip and Feast podcast.
This is episode number 31. It is 2024.
You want to have dishes to get you
through the next two weeksof your New Year's resolution
until you stop going to the gym.
You're gonna get the gymmembership on January 1st.
You gotta get to January 14th,

(00:23):
and then you'll give it all up.
So this is gonna help youfor those next two weeks.
- That's very, very pessimistic.
- I just, you're gonna make it
at least to the end of January.
No, I mean, I do joke,
but real realistically, Jim's make all
of their money in the firsttwo weeks of the year. Yeah.
- Well, this isn'tnecessarily about eating No.

(00:43):
To go to the gym.
- No, it's absolutely not- . Yeah.
- That I, I, but I'm,I'm playing off on that,
but no, why don't you tell them exactly
what it is about. So,
- Before we get, you know,full into this topic,
we wanna wish everyone a happy New Year.
Right. Happy
- 20.
Yeah. We wanna wish you a happy New year.
- Happy 2024. We're excitedfor the year to come.

(01:05):
We took a few weeks offfrom uploading to YouTube,
which was nice for us to just be able
to disconnect a little bit.
And, you know, the kidswere all from schools.
Were you able to spend sometime doing that? Right.
- Absolutely. I mean, we're,you know, doing podcasts, not
that podcasts are easier or anything,
but it's vastly easier thanmaking a cooking video.

(01:28):
Uh, no disrespect to podcasts.
Certain po some podcastersdo a ton of research
and, you know, I'm sure it'svery hard to produce her stuff,
but no Tara's Right.
By taking off now from the uploading
and from the filming ofthose cooking videos, it,
we do essentially feellike we're off. Mm-Hmm.
- . Yeah. Which is great.
And it's, it's, it's a nice feeling. Yeah.
Really, really nice. So, Jim,

(01:51):
obviously this is the new year.
One of the things thatpeople do at the start
of a new year is they makeNew Year's resolutions.
That's right. And some of the more popular
resolutions are to eat healthier.
Right. Also, maybe to be alittle bit more budget conscious,
um, and also to be moremindful when eating.

(02:15):
And I know a lot ofpeople do dry January too,
which they eliminate alcoholfor the month of January. So
- Yeah.
I do wet January maximumalcohol. No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.I'm kidding. Kidding.
And by the way, this won'tbe like last Tyra was
worried last episode.
She thought I was being what?Too aggressive. You said you

(02:38):
- Were a little, like youwere a little pessimistic.
- She was calling me pessimistic. Yeah.
But I'm an eternal optimist.
I wouldn't be able to do any
of this if I wasn't an optimist.
- I know.- I wouldn't.
- I- Know. Come on now. That's the truth.
- You're a little bit like curmudgeony.
- Well, I was being curmudgeony
because a lot of the topicswe were talking about,
and the, the previous episode,if you haven't listened

(02:59):
to it, was about what Tara,
- It was about food trendsof 2023 that we hope to leave
behind in 2023.
- Yeah. And a lot of them werefrom TikTok and Instagram.
And I was being, you know,Tara says Curmudgeony.
I, I think I was just acting my age.
You know, there's nothing worsethan someone our age who's

(03:20):
trying to act like they're 25.
- Yeah. - It's way worsewith someone who's old 45.
I wouldn't say old, I would say well aged
, um, like a fine wine.
No, it, it's just, you know, you're not,
you're not 25 anymore.

(03:41):
That, that's what it comes down to.
So a lot of those trendsthat Tara was talking about,
I had no idea what they were.
And apparently they were super popular.
- I didn't know either.- And by living under a rock,
either, I don't thinkI'm living under a rock.
I mean, I, I make this, Imake food content, you know,
it's just, but yeah.
Maybe I just wasn't apart of that universe.

(04:02):
So enough of that. Yeah.
Let's bring in the optimism for 2024.
- Yeah. So one of the things
that I think is reallyhelpful when trying to adhere
to any type of, whether itbe a diet or a resolution
or a schedule or any type of new habit

(04:23):
that you're trying to form,
or old habit you're tryingto shed is to plan for it.
Right. So I think one of thebest things that you can do,
let's say you wanna eata little bit healthier,
or maybe you wanna, maybe youwanna eat less takeout, right?
Yeah. Because I thinkthat's something that
- You- Get
- Instant gains from that.

(04:43):
- Yes. And in the month
of December when we're all incredibly busy
and running around and we'vegot the kids winter concerts
and, and sporting thingsfor them and holiday events
and parties, and you'reworking around the clock,
depending on what you do fora living, I think in the month
of December you might haveeaten out quite a bit.

(05:05):
Yeah. Or not eaten out at a restaurant,
but have brought stuff home
and maybe some of it's fast food.
So in the new year,
maybe we all wanna be alittle bit more mindful
about what we're eating.
That's why I think that'sa common resolution.
So one of the things you can do is
to be really intentionalabout going grocery shopping,

(05:25):
because I think one of thethings that I kind of fall,
fall prey to is that ifI don't have something
to make in the house,that's kind of like quick,
I might be like, let's go
and let's get sandwiches,
or let's order from thebowl place around here, or

(05:49):
- From Seaport Deli.
The best deli in the world.
- Yeah. They really are. Actually,
I might wanna get them tonight. Anyway,
- The heroes they make are like 16 or $17.
And I know you're like, Jim,what are you talking about?
Let me tell you something. These heroes,
you could feed a family with one of 'em.
- Yeah. You can get like one I've ordered.

(06:10):
I love their chicken salad.
It's like chicken salad, like cranberries.
It's, it's, it soundsbasic, but it's really good.
When I get that chicken salad wrap,
that thing lasts me three days.
Like I get three meals out of it. Yeah.
- So this place, just great heroes.
Uh, guy Fieri goes there all the time, you
- Knows.
No, he was there. He doesn'tgo there all the time.
He was there for a diners. He did

(06:32):
- A, yeah.
- Diners Drive-ins and Ds. He
- Did a Triple D there.
Triple D. This is a famous place.
This, this, uh, it's amazing.
And it happens to be rightby our house, so it's good.
- Yeah. Yeah. It's excellent.
But anyway, so I'll betempted to be like, oh,
let's just get this, 'cause it's easy.
But I find that if I makesure I stock up on some
of those things that are kindof easy to make in a pinch,

(06:53):
then it's more likelythat we will be eating
stuff that we've made at home.
- I agree with it. Andlet's go into some of those.
Is that what we're gonna do right now?
- Yeah. So Jim, feel freeto disagree with me here,
but I think one of the best types of meals
that you can make when itcomes to like prepping ahead

(07:15):
of time and being healthy aresoups and chilies, really.
Right? Because they're both simple.
They're both better whenthey're made ahead of time.
So I think they're reallygood for making, like,
if you make a giant pot of soup,
- What type of face doI have on right now?
Do I disagree with you or agree with

(07:36):
- You?
I think you're gonna agree with me.
- Damn right. I'm going to agree
- With you.
Okay. Okay. So I think thatif you can stock up on some of
the basics for soups,
like I'm thinking like beans, lentils,
maybe have some ground Turkey,some ground beef, maybe,
you know, stuff that'sin the freezer, stuff

(07:56):
that's you're able to,to get to very easily.
Um, I think that willhelp you set yourself up
to be more successful withregards to how you're eating
and sticking to a budget also.
- Yeah. I mean, there's nobetter way to accomplish
that goal of eating healthy

(08:16):
and sticking to a budgetthan to go into the aisle
of your store, your, your supermarket
that has all the beans, uh,
lentils, stuff like that.
Now you could buy 'em inbags or you could buy cans.
Even cans are very economical.
Often they'll have like three for $2
or five for $6 or sale like that.

(08:40):
I like the cans a lot becauseit makes things a lot quicker.
You have to be a little bit more planful.
You have to plan for things more.
If you, if you use bagstuff, no problem there.
And you can even do abunch of them in advance.
Like, you could do a bunch of beans
and you could even storm inyour fridge for a couple days
for other, other, uh, soups and chilies.

(09:02):
But the cans really,
really work well when youjust, you're kind of in a jam.
You know, maybe your kidhad soccer, basketball.
Well, we're in January here,so it's gonna be basketball.
Mm-Hmm. , you know,
you can put somethingtogether very quickly. Yeah.
- The one thing I wanted to, to highlight,
or the one ingredientI wanted to highlight,

(09:22):
um, are lentils.
And specifically this podcast is being
uploaded on January 1st.
Right. Which is New Year's Day.
And it's Italians, Italian Americans,
and also other nationalities
and cultures believe thateating lentils on the first day
of the new year canactually bring good luck.

(09:43):
Yeah. And I, I always knewthis, but I didn't know why.
So I looked it up and apparently it kind
of stems from the fact thatlentils are shaped like coins.
So the more lentils you eat,
the more wealth you willhave in the coming year,
- And the more gas you'll have too.
- Okay.- So you have wealth and gas that

(10:04):
- Just took a turn for the unexpected.
So one of my favorite thingsto make with lentils, and,
and by the way, I don't,lentils don't require as much.
If you're using a bag oflentils, they don't require
as much prep ahead oftime as dried beans do.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Solentils are really good.
In a pinch, you can make alentil soup in an hour. Yeah.
- So people often,

(10:24):
because we have a couplelentil soup videos, one of 'em,
or both of 'em have a lot of views.
Like one of 'em has over a million.
So it has like 2000 comments
and a lot of, uh, peoplefrom non, like, non Italian
cooking, like, so it'll be like Indian
or like different, justdifferent cultures.
They'll let me know,

(10:45):
let me know everything I did wrong there.
And they say, you haveto soak your lentils
and you have to do allthis and, and listen.
You, you can, and it actually is better
to soak your lentils,but you don't have to.
They'll take a little bitlonger to cook in the pot.
Another myth I wanted tospell, I really wanted
to spell this, and ifyou don't believe me,
just please use Google.
It is your friend. You do not have to wait

(11:09):
to salt your lentils.
This is a myth. This is a lie.
It is completely, utterly
100% wrong. Look,
- What is the myth?
- It's that you have tosalt lentils at the end.
If you don't, if you salt'em at the beginning,
it'll make your lentils tough.
Oh, it's actually the opposite.
If you salt your lentils,

(11:29):
it will actually make them more tender.
Okay. Serious. E has an article on it.
Uh, America's Test Kitchen,if you have a subscription,
because otherwise thentheir stuff is locked up.
You can't see it, butthere's dozens of articles.
It actually, you couldjust Google the term.
It'll go to like page five
and it'll, every one
of 'em will be talkingabout dispelling that myth.
It is a myth. And

(11:49):
before you say, oh, wellthat's all wrong right here,
30 years experience cooking lentils,
it doesn't make a differencewhether you salt them first
or last, you're gonnaget the same results.
Okay. I just had to put that one to rest
because people are likesuper fixated on that one.
- I think the soaking part doesn't just,
it doesn't just make them easier to cook

(12:09):
or helps 'em cook faster. I think it's
- Supposedly about phytic- Acid.
Yeah. Removes the phytic acid.
It makes them, uh,
more readily the nutrients more readily
absorbed into your body.
- So they say that's, that comes from
that alternative medicineworld that a lot of
like Yeah. People don't agree with.
- You're supposed to soak your oats
too, if you're making oatmeal.

(12:29):
- That's the sameinformation comes same thing.
- That's because there's aphytic acid acid too. That's
- All the, that's the natural,like the holistics food
websites that Google hasessentially took an atom bomb to
and doesn't, doesn't even let
that stuff go on the internet anymore.
Because they're saying they'renot putting out information
that is like a approved by the what, what,

(12:51):
what is the organization likethe doctors? Is it the aada a
- Is it the world health? I,
- I don't even the World Health
- Organization, honestly, Idon't even, I don't even know.
- Basically a lot of sitesthat were making claims,
holistic claims, anythingthat wasn't backed up
with peer reviewed science.
Those sites are hard tofind on the internet now.
And I'm not saying whether it's true

(13:13):
or not, I'm just justtelling you that's how it is.
But as far as the, and I don'tknow about the phyto acid.
Tara might be right aboutthat, but as far as assaulting
before or after, it doesn'tmake a difference. Okay.
- So it's still kind ofin the same vein though.
More beans and, and legumes.
Some of those soups that,that we make frequently

(13:34):
that I think are, are pretty healthy and,
and definitely good for sticking to
a resolution Escrow and bean soup.
Mm-Hmm. . Right. Good.
The Tuscan white bean soup.
- Super easy.- See what you did there? Super easy.
pasta, fazominione, and split pea soup.
I have all of those as reallygreat soups to make ahead.

(13:56):
Maybe you double oreven triple our recipe.
Maybe you wanna freeze someof it so that you have it
when you're in need of likea quick weeknight meal.
- I agree with everythingyou're saying here.
I wanna give people, I wannagive you like the chi code to,
to flavor town as Guy FII would say.
So if you have smoked ham hocks,
it will make things so much better.
I've always been surprised slash amazed

(14:20):
slash confounded with howmuch people like my basic
Italian lentil soup,
because it doesn't have a hammock in it.
It is a very basic recipe.
There's not, in my opinion,too much flavor in it.
You know, we put a par rin in there.
You got a lot of, uh,extra virgin olive oil,
and then you could finishit off with your fin,

(14:40):
you know, your finishing of choice.
Red wine vinegar, more cheese,
extra virgin olive oil, whatever.
But to make it infinitely better is
to just put a ham ho in it.
And the ham hok will work for any
of the soups that Tara mentioned.
It will improve all of them.
There's something magicalabout a smoked ock
that is $2 at the store.
Mm-Hmm. .You could buy a whole

(15:00):
pack of 'em super cheap.
Yeah. For like $10 and youjust add it to your soup.
So like, the better exampleis split piece soup.
If you make split piecesoup without a ham ock,
it is disgusting.
- It's not disgusting.- It's not good at all. No.
- Okay.- It's, it's really not. No, no.
It was, you know what, thisis a good one right here.
This is good. You let us

(15:21):
know what you think. First
- Of all, this goes backto our picky eater episode,
which is I think on Patreon where we say
that you should never say
that somebody's food is disgusting.
So why are you saying that? Okay.
- Well, you actually are being,you are making a good point.
There I am. Now that was,that was a Patreon episode,
so not everybody saw it. So

(15:42):
- Yeah.
But the, the point isthat if you have kids
and you constantly are makingcomments like, that's gross,
I would never try that.
That's disgusting.
I can't believe he or she eats that,
or, I can't believe thisrestaurant serves that.
You're gonna create a little army

(16:03):
of picky eating minions don't,
don't say words like disgustingwhen you're talking about
somebody's food becausethere's plenty of delicious
vegetarian split pea soups out there.
- Okay. So I'm gonna agree with Tara here.
I shouldn't have said disgusting.
I'm gonna say it's goingto be way better if
you use a ham hock.
Now that being said, youcan't take my recipe,

(16:26):
my split P recipe, theone that's on the site
or any other one thathas a ham hock in it.
You cannot take the ham hockout and expect it to be good.
You're gonna have to makea lot of modifications.
Do you at least agreewith me in that respect?
Like if you pull the ham hout of our split P mm-Hmm.
, you areliterally left with split peas,
carrot, and salt along with water.

(16:50):
If you're gonna be, if youwanna make it, you know,
vegetarian, vegan, that'snot gonna taste good.
You're gonna have to, I thinkit will, you're gonna have
to add probably a ton of smoked paprika.
Yeah. Something smoked.Mm-Hmm. .
I don't know really all the stuff
that's used like in vegan cooking,
but like amino acids and all that.
Um, vegan cheese, what is it?Nutritional yeast, all that.

(17:11):
You're gonna have to add a whole bunch
of that stuff in there.
- I don't think youhave to add any of that.
I think you'll be just fine. I want you,
- You to let us knowwhat you think here. I
- Think it would be greatwith smoked paprika.
- Okay. You let us know.
- Yeah. That's, I I don't thinkyou need to do a whole bunch
of work to it.
- It's her opinion. That's my opinion.

(17:32):
We wanna know your opinion. I think your
- New Year's resolutionshould be to be less cranky.
- Wes cranky. I think it should be
to turn up the notch alittle bit and to have you,
- I don't think I couldsurvive another notch
- .
And to have you defend yourself Well,
like you just did there.
So now tell me what the next one is

(17:53):
that I'm going to rip apart.
- Well, I think you're gonna say
that you can't make this vegetarian,
and I'd probably agree with this,
but some of the othersoups that I have are
spicy sausage and potato kale soup,
and I have beef barley soup.
Both of them obviously are not vegetarian.
- Those are not, those are not,
unless you, uh, get somebodylike saw stash on the case

(18:16):
and you'll start, you know,making like the meats for it.
Like Satans and all that.
- Yeah. So what do youthink of those soups?
- I think those soups are fabulous,
but yeah, I mean they're not,
you can't make them vegetarianvegan, which is, which isn't
what this discussion is about
- Anyway.
No, it's not. It's just about, yeah.
Giving you ideas for recipesthat you can kind of make ahead
of time, have in your fridge

(18:37):
or have in your freezer touse in a pinch when you're
getting tempted to maybe stray from your
New Year's resolution to like eat better
or to eat less takeout orto be more budget friendly.
- Yeah. So that, that wasthe sausage kale one. Mm-Hmm.
and what was theother one? Beef barley. Yeah.
So these are both high caloriesoups. These are Mm-Hmm.
. These are full meal soups.

(18:58):
The beef barley that wehave, uh, the recipe beef
that you can use or you can usesomebody else's beef barley.
It has a lot of beef chuckin there, which is, oh,
it's just a lot of calories.
And barley itself is veryhardy. So it's a good one.
It's a good one to feed your family.
You can make a lot of it.
And even if you're spendingsay, $8 a pound for Chuck,

(19:20):
you know, the whole potwill cost you 20 to $25
and you can feed six people with it.
Mm-Hmm. . And not, and they
won't be hungry afterwards.
That's, that's an important thing.
Same thing with the spicy,uh, sausage kale soup.
'cause that one has, it'sgot your greens in there,
the really nice healthy kale.
And if you don't like kale, you could put
spinach in there easily.
You could always substituteany recipe that has kale.

(19:42):
Don't feel like you can't make it.
You can just put spinach in it.
- And also any soup recipethat doesn't have spinach,
I feel like you canalways add spinach to it.
Yes. Like even like chickensoup. Add spinach to it.
- Yeah.- Just if you want extra greens.
- For sure. And that's part
of the reason why I putspinach in our basic

(20:03):
Italian lentil soup.
Mm-Hmm. . I justthought it was too basic.
That's why I did that. Yeah.
And it's not how my grandmotheror my mother made it.
They would always just, itwould just not have it in there.
Mm-Hmm. . But Ifelt like it needed something.
As far as these two. These are great.
Uh, I forgot to mention,
the one you mentionedpreviously was, uh, the minione.
Our minione is excellent. Ihighly suggest you make it.

(20:24):
It's just, it's just an awesome soup.
I was always disappointedthat that video didn't do well
because everybody who'smade that one adores it.
- Why are you disappointedthat the video didn't
- Do well?
Them wanna, I wannashare with more people. I
wanted people to experience it.
- That's fine. It is what? It's,
- It's such a good soup.
- Yeah. But why would you dwell on that?
- You know what it is like,I feel that mini, my idea

(20:45):
of tro always from when I was young
was that it wasn't that good.
- My idea of minione wasCampbell's Minione with
- The little alphabet- Pasta and it wasn't good.
Yeah. Yeah. And I never liked it,
so really the onlyminione I ever really did
like was the one that you made.
- It was good. So Minione is here.
People will just call a soup minione

(21:08):
and they'll, you know,have a basic idea for it.
Most people will probablythink of the Campbell's version
that Tara's talking about,which is a red brothy one
with some little pasta.
The Campbell's one, it's cute.They have the, I remember
- Having lima beans in it,which I like when I was a kid,
for whatever reason, Ijust wasn't like a big fan

(21:28):
of the lima beans in that soup.
I think they were like, the
texture bothered me forsome reason. They're
- Gritty Lima- Beans.
Yeah, they are. But I haven'thad lima beans recently.
Like, I would like to try them again
and see if I like them as an adult. I like
- Lima beans.
I mean, lima beans are butter beans. Yeah.
I love, you know, they're the same beans.
- I love beans. That's why I'm like,
I wanna, I wanna try them again. So,
- Lima beans.

(21:49):
I always think of lima beans being green
and I always think ofbutter beans being white.
- Yeah. Butter are larger. Same
- Bean.
- Yeah. But no, there is a difference.
- No, they're really the same bean. How
- Come?
One's bigger?
- I think one's fullygrown and one's not. Oh,
- Okay.
They're, so then I probably do like them
because I like butter beans.
- Yeah, no, you, you probably do.
And you know, as faras miner goes, there's

(22:11):
so many versions in Italy.
There's like, each areahas their own minione.
So if you look up online,you could start typing in,
um, Minera, right? Minera.
- Yeah.- Minera. Minera to whatever.
So you'll see like Minerato Calabria, Minera to
um, Tana.
You know, like it'll justbe, it'll be the area

(22:32):
and it'll have different stuff in it.
Whatever stuff is a partof that particular region.
And they'll, they'll also have different
ones based on the seasons.
So when it's fall
and they have the squash,
they'll add the squash to their Mm-Hmm.
to their ra.
And then when, obviously whenthe summer vegetables are in
season, so the soup changes according

(22:54):
to the season versus don'tthink of it as just minione has
to be this way because that'sthe way my Nona made it.
That's not a good way tothink about it. Mm-Hmm.
. Yeah.So you said pasta pazo
before just another easy one and Mm-Hmm.
. Did you say pasta pelli or
- No, I didn't.
Yeah. But I know pasta pelli
and past cheche are probablyalso good pantry items.

(23:19):
- Kachina, what is it called? Kachina. Oh,
- Po po ra- Kachina povera.
So that is, uh, reallyinexpensive food. Mm-Hmm.
that you canfeed an army of people. Yeah.
So those are all good. Ifyou haven't tried those,
definitely try them.
Another one is pasta, uh, pat
and pasta tiki, which isa little bit drier than

(23:44):
a lentil soup, but that'spasta with lentils. Mm-Hmm.
- . And thosewhat I would bucket as more
of the budget items,
not necessarily like super healthy
- Items.
Yeah. They're not super healthy.
There's not really a, because it's pasta.
I mean, honestly, somethings that are very budget

(24:05):
that are healthy would be a frittata.
- I have that here on my list. There
- You go. Yeah.
- So I have frittatas becauseyou can stock up on your eggs.
Right. You'll have your eggs in your
fridge almost at all times.
Um, and then they're very,they're very versatile.
So you can really addanything to a frittata. Yeah.

(24:26):
In fact, I usually do, it's always eggs
and there's always a potato of some sort.
So whether it's whitepotatoes or sweet potatoes.
But then I'll often takewhatever we have laying around
and throw it into the frittata.
So maybe one. And we try andmake them like once a week.
So maybe one week if we havesun dried tomatoes laying

(24:48):
around, we'll do itwith sun dried tomatoes.
And another week, maybe it's spinach
and goat cheese, maybe another week it's
ham that we have leftover oryou know. Yeah. It could be
- As simple as say you do did an antipas,
like a big platter.
Mm-Hmm. .Say you did an anti pasta
for New year, new Year's, like a nice

(25:10):
board or charcuterie board.
You can take some of those meats
and the cheeses chop 'em up into chunks.
Put'em in your frittata. Mm-Hmm.
another very unorthodox one
that maybe you haven'tthought of but would be great.
And we've never done this,
but it's just coming to me right now.
Say you make a reallygood sausage and peppers,
or say you make a really goodsausage potato and peppers.

(25:30):
Mm-Hmm. . You canjust dice that more. So Yeah.
And then just mix it witha bunch of eggs, 12 eggs,
whatever in your cast ironpan, some cheese, you know.
Nice. You know,threequarter cup, pecorino.
Just mix it all together, bake it,
and you'll have a delicious meal
that will feed a lot of people.
- That's true. And thefrittata, when we have it,

(25:54):
we're usually eating it for dinner.
Yes. But it is good ifyou make it for breakfast,
you can take like a sliceof it to work with you.
Um, and it's good to make a head.
So if you wanna make a frittata one night
and you're like, you knowwhat, I'm gonna save this
and we're gonna eat it for dinner
tomorrow night, then that's great too.
Yeah. I would say justserve it maybe with a salad.

(26:17):
And that's something Ithink we've been trying
to do is eat more salads.
We try and end the mealwith a salad. Always.
So, and that goes back tothe, the prepping also,
if you have, if you always havesalad stuff in your fridge,
it's more likely that you'lluse it rather than having
to go out to the store and, and pick it
- Up.
Playing off that. If youwanna have salad stuff in your

(26:38):
fridge, that's actually going to last.
You, you gotta have what?
- Romaine- And
- Iceberg.
- Yeah. If you have- Like masculine greens,
- Masculine mix,- Whatever.
Yeah. Those don't last,they don't last as long.
Well, once you open thecontainer, then they don't last.
You can probably get a fewdays out of it. They're
- Not good.
I mean, they, you gotta work quick. There.

(26:59):
I, those greens I feel are meant for,
- They're more delicate,- Fancy restaurants
that they have a littlegreen garden outside.
Yeah. They pick their greensand they put it right on.
It's like a farm to table restaurant.
- They're not hardy. Yeah.They're, you know. Yeah.
They don't last as long.Kale is very hardy.
And if you keep kale on hand

(27:20):
and throw that into soups,
that's also another good thing. Yeah.
- Kale is, will last along time in your fridge.
And just remember with kale, you just,
the stems really thick stems.
You really don't wannaput them in your soup.
- Yeah.- I think that's,
- They're kind of hard to eat
- Because I think some people who don't,
maybe you don't use a lot of kale.
Mm-Hmm. . That might confuse.

(27:41):
- Yeah. I think it's fine tokeep the stem towards the tip
of the leaf, but like thebottom stem, that's really
hard and fibrous even.
- Yeah, I would, it doesn'tmean you have to throw it out.
You could use it for stockor definitely compost.
Compost, definitely compost it.
- The other thing I have hereis seafood and fish. Yeah.

(28:02):
I think in general, fish issomething that's really good
for people who are looking to have
- Yeah.
- A little bit of ahealthier diet. Right. I
- Love fish.
I love talking about it.
Every time we talk aboutit, I feel like it doesn't
really resonate.
I could be, because maybeyou're here from our pasta Nina,

(28:24):
or our short rib ragu,
and for whatever reasonyou're not into it, I allow me
to try to convince you that,
and it doesn't matter where you live,
it doesn't matter if youlive on the coast like we do,
or if you live in the middle of America,
because you can get fish, frozen fish

(28:46):
that's portioned in TraderJoe's or places like that.
Whole Foods or, or whateverlocal supermarket you have.
That's how most fish issold. So you'll be fine.
And you could make really healthy meals,
delicious meals with fish.
- Yeah. And I was actuallygonna say the same thing about
getting the pre-Portioned Yeah.

(29:09):
Fish from Trader Joe's.
- Costco also has great bigbags of Porsche salmon. Mm-Hmm.
, cod, flounder,swordfish, whatever.
- Yeah. But I think that's agood way to, if you're trying
to eat healthy fish is definitely a great,
a great option. It's,
- You feel great after youhave fish, a meal of fish.

(29:32):
Now, the one time youwon't feel great is if you
make fish and chips.
I would say like if you batterthe whole thing and fry it,
because then you'reconsuming a lot of the oil
that absorbed into your batter.
But if you do just a roasted fish,
if you do a baked fishwith maybe a little bit
of breadcrumbs on top,maybe some cherry tomatoes,

(29:54):
extra virgin olive oil, garlic,
little white wine, a little lemon.
Really, really simple. Super easy.
You know, you could put allyour stuff in a baking dish,
your fish and all that in the baking dish.
You can wait a minute,prep your vegetable,
or you could put it in the oven
and quickly prep your vegetable.
You can have a simple meal onthe table. Fail fairly easily.

(30:17):
- Yeah. And I feel like one of the good I,
I like if I'm gonna makefish, I like to serve it with
usually like a sauteed green.
Yep. Like spinach that'ssauteed with garlic or even kale
because I feel like the fishkind of pairs well with that.
And then if you wanted toserve some sort of a starch
with it, I always thinkrice is a really good,

(30:40):
- Definitely- Side to have.
With, with fish
- It's quick too.
Rice. Rice is a little quicker for people.
I mean, if you reallywanna go super quick,
you could get the pre, uh,
you know the bags at your microwave.
- Yeah. Trader Joe's has thebrown rice. Yeah. That's you.
It's frozen. Yeah.
And then you just microwaveit and it's ready.
- It works. It's fine. Becauseit's hard to get rice done in

(31:01):
that amount of time thatyou're gonna cook your fish.
Same thing with potatoes. Itwill take a little bit longer
than you need, but you can juststart them 10 minutes early.
Be before you make your fish. Yeah.
- You could.- I hope you make more fish.
You will, you you'llfeel proud of yourself
and if you make it with enough flavor,
your family will be happy too.

(31:22):
Mm-Hmm. . Okay.
They might complain if you don't.
And you know, let's get offof Italian for a second.
What is a great way for people
to make fish? That we often do?
- Oh, the salmon with the miso.
- Miso glaze. Yeah.- Yep. Yep. That's a good one. Very
- Easy.
- Yeah. It's, um,- Yeah, we gotta put that on the site.
We gotta put the fish withthe glaze on the site.

(31:43):
- Don't we use like avariation of Jacques Papa?
- They're all very similar recipe.
They're all, I think they allkind of come from Maori moto.
Um, Mm-Hmm. ,the original Iron
- Chef. The, the Nobu
- Style.
Yeah. No Nobu. I think everythingkind of comes from him.
Mm-Hmm. . Well Idon't know if that's the case.
He popularized and sincehe was on the Iron Chef,

(32:06):
basically all of the cooks nowwho were doing similar stuff,
it all kind of, uh, comes from
- Him.
Another ingredient itemthat I have listed to kind
of maybe stock up on whenyou're trying to stick
to your new resolutions would be chicken.
Because there's so manydifferent ways that you can
make chicken, whether it's chicken breasts

(32:27):
or whole chicken or chicken parts.
Um, so what are some ofthe recipes that come
to your mind on how to makelike, kind of like a, a quick
but healthy-ish type of meal? Okay,
- So the, the whole chickensbaked chicken with potatoes
or chicken vesuvio, thosearen't exactly quick.
They're not, yeah. They're not quick.
And depending on how quicklyyou could break down a

(32:48):
chicken, they're not too quick.
You gotta dry it off.
'cause if you don't dryit off, your chicken will
steam and then it won't look good.
It won't look like thepictures that, you know,
you'll see on my site oron other people's sites
where it's beautiful coloron the chicken simple dish
that's healthy would be the chicken
with cherry tomatoes and capers.
- I'm so glad you said that. Yeah,
because that's exactlywhat I was thinking.

(33:09):
- It's so good too. Yeah.- Yeah. That's a,
- It's like five ingredients. That's
- Like Angie's creation. Yeah.
- Five ingredients. Right. Ithink she has a couple more.
I kind of like alwaystry to simplify dishes
as much as possible.
Mm-Hmm. do that for you.
I, but I don't wanna lose any flavor.
So there's a little bit of an art to it.

(33:30):
I'm not doing anything byhaving 37 ingredients in it
that's gonna turn you off.
You're not gonna make it.And I do want you to make it.
There's other people on YouTubeand TikTok that will have 37
or 47 ingredients in their food.
And that is simply to impress you.
They know you're not gonna make it.
They're doing it strictlyfor entertainment.

(33:52):
I actually want you tomake this food. Mm-Hmm.
. And most peopleare not gonna want to have,
have that many ingredients.
- That's one of the bestweeknight chicken dishes
that we have is the, thecapers cherry tomatoes.
I think there's a littlebit, there's, there's garlic,
like there's a littlebit of white wine in it.
- Olive oil- And olive oil.
And it's so easy and it's so good.

(34:14):
- It's the ca the caper vinegar.
If you wanna make it alittle bit more complex,
you could finish it with cold butter
too, but you don't have to.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Super simple.
We'll link that one. You canget that one done quickly.
- Do you have any other healthy-ish
before we we move on to the next?
- Uh, no. For chicken you mean?

(34:35):
- No, for, for anything.'cause I think we're,
- I think we, I think we got a good, yeah.
We did a good amount. Yeah. Yeah.
- Okay. Yeah. Alright,
why don't we move into questions then.
Sure. Jim, this questioncomes from Sue. Hey Jim.
What can we expect fromSip and Feast in 2024?
Um, that's a little bitof a broad question.
- Well, Sue is her name. Yeah.
So Sue, I am going to continue to push

(34:58):
into different areas with the food.
It's not just going to, it'snot gonna always be Italian
and Italian American.
That being said, since wehave the book coming up,
I can't abandon that.
All right. I, it's like our core,
everything we built here was because of,
because of that type of food.

(35:18):
But would I like to dosay a Mongolian beef?
The answer is yes. What I liketo do a good pork fried rice.
Like how you get it at aNew York Chinese place.
The answer's yes. Maybea beef and broccoli.
Jim, stop talking aboutChinese food. Okay.
Well maybe a good butter chickenfrom an Indian restaurant.

(35:40):
Teka Masala. Maybe a really good
kebab from one of those places.
Maybe a really good, uh,
- What about a schnitzel- Schnitzel or Guro
- Ro- Ro ro, I'm trying to think what else.
Not gonna be a sushi chef.
I think I said that in aprevious couple episodes ago.
That's not gonna happen. You know,
we already talked about the folly of Thor.

(36:02):
Gunderson being the sushichef in Minnesota. ,
- His name, his name changes
and every time you say it.
- What other foods would you think, Tara,
besides the ones I mentioned
that are not Italian that we should do?
sio. That's a Greek one. Yeah,
- I think maybe- Saka,
- Maybe doing some, some American food.

(36:25):
Like, I don't know, like
- A burger.
- A burger is somethingthat I think we're missing
and we need to get that on the website.
- It's such a fine line.
Like I try to get the most,
make it look the d most delicious
as possible in picture formand in the videos we make,
but at the same time make itlook like, and it's the truth.

(36:47):
I'm not making anythingthat I'm actually cooking in
a small environment on a portable burner
because having it superelaborate, good food,
if I have a professionalkitchen that's not selling it,
I don't think that's telling you,
oh yeah, Jim can make good food.
He's got a $28,000 range in back of him.

(37:08):
No, I'm cooking on a $45portable butane burner. Yeah.
That's kind of theu thatwe're trying to go for.
Yeah. And that's the truth though.
- So anything elsefolks can expect from us
in, in the new year?
Honestly, I, I think we don'teven know where we're gonna
finish at the end of theyear. Right? I mean, look at,

(37:29):
- Yeah, Brett, it couldbe breads and stuff,
but I don't know if they'rety if they're gonna be what
will work so well on YouTube.
We always wanna try new things.
And the great thing about expanding into,
into these other areas is
that it just opens up the doors so much.
We're gonna, we're gonna dosome more French recipes.
There's a Cale that I wanna do.

(37:51):
Oh, I wanna do a bunch of, uh, German, uh,
like the sour brought for Oktoberfest.
Mm-Hmm. , all that stuff.
Well, maybe we'll do maybean Irish one or two, though.
We already did a few of 'em.
I'm sure I'm missing something
that is like super obvious to you.
But the, the bottom lineis we we're gonna keep, oh,
we're gonna do a good chickensandwich, show you how

(38:11):
to do a real good fried chicken sandwich
on a portable burner.
- If there's anything that you want us
to make in 2024, send us an email
and, and let us know.
- Yeah. Let us know. And also,
if you haven't done this already,
give this podcast a five starrating that really helps us.

(38:33):
In addition to that, subscribeto the podcast on Apple
or Spotify, not just here on YouTube.
Okay. Do it there too.
That will help it, it will increase,
it'll push up our rating, our rankings,
and then it will make us one step closer
to taking over the planet inthe food podcast industry.
, because I don'tknow what else you listen to,

(38:54):
but you know, we have beenchecking out some other podcasts,
uh, food podcasts
and really kind of like,we, we don't find anything
that's similar to what we're doing here.
Mm-Hmm. , a lot
of them are kind of city focused.
Manhattan, you know, like hipster focused,
like what's going on inthat type of food scene?
That's completely not what we're about.
So those are not like, that'sjust not what we're doing.

(39:17):
We, we are trying to look
for other ones that are similar to us.
And you can let us know that too.
But that will give usinspiration to kind of know
where we wanna push this podcast.
Like which way we wanna do it. Mm-Hmm.
where wedon't have any guests yet.
We're not sure about guests.
We're in a big area here, big room.
We could do it, but then
that would add a lot more complexity
where we'd probably needhelp like a producer.

(39:39):
And we like to keep things very intimate.
Just, just the two of us heretalking into these cameras.
We could do remote people like, uh,
remote filming, like a zoom call.
Mm-Hmm. .But my fear there is
that the audio won't be good.
- Yeah. That's always a possibility
- That that's, that's a problem.
The, the really like, um,

(40:00):
big budget podcasts when they have guests
and you say the audio sounds great,
what they do is they actuallysend one of these mics.
Mm-Hmm. ,this mic costs $400.
They send and then with a stand
and they'll even send like,like a camera ,
they'll send it all to them
and they'll show them,give them instructions.
Mm-Hmm. or theirproducer will help 'em set it
up because they want it to be good

(40:21):
and they can't rely onthe person having kind
of a crappy mic or whatnot.
So these are all thingsthat we really haven't been,
we don't know if we wanna do. So yeah,
- I'm still kind of toe in the water.
Okay, one more question.This is from Max Jim.
This is the year I'mgifting myself an outdoor
wood-fired pizza oven.
Your pizza recipes areall on the pizza steel.

(40:44):
Do you think you'll ever create recipes
for outdoor pizza ovens?
And if not, can I just adapt your recipes
to be used outside?
- So Max, this is a greatquestion. So here's the deal.
We get a lot of questions about this,
and the pizza recipes onYouTube never took off the way
that they did for say, other YouTubers.

(41:06):
Like Brian Latrom has YouTube pizza videos
that have millions of views
and there's the Adam Ragus ragusa
that have millions of views.
And, and then there's likethis guy veto a capelli.
I know I'm saying hisname wrong, that he just
has a pizza channel.
So our pizza videosnever took off that way.
That being said, they, we get a ton

(41:27):
of comments on the site and questions.
So people are coming to our website.
'cause I think all three of those people
that I just mentioned don't have websites.
They don't have. So people like, they're,
they're watching thosevideos and they're like, oh,
I can't really understand how to do it.
So then they come over to us
and they see like all thephotos and how to do it.
So one of the common questionsthat we get often is,

(41:47):
can I use a different type of flower?
So I don't really wannaget too complex here,
but if you're gonna use a caputo flour,
like the blue bag, Ithink order a red bag.
Those are both for wood-fired ovens.
So, which are like 900 degree ovens.
You wouldn't wanna use thatflour and do it on my pizza.

(42:07):
And conversely, you wouldn'twanna take my pizza dough
and do it on an outside w wood-fired oven.
You really wanna beusing the correct dough
for the correct application.
- That is a question that weget asked all the time. Yeah.
Is can I use this flour? This flour?
Because I think youuse bread flour, right?
- I use King Arthur bread flour. Yeah.
That is the most accessibleflour in the country.

(42:31):
Bread flour in the country.I did that for a reason.
The, the, the flour that is used
by New York Pizza Pizzeriais almost universally is
what Tara do You
- Know, all trumps.
- All trumps, okay. That'sa General Mills product.
I believe. I think it's General Mills.
It's all Trump's flour.
And that's a higher protein content than

(42:54):
King Arthur's bread flour.
Okay. It's like it's higher.So it gives you more of a chew.
I didn't use that becauseI knew people were gonna
have a problem getting it.
That's why the same reasonI'm definitely not gonna use
something that's more obscure.
Mm-Hmm. . It just
disenfranchises too many people.
That's why I don't uselike Wagyu in my steak vois

(43:15):
video. Yeah. You know, stuff like that.
- So Jim, so to answer partof this question though,
do you think you'll ever create recipes
for outdoor pizza ovens?
- Yes. If I do use an outdoor pizza oven,
but again, the outdoor pizzaoven that I use, max is going
to be probably an uni,which is a $400 pizza oven.
I'm not gonna be cookingif I, even if I have a 10,

(43:37):
if I put a $10,000 pizzaoven in my backyard,
which I don't have, I'm notgonna be like, Hey guys, come
outside to my $10,000 pizza oven
and let me show you howto make pizza like me.
Who the heck is that gonnahelp? Like 12 people? You know?
So I would have to make sure
that the recipe I'm givenis made for a product
that is accessible to a sizableportion of the audience.

(44:02):
Again, that's just how I operate.
Other people don't operate that way.
Again, we're all from an instr,it's all instruction here.
It that the thing, it's notabout entertainment though.
We wanna be entertaining.
It's like if I was justmaking YouTube videos,
if I was like one of thosepeople that I mentioned
and just making YouTubevideos, which is all they do,
then I would treat my contentmore in a different way.

(44:26):
I would try to make itmore entertaining. Mm-Hmm.
, you know?Yeah. For a recipe website,
people are only comingthere for one thing.
- Instruction, instruction- For
- The recipe. They're notcoming to be entertained.
- They're not coming to be entertained.
So it's, it's, it, it doesn'twork then to be super, try
to be like, oh, I'm gonnabe this ultra flamboyant,
entertaining person and thenhave the continuity won't be

(44:46):
there between the YouTubevideos and the site.
And it's really important to me
that continuity is always there.
- I think that's a good answer.
- I tried my best.- Plus I think if we , if we were
to create a recipe thatwould, in, that would mean
that we would have toinvest in one of those
expensive outdoor ovens.

(45:06):
- Almost did it. We weregonna do, when we used
to do sponsors, we don't do 'em anymore.
Doesn't mean we won'tdo 'em in the future,
but we were going to try to do one with,
there's like uni rocka box.There's a couple brands.
- Well, yeah, I'm talkinglike the, the, I think the one
that Max is talking about.
He says he's gifting himself an outdoor
wood fired pizza oven.

(45:26):
- Yeah. He's talking- About an expensive oven.
I think he's talkingabout an expensive oven.
So we'd have to, we'd haveto invest and do that.
And I think, honestly, I thinkthe only way that we would do
that is if somebody came to us
and said, Hey, I'll build this for you.
- It still would disenfranchise
the audience because I know they,
- They they can't. Yeah,
- You're right.

(45:47):
They can't make it on that. You're right.
That's the problem. You're right, max.
There's plenty of people thoughthat are, that do have one
of those expensive ovens
and I think the one you'retalking about is probably one
of the ones that is on wheels
that weighs about five to 600 pounds.
I've seen them, they go for about two
to $10,000 depending on the brand.
Some of them are from Italy,some of them are from China.
Um, they're great products.All of 'em. They all work well.

(46:11):
Uh, it's something verycool about having one
of those wood-fired ovens
because, you know, you canleave your fire for hours
and then you can get it lit again
by putting some more logs in and,
and you could cook anytype of food in there too.
It doesn't just have tobe pizza. Yeah. Yeah.
Hope that answered your question Max.
Leave your questions [e-mail].

(46:34):
Tyre got anything to saybefore we head out? Happy
- New Year.
- Happy New Year everyone.Thanks for watching.
We will see you allthrough 2024 and beyond.