Podcast 37 – The 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Cooking

The old adage "hindsight is 20/20" couldn’t be more true when it comes to cooking. There are so many things I had to learn the hard way and rather than gatekeep that knowledge, I’m here to share with you the 10 things I wish I knew when I started cooking. Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/d3q_JlwNDJw Mise en place While my list of things I wish I knew goes beyond just 10 items, I will say that there is one tip that comes first and foremost. Mise en place, or the preparation and arrangement of ingredients before cooking is crucial to success. It allows you to be better organized so you can efficiently cook like a pro. This is a concept that’s taught in culinary school, but you don’t need to be a classically trained chef to do this at home.  At the start of every YouTube video I go over my ingredients, my mise en place, and this allows me to effectively demonstrate how to prepare the food. In this episode we discuss the importance of mise en place along with other cooking tips I wish I knew before I started cooking. Topics include the importance of keeping a clean kitchen, how to use stainless steel pans, rolling citrus to maximize juice, why pasta water is an essential ingredient, and how reading a recipe through to the end can make a difference. Top tips In almost every recipe post I include a "Top tips" section that addresses the needs tips specific to that recipe, and often I'll include the tips we talk about in this episode. If you've been following along with our recipes, you're likely familiar with the top tips section and I hope have found them useful! I encourage you to peruse the top tips section whenever making one of my recipes as you'll find bits of info there that can really help elevate your recipes! Resources Beef Bourguignon recipe Italian lentil soup recipe Prime rib recipe Buffalo wings recipe If you enjoyed the 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Cooking 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):
- Welcomeback to the SIP podcast,
episode number 37.
The 10 things I Wish I knewwhen I started cooking.
Tara . I mean, itmight be 11, it might be 11.
- It might be a little bit more than that.
- Okay. Because- I continued to add to it. You
- Did?

(00:20):
Yeah. You know, I'm gonnamiss some really obvious ones.
I'm sure to you we tried to like get ones.
Uh, I think most of theseare fairly important,
and you might know all ofthem, but you might not.
And I definitely didn't know these for

(00:41):
many years, so,
- And some of them we hadto learn the hard way.
- Yeah.- Trial and error.
- Absolutely. Mm-Hmm. . So,
I think this is a reallygood idea for an episode.
I'm glad that my wife came up with it
because she comes up withsome really good ideas.
I thought this was a greatone, you know? Thanks.
You know, it's funny, likeevery time you think you have a

(01:02):
good idea, you, you, you Googleyour idea, like you Google
your headline and notjust one person had it.
There's like three pages of
your actual headline.
Mm-Hmm. .It's the same thing.
Goes for recipes no matter what. Yeah.
Recipe you have, no matterwhat flavor combination

(01:25):
you think, you thinkyou're being like, new
and interesting and authentic.
You're not. And then yougot a whole epidemic of, um,
butt hurt content, uh, creators.
Cooks who think that, oh,this person stole my recipe.
And it's like, you stoleyour recipe .

(01:45):
And that the person you stole it from,
stole it from somebody 50 years ago.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Mm-Hmm. . There just isn't.
- Same thing with music too,
but that's not what thispodcast is about, is it?
- No.- So the first one on the list, actually,
a listener had sent thisin as a recommendation

(02:07):
for something for us to talk about.
Um, and I responded back to him
and I said, I said,that's such a great tip.
We're gonna talk aboutit in a podcast episode
where we talk about all the things
that we wish we knewwhen we started cooking.
What is the number onething you wish you knew
when you started cooking thattook you maybe years to learn?

(02:29):
- My number one tip for
not destroying your kitchen
is Meen Plus. Did I say that right?
- I think so. Or maybe it's misin place. I've heard, heard.
I think it's, I've heardit, I've heard it both ways.
- Yeah. So Meen plus you, basically,
when you're doing a recipe, ifit calls for a medium onion,

(02:50):
diced, if it calls for eightcoves of garlic minced,
if it calls for a pound ofmushroom sliced, make sure
you do that all, allyou're prepping in advance,
and ideally put 'em in bowls, containers,
it will make cooking amillion times easier.
Yeah. It, it really will make things
so much easier for your cooking.

(03:12):
- It really will. And I'm actually,
Sammy's gonna probably beupset, not that she listens
to our podcast, but she's gonna be upset
that I'm mentioning her here.
But she is 15 years old.
She's been baking actuallysince she was 12 or so.
But the one thing thatshe still doesn't do
that we keep telling her,you really should do this,

(03:33):
it'll make your life easier,is that when she's baking,
like let's say she'smaking muffins, she'll go
to the cabinet and takeout the flour she needs,
puts it in the bowl, thenshe'll go to the cabinet
and take out the cinnamon
that she needs and put it in the bowl.
Then she'll melt thebutter, or Yeah, whatever.
She does it kind of piecemeal.

(03:55):
Whereas I'm like, you shouldjust set up all the ingredients
you need, measure them all out,
and then you can just dump as you go.
- Definitely. I mean,
and it's not like, it's,
it's probably more importantwhen you're cooking
because temperature and, youknow, say you're doing a saute,
and I mean, God, if you'redoing Chinese food, forget it.

(04:16):
Everything is at ultra high heat. Yeah.
- You need it all there.- It's 100% essential.
But, you know, the term mis
and plus is a Frenchterm, obviously, but Yeah.
Even with baking, it's just,
it's such a pain to do it the other way.
It's, uh, and I get it. I getwhy Sammy, you know, she's 15.
She, she doesn't know yet. Yeah. I
- Didn't a know to do it a time too.
- Yeah. Took me a long time.

(04:38):
You know, you could get away with it.
If you have like a very large kitchen
and you have the ability to put like,
multiple cutting boards, youcould probably work as you go,
but it's just better todo it all in advance.
And that's why I do it in advance.
And then when we start the cooking videos,
I have everything laidout and I go over it.
That's when I do my ingredientmonologue that Tara,

(05:00):
and maybe you are so impressedthat I can do it with, uh,
only one run, sometimes two.
- That is impressive. Sometimes
- Two, right.
- Sometimes two. But it isimpressive that you're able to,
to do that monologue andit's not scripted or, or
- Anything.
I made the recipe the weekbefore, so that helps. Yeah.
And then I also am likein the recipe card a lot,
like perfecting it.

(05:21):
Mm-Hmm. . So Ikind of, so you're familiar
- With what's there, butthat, I mean, I think
that even if you are familiar with it,
it takes a certain typeof person to be able to
speak to all that on camera.
- Yeah. No, I mean, that's,that's the formula anyway
that we practice and wedo practice that formula.
So the cooking videos arevery instructional for you.

(05:44):
- The number two thingyou wish you would've
known when you started cooking.
- Okay. This one goes kindof hand in hand with the mis
and plus this is clean as you go.
So if you work in a Frenchrestaurant, they will
obviously, and all restaurants do meas,
and plus they have to, there'severything in a restaurant

(06:05):
needs to be made in avery short period of time.
The only way that it canbe made in a short period
of time is to have everythingmade prepped in advance.
Mm-Hmm. . It'svery, very much like that.
But the cleaning, whether it's, you know,
a good restaurant willprobably, you know, really
be hovering over all,
all the different people in the kitchen,

(06:26):
making sure they keep aclean, clean work area.
Mm-Hmm. . But it's essential.
It, it just is like,there's nothing worse than
to let dishes pile up in the sink.
Mm-Hmm. dirt and everything.
Get on your cutting board
and around on your, on yourisland or your counter.
So I always keep one wet rag. Mm-Hmm.
, you could do atiny bit of bleach with that,

(06:47):
you know, you could have likea bucket, bucket of water
with a tiny bit of bleach diluted.
And then, oh, then Ikeep a dry, a dry cloth,
multiple dry cloths, andthe dry cloths can be used
for grabbing tot stuff outta the oven.
I typically will use my wetrag to wipe everything down.
Then I'll just use a dry oneto, you know, get to dry it.
- And one of the reasons tokeep a clean sink is if you need

(07:09):
to like, rinse something,
or if you need to drain po,
like I know we don'tusually use the strainer
to drain pasta, but if you,if you are using that Yeah.
And you need to strain something,
you want your sink to be clear.
Absolutely. That's an important part of,
of preparing food. Yes.
- Everything, the waterwill come up and then Yep.
You know, it could be junkywater and it's just not good.

(07:29):
- Yeah. Just keep it as clean as you can.
And if you have a dishwasher,you can certainly,
before you even start cookinge if the dishwasher was run
the day before, empty it,get it completely empty,
and just start putting things in there.
Absolutely. As as you go. All right.
Up next, this tip is something
that we talked about in aprevious podcast episode

(07:50):
where we were talking about,uh, different types of pans.
But this tip is the hot pan cold oil tip
that took me
until I was in my forties to learn.
- Yeah. So hot pan cold oil is
essential if you're going to cook, um,

(08:11):
if you're gonna use a stainless pan,
if you are using anon-stick, it doesn't matter.
So non-stick you, youcan put your oil down,
you can heat up your pan, letit get hot, add your stuff in.
But with a stainless you haveto, or everything will stick.
And then you'll neverwanna use stainless again.
So that's, uh, we spoke aboutthis in multiple episodes.

(08:35):
We just did a whole pots and pan episode
and spoke about it again.
But I have a feeling that thereis a large portion of people
that use stainless a few times
and give it up for nota year, but for decades.
Yeah. That was me. Andmaybe never to return.
- That was me. Yeah. UntilI learned your trick,
which actually we had,um, somebody write in
and tell us that she justheard that tip and tried it.

(08:58):
And now stainless is her go-to, yep. Yep.
- Awesome.- Okay.
And we're running throughthese kind of quickly. Yeah.
So we can get to all of them.The next one, Jim, applies to
making soups and chilies.
What would you do to soups, chilies,
and some other foods tomake them so much better?

(09:21):
- So to make soups and chiliesa meal and stews and stews
and all that stuff, that islike a bunch of stuff in a pot.
It just put it in the fridge,make it in a dutch oven,
put the cover on, let it cool,
then put it in yourrefrigerator one night.
It will be a milliontimes better the next day.

(09:42):
If you do two nights,it'll be even better.
The flavors just come together.
That's, and I'll give you an example why,
how, how you can know this.
You can make, like any stew,you can make a beef stew,
you can make beef bergen.
Ya. You can make lentil soup, taste it.
No matter how much you season it, you,
there'll be something missing.

(10:02):
You'll be like, ah, just stop there.
Don't even add anything else to it.
Put it in the refrigerator overnight.
Taste it the next morning you'll be like,
wow, what happened here?
Just time. That's all that happened.
And it's done with Indianfood all the time. Mm-Hmm.
. Okay. That'swhy like that, those,
all those pots of sauces,
those things have beengoing for like days.

(10:23):
So they put 'em in the pan and the taste
and the flavors just amazing.
But if you try to make Indian food all
like an hour before andyou're gonna eat it.
Yeah. The things, the flavorsdon't melt enough. Yeah.
They don't come together enough.
- Something's gonna bemissing if you do that.
Yeah, for sure. I agree.
The next thing that you wishyou would've known when you

(10:44):
started cooking relates to stock.
What do you have to say about stock
beef? Stock chicken stock.
- So beef stock, chicken stock are great.
They're phenomenal. But, you know, prac,
practically speaking, a lot of,
you're not gonna have itall the time in your house.
You can make stocks and youcan ultra concentrate 'em.

(11:04):
So you can store a lot
of them in a small space in your freezer.
But you still have toremember to have done it.
You can use the Instapot
and you can do a quick stock,you know, relatively quickly.
But you can just take the easy way out
and it'll be 90% is good,better than bullion,
beef, chicken base.
Or they even have like vegetable base

(11:25):
and other ones Awesome product.
- Yeah. In fact, which,what video were we in?
Where I taste tested your homemade
- Stuff.
The prime rib. The primerib. You said that. Yeah.
- The O oou- Is
- Yeah.
Was better with thebetter than Bullon gun.
Your homemade, which thatwas like disproving our,
we were trying to prove our point
that homemade is better, but

(11:46):
- .
Well I was also proving to you
that our videos aren't scripted.
- They're- Not, you know, they're not, I mean,
you could easily tell in that video,
video it's the end of the video.
I had had my one made with homemade stock
and then I had the one in the video.
The one I made was withthe better than bullion.
Tara gave that one a better rating.
I disagree, but it wasn'twhat I thought of it.

(12:08):
It was what she thought ofit. Mm-Hmm. .
So those are awesome.I recommend you use the
beef and the chicken base.
Costco is your friend there?
The bottles, the jars are much larger.
I believe that a jar in Costco is about
$8, maybe 10.
And the large jars, you getprobably about a hundred cups

(12:28):
of stock from it versus, sothink about this, $10 for that.
You get a hundred cups of stockversus you buy a box stock
in the store, it's fourto $6 for four cups.
- The box stocks.
I have not found a boxed stock
that tastes good.
No, they taste bad. They all taste bad.

(12:49):
- I think the reasonthey taste bad is they
can't think about it.
Like it's not, they can't constant,
it's not concentratedenough. Yeah. It's, they're
- Very thin.
It's thin. I was gonnasay, it's very thin.
It doesn't taste rich.
It's just not, and justdoesn't taste good. You would,
- You would think that thebrands who do that would like,
at a minimum put a lotof gelatin into it to try

(13:10):
to simulate that taste.
- Maybe the ones that labelthemselves as bone broths do.
I haven't tasted any of those. Yeah.
But I don't know, I have not found one
that I'm impressed with at all.
Yeah. Up next, Jim, next thing
I personally wish I would've known
when I first started cookingthat it took me also years

(13:30):
to learn, was that youshould use a kitchen scale.
Oh, they're super cheap.
And if you are a baker specifically,
or if you're going to make bread,
or if you are going to makepizza dough, anything like
that, you should be using a kitchen scale
and you should be going by weight instead
of volume when it comes to baking.

(13:52):
I think when it comes tocooking totally different,
you can elaborate on this
because I know you haveyour whole, I mean,
feeling on it. So
- I agree with what Tara's saying.
Cooking in general is, I think it's better
to stay with volumetricmeasurements, which is how,
how people in the UnitedStates of America do things,

(14:13):
which is very cra crazy toeverybody else in the world.
But yeah. Having, having ascale for baked goods, you know,
knowing how to like zeroit out, you know, to tear.
But in TARE, uh, it just,just so easy to do things
because you get it perfect.
- And not only that, it's actually easier.
So let's say you're gonnamake banana bread, right?

(14:36):
And you're measuring your dry ingredients.
You put your bowl on the, on the scale,
and you need, you know, twocups of flour. Let's say you
- A cup of flour measured bya regular person is about 120
to a hundred hundred 30 grams. Okay.
- So just for the sake of this example,
let's say you need 120grams of flour, right?

(14:59):
You put your bowl on the scale you measure
until it's one 20, then you need sugar.
Instead of going and puttingyour sugar in a different bowl
and measuring it, youjust tear the, the scale.
Yeah. And then you add the
sugar directly into the bowl Yeah.
With the flour. Yep. Itjust makes it easier. Yep.
Because you're putting everything into

(15:19):
one bowl. And if you watch,
- Explain, I don't know if people are
getting exactly what you're saying.
So what she means is, if,so say she needed 130 grams
of flour, first thingyou do is you put your
bowl on the scale.
Mm-Hmm. , youhit tear, that zeroes it out.
So that means when you addthe flour in, you're gonna,
once it gets to the number one 30 mm-Hmm.
. As long asyour unit is in grams. Yeah.
Then you have a, thenyou have exactly one 30,

(15:41):
then you hit tear again.
- Again, and it zeroes
- Out.
It zeroes that out again.Mm-Hmm. .
And now she could put inwhatever else she needs.
So say she only needs10 grams of something,
then it will be 10.
It'll say 10. Then shecan zero that out. Mm-Hmm.
- . That's right. And
- Provided the recipeallows you to combine.
And most baking recipes will combine
the dry ingredients like that.

(16:02):
- So Yeah.
For the most part, I mean,if you're making cookies,
you would cream the sugarand the, and the butter.
Yeah. But I was just using this as Yep.
For illustrative purposes.
- Yeah. And it's, it's great.I mean, it, it, it really is.
Now as far as the, what shewas saying about cooking in
general, so I have a, I don't think that

(16:24):
it's, I'm trying to say this in a way
that's not gonna be offending to people,
everybody else in the world
besides people in the United States.
It's just that certainthings don't lend themselves
to gram measurements very well.
So very low amounts of things.
Like if I say three tablespoonsof parsley, fresh parsley,

(16:46):
how many grams is that Tara?
- Five? I don't know.
- I don't know either. It'sprobably about eight. Okay.
Okay. It's very, very light ingredient.
It's not gonna weigh well on your scale,
but everybody knowswhat three tablespoons.
Everybody in the United Statesknows what three tablespoons
of parsley's gonna look like.
Mm-Hmm. . That's one example.
Same thing would be likeeven using like black

(17:07):
pepper or something like that.
If you, if black pepper,basically a teaspoon
of black pepper is gonna be about four
grams, three grams. Yeah.
- Like how would youmeasure a quarter? It's hard
- To measure these little bits. How
- Would you measure a quarterteaspoon of, of something
that would be really hard to measure.
- You wouldn't get anaccurate measurement. Yeah.
That's why you're betteroff knowing what a quarter,
like what that is.

(17:28):
- Yeah. Volume- Is. So it's almost like the superior way
of cooking would be knowing the volumetric
measurements, what they look like.
Mm-Hmm. . But then also using
the grand measurements.
Yeah. Now let's talk about cooking.
Where gram measurements are really good.
So we just did the buffalowings and we did the prime rib.
And so the prime rib
and buffalo wings both worked off of the

(17:48):
dry brine principle.
Okay. So that means you'reputting salt on them,
putting them in the fridge overnight.
Osmosis, uh, happens.
So the salt goes in, watercomes up, it goes back down,
it goes up, down, up, down.
And it just makes itjuicy. The meat juicy.
And typically you would wannago at about a one to one
and a half percent ratio of salt.

(18:10):
That's what you wanna do.
You wanna make sure you'redoing the weight volume.
You know, you might,
might over salt it, you might mess it up.
But if you know that you'regonna do say a 1.25%, uh,
salt ratio, it doesn'tmatter what salt you use.
Okay? If you use diamond kosher, you know,
diamond crystal kosher.

(18:30):
If you use morden's,kosher, if you use, uh,
ultra fine sea salt,if you use table salt,
it doesn't matter.
Okay. Because it's goingby weights. Mm-Hmm.
that's where it,
where you can still get the same results.
So if you had 4,000 gramsof meat, then you would,

(18:50):
if you were gonna do 1.25%,you would have 50 grams
of salt.
That's where the weightreally helps you. Mm-Hmm.
. So if somebodygives you a tablespoon amount,
do that person specify what salt it was?
Yeah. What kind? Becauseif you didn't, then
that's a big difference.
You know, it's diamond kosheris takes up half diamond

(19:12):
crystal takes up halfthe volume of table salt.
Mm-Hmm, . Okay. Yeah.
So like, weight wisetakes up half the volume.
So these are simple things,but you gotta commit 'em.
Like you gotta know 'em.
Or this is like a kindof how to read a recipe.
Did we even talk about how
to read a recipe in here? That should be
- One of 'em.
I have it. I have it later. Okay.
- Later on. Okay. We'll get to that.

(19:32):
All right, let's go to the next one. Take
- Your meat out of the fridge.
Before, like, before using it.Yeah. In adv, I should say.
Not before you. Of course you'regonna take your meat outta
the fridge before you cook with it. No,
- I mean, listen, I, I spoke about it.
- No, you're not gonna,no, I know you're not
gonna cook with it in the fridge.
That's what I'm saying. Oh yeah.
- You take- Your fridge out, like take it
out ahead of time.
Like before, I don't know what an hour

(19:55):
before let it kind of warm up.
You don't wanna be using,working with cold meat, right?
- I don't want to- Or chilled meat, I should say.
- I definitely don't want to,and I'll give you an example.
We'll stick on the, we'llstay with the prime rib.
So if you take a primerib, a big, you know,
let's say an eight pound primerib out of the refrigerator,
a refrigerator's 44 degreesFahrenheit, roughly,
your refrigerator might be 45.

(20:16):
Take it outta the refrigerator.
It's gonna take x amount oftime. This is just simple math.
There's, you know, youcould do an equation for it.
It's gonna take a certainamount of time for,
to gain a degree based on theroom temperature being say
70, 70 degrees.
Okay? Which is an average roomtemperature for most homes.
It will, as it warms up, itwill be less time that you have

(20:36):
to put it in the oven.
And the temperature willstart to equalize the exterior
and the interior together.
You know, you can't reallygo past a certain amount.
The FDDA says then it's not safe.
Like, you're not gonnaleave a primary rib about
for 24 hours before cooking it.
But, you know, if you do a couple
hours, it, it will be better.
Uh, I, I tend to like leaveit about like three or four
and that that'll, uh,really, really help you.

(21:00):
Like, now I spoke about this,
I believe in a previous episode.
America's test kitchen did a frozen steak.
And they said it likecomes out just as good.
And, uh, Ethan Chapsky,he did, um, a video on it
and I think he said it was good.
So I was all excited and Idid it. And it was horrible.

(21:20):
The steak, you know, you, you had it.
And, uh, there's a reasonwhy steakhouses do not
cook frozen steaks.
And it doesn't justhave to do with timing.
They just don't come as good.
So, yeah, I trust me on this,
or actually don't trust me on this.
Go buy like an $80 porterhouse

(21:43):
and freeze one and then leave.
Let the other one, you know,take it outta the fridge
when it's thawed room temperature
and you beat a judgeon which one is better.
It's not even close and not even close.
So take out the meat, it'llhelp with everything. Mm-Hmm.
, you know,cooking. Take out the meat.

(22:04):
- Jim, have you eversliced a lemon, a lime,
an orange and nothing came out of it?
- Well, that's one of the most
frustrating things that happens.
- So what can you do?
- I heard if you roll it, like you take it
and you just roll it down the table.

(22:26):
- Mm-Hmm. - It will get juicy. You
- Heard?
Or you know, I mean, I'm, this is one
of my favorite kitchen tips
that I didn't know until I was older.
But yeah, you roll it
and I'm not, you don't justlike push it and let it
- Roll.
I was jo I was joking. Yeah.
- Okay. I was joking. I figured, you take your lemon
or your lime and youlike really, it's like,
almost like you're massaging it, you're

(22:48):
- Pressing it.
You gotta against, yougotta like force it into the
- Table.
Yeah. You're massaging itagainst the table or whatever.
Flat surface you're cuttingit on. Cutting board.
And what I like to do
after I roll it is I like torinse it, which I know we, you,
you are like anti rinsing things
for some reason we, I'm not,
- Look, I'm- No, no, no, no, no.
You are. I like to rinse my citrus fruit

(23:11):
before I slice into it.
'cause I don't know whotouched it before I did.
- A lot of people touched it. That
- Who Yes, exactly.
I, I don't want theircooties in my lemon juice.
So I will wash it, but I won'twash it under cold water.
I will run it under warm,warm water because the rolling
and the warm water is warming it up

(23:32):
and it's making it juicier inside.
I don't know the science behind it.
I'm sure there is science.
And that way when yousqueeze it, it's so juicy
and you get the mostout of it that you can
because there's nothing worsethan slicing into some citrus.
And it's like the Mojave desert.

(23:53):
- Yeah. You know what it is though?
Some citrus is just, nomatter how much you roll it,
it's gonna be, it doesn'thave a lot of juice.
That's another thing with recipe writing.
When they say the juice ofthe one lemon, it's not good
because first of all, onelemon could be, you know,
like the size of a orange almost.
Mm-Hmm. . Andthen another lemon could be the
size of a small wine.

(24:14):
- Yeah. It is better to, to,yeah. If you're writing a
- Recipe and, and I havestarted, I probably the last two
years I've been writingrecipes to reflect that.
So I'll say a table jutablespoon of lemon juice,
a fresh lemon juice, typical lemon.
Like an average lemon. Notlike a, a mutant lemon.
Like you'll get about two
to three tablespoons of juice from it.
Mm-Hmm. . But Tara's right.

(24:34):
If you roll it, you'll get more,
you'll get more juice out of it.
As far as washing goes. Yeah,you probably should do that.
I guess I always got in thehabit of not with the lemons,
and I would take like a paper towel,
like a little damp and just wipe it off.
'cause if I wanted zest
and it's wet, I feel like you can't,
you can't really zest it properly.
But I will say one, one type of produce

(24:56):
that I would alwayswash always are greens.
And specifically like herbs, like parsley,
cilantro, they're
- Loaded with dirt.
- Well, not just dirt, you know,you always hear about like,
you know, somebody could go like in,
you know, go to the bathroom.
Like a worker could just Yeah. Be going in
the bathroom. E coli,
- They- Could do a number one easily on a whole,

(25:19):
like a whole bunch of cilantro.
But they're not gonna do a number one on
lemons that are in a tree.
- Yeah, no, I know. Yeah.But, but no, I, all right.
When you first, that's what I'm saying,
when you first said it, eitheryou meant the, the people
who are picking it mayhave gone to the bathroom
and like maybe have not washed their hands
and then they're touching it. I think
- That's the least thingpeople need to worry about.
You need to worry aboutnot even just if a human

(25:40):
did a number one on it.
What happens if like aanimal did, you know?
- Well, I, I didn't eventhink of that. Yeah.
But anyway, I, you should,
you should watch all your produce.
- Let me tell you, like, Iwatch them what you watch.
I recommend you watch videosof how you, the produce
that we buy is packaged.
If you do watch thesevideos, you will probably,

(26:01):
I don't know, you'll probablybe washing your stuff for,
for a half an hour before you'll eat it.
Because like I saw it, they were just,
they have like a bagger
and then the, the, the workers,
they just grab it out of the ground.
Mm-Hmm. . I'm nottalking about in a, in a hot,
in a greenhouse or anything.
They were like in afield, grab the lettuce,
go walk up, push it in the bag.

(26:21):
The bagger goes like thisand closes it. Oh yeah.
- Like, well, yeah, that, okay.So you should be washing it.
- The triple wash doesn't help
either. Remember that frog that
- We wrote?
Yeah, we talked about thatin the previous episode.
There was a frog in atriple wash bag of spinach.
The next thing that you wishyou knew when you started
cooking Pasta water.
- Pasta water. Okay.Pasta water. Really good.

(26:42):
Um, to obviously emulsify
a sauce because a starchy pastawater will help you do that.
It will also help you thin it.
So I'm gonna give you two examples.
And somebody just asked me, uh,
messaged me on Instagram today too.
They said like, how can you use it
to thin it has too much salt in it?
Well, you don't wanna likemake your salt pasta water,

(27:04):
like the sea, like is a bad trope
that constantly gets said Mm-Hmm.
, you reallydon't. The sea level's 3.5%,
4% salinity, um, way too much salt.
You don't want that. Youwant about one, 1%, one
and a quarter, maybe onepoint a half percent.
That amount of sodium'sfine to thin with it.
It'll increase the saltinessa little bit of your pasta,

(27:25):
but you're adding more liquid to it too.
So, you know, it's not,
it's not like you'retaking salt in a salt like
pinching salt and throwing it on.
You're adding liquid to to it as well.
And that's when it'll help.
So whenever you remove the pasta,
I always recommend you use aspider to do it instead of, uh,
and I don't like the inserts
because they're impossible to clean.

(27:46):
But just a spider, grab your pasta out,
keep the whole hot potof pasta water there,
and then use as much asyou need to emulsify.
And then if you're waiting,you know, you know, the reality
of cooking for your familyis not everybody will get
to the dinner table when you want
them to get to the dinner table.
They might be working onsomething for five minutes.

(28:06):
So just take a littlebit more pasta water,
loosen it up again.
So it's magic. It really is.
It's, and people go so faras to save their pasta water,
which I think is silly
because I'm just gonnahave more pasta water the
next time I make pasta.
- Exactly. I don't thinkyou need to save it,
but it is good if youare going to make, like,
let's say you're cooking for yourself.
You're a single person andyou are making a whole pound
of pasta with the intentto have leftovers.

(28:28):
You can definitely save the pasta water.
And then when you go to reheatit the next day for lunch,
add a little bit of the pasta water to it
to reconstitute it.
Especially if it's a cream sauce. Yeah.
- Right. Yeah. Often I'lljust put regular water.
'cause I'll forget at that point you
- Can, but it'll be better if you,
if you use the pasta water.
So for that purpose, I wouldsay save it. All right.

(28:48):
This is a really important thing to know.
I think use a good sharp knife
and make sure that you'reholding it properly.
Not just holding the knife properly,
but make sure your other hand
that's not holding theknife is holding whatever.
It's that you're cutting properly. Yeah.
And what do I mean by that?And you can elaborate on this.

(29:12):
So when you're cutting a knife cut,
when you're cutting something,let's say you're cutting,
I don't know, a, a carrot,you don't wanna hold it
with your thumb out.
Right? You wanna hold it so
that your knuckle is kind of turned in.
That way. If the knife comes down
and it cuts something,
it's gonna not cut thetip of your finger off.

(29:32):
It might cut like a differentpart of your hand. Yeah. Like
- This.
- If it's, if your, if your hand slips,
- So like, instead oflike, you know, know, a lot
of times you'll have a tendencywhen you're doing like the
claw grip, you'll wanna likeinch this thumb forward.
Mm-Hmm. . And then like,
if this thumb is a littlebit past like your knuckle
here, it could get cut.
Yeah. And it could happen very quickly

(29:53):
- Too.
It can And, and it does.
- If your knives are sharp,which they should be. Yeah.
It will, it will removea piece of, of your skin.
You know, you don't have to cutsuper sharp, uh, super fast.
Like you see like in TikTok videos
or whatnot, you know,they're like speeding it up
and they're, and they're doing it.
You don't, you're not,you're not in a race.

(30:13):
You wanna be safe. But yeah,a pinch grip is what I prefer.
Uh, a lot of people likea bolster on a knife.
The knife I have rightnow has a bolster on it.
I actually got it as agift from, um, a viewer,
Patreon member, uh, alongtime Patreon member.
And it has a bolster onit, and I've been using it.
Uh, I do typically prefera knife without a bolster.

(30:36):
Uh, a bolster is something that
where the handle meets likethe sharp edge, so it'll,
like the metal will flare out
and then a, a knife withouta bolster will just be,
it'll just be completelystraight the metal.
So the back of that knifecan be a potential spot
to cut you versus thebolster kind of protects you.
And you could still do apinch grip with a bolster,

(30:57):
though it's a little bitharder to, it's easier
to do a pinch grip with a,a knife without a bolster.
Pinch grip gives you more control.
So the knife won't wanna go, uh,
past 90 degrees in each direction.
- And speaking of knives, Ididn't have this on my list,
but since we're talking aboutpossibly injuring yourself in
the kitchen, if you're using a mandolin,

(31:18):
which I know you've usedwhen you made the deli
salad recipes.
Yeah. Like the cucumbersalad, potato salad,
you definitely wanna use the guard,
because I've heard from so manypeople that they've cut part
of their fingers off using a mandolin.
It's for real. It's nota made up urban legend.

(31:38):
- Oh, for real. Yeah.
- . It's not anurban legend. .
It's definitely use the guard.
Don't don't skip out on that. Yeah.
- I'm knocking on woodright now, like loudly
because I've been, youknow, I've been spared in
for knife injuries in the kitchen.
And with the mandolin.

(31:59):
I, I think, I mean, I was doing this stuff
for many years prior,
but when I got into the wood carving, uh,
which all the spoons that, like many
of the spoons in the videos,especially in the older videos,
again, part of the reasonwhy I don't use this,
the carved spoons is
'cause I'm using the woodspoon that Brandt also got me,
which was the, uh, ru spoons.
Mm-Hmm. .So I use them a lot now.

(32:20):
But a lot of the, uh, the big ladle
and all, a lot of the otherones were carved by me.
So I had to really learn how to use knives
that are essentially waysharper than chef's knives.
And, I mean, that's kind of not the case.
A a knife when you, anytype of knife you can get
to super razor sharp.
But you know, the, thecarving knives being sharp

(32:43):
is so much more importantthan when you're, like,
you could be a chefcould be in a restaurant
and a professional chef,
and they might steal theirknife a couple times a night.
A wood carver will have to
hone their knives much more frequently.
Okay. And they'll use like anactual, uh, strap to do this.

(33:04):
Like with compound, it's likea leather piece of leather
that's on a hardwood board.
So I was like always havingto keep sharp edge there
and knowing how sharp those are.
That like one mist couldcut me very quickly.
I would use the protective gloves too,
the carving gloves for it.
But, uh, I guess I just kind
of respect respected in general.

(33:25):
And I think a healthy respectfor these things is paramount.
I mean, it just is.
And really when you're gonnarun into problems is when
you're distracted.
So, you know, like your kidcomes in into the kitchen,
you know, you can take your eyes off.
Mm-Hmm. . Um,or you're running outta time,
so you're trying to chop things quicker.

(33:46):
- Yeah. Or your knife iswet, or your hand is wet.
Don't make sure you're,you dry your hands off too.
And your knife. Yeah. 'cause you
can slip done that. And you use that.
- I've done, you use that cloth every
time to, to keep your
knife. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Dried.
- Yeah. I've done that. Um, okay.
That was 10, but weadded a few more. Okay.
When we started going through the list.
Let's go through 'em quick. Next one.

(34:07):
Read the recipe all the way through.
This is not just apply to cookbooks.
This applies to online recipes. Yeah.
You should read the entire thing,
including the notes.
Before you start to make arecipe, make sure you understand

(34:27):
what the steps involve.
Make sure you understand the state
that the ingredients should be in.
Usually the ingredientssection of a recipe will say,
you know, one medium onion in diced
or a cup of olive oil divided.

(34:48):
Get yourself familiar withsome of the terminology
that's used Yeah.
In a recipe. And read itthrough and understand it
before you decide to, to embark on it.
Especially if it's a complicated recipe.
Like if you're gonna make pizza
or bread, something that's more difficult.
Yeah, definitely read it through.

(35:10):
- Yeah. I agree with all that.
Uh, when I started writingrecipes professionally, it was
a learning experience to say the least.
You know, we try toeducate ourselves more, try
to really adopt best practices.
And for many years, decades,
I believe people wereusing the recipe writer's
handbook kind of as gospel.
That's changed now too.
There's a newer, uh, bookwritten by someone else that has

(35:34):
given some, um, alternativerecommendations.
But a lot of standard writing should you,
you can normally tell whenyou come across like a site
that takes their audience seriously
and sites that don't.
Again, not to belabor the pointof how much I hate TikTok,
but it's just, it's not good.

(35:56):
The instructions. Even likewhen, uh, when I see like,
and this is where popularcreators, they might have,
you know, they might have like 3 million,
uh, subs on TikTok.
The instructions arepoor, they're very poor,
and they're, it's, it'sall, it's all subs.
It's like all just, it's
- Sizzle, no steak.
- Yeah. It's, it's, it's,yeah. It's all, it's all fake.

(36:16):
It's not real. So yeah, yougotta kind of tell every,
you gotta tell everything
because you have to go underthe assumption that like,
person doesn't really know how to cook.
If the person was an expert cook,
they wouldn't need my recipe.
Mm-Hmm. , they wouldn't need
that person's recipe at all.
They would know how to do it. Yeah.
So it's, uh, kind of,there's a fine line there.
- Yeah. And the other thingI would say is definitely

(36:39):
pay attention to thestate in which the recipe
creator is telling you theingredients should be in.
So what I mean by that Oh yeah.
Is if they say buttersoften to room temperature,
it shouldn't be butter that youjust take out of the fridge.
It should actually be butter That's Yeah.

(37:00):
Soft to room temperature.
- And that'll be in the note. Like,
I always like the waywe use WP recipe maker,
which is the goldstandard of recipe cards.
Like, it's the biggest blogs, food blogs,
recipe sites in theworld use this program.
It's, it's, it's the best.It's better than any other way.
It provides schema data to Google.
So Google can see theinformation on the recipe

(37:21):
and output it.
Okay. It's, there's waysto do it there better.
Another little tip is whenyou read a recipe, often
good recipe writers will includethe recipe ingredients in
the order that you need 'em.
Okay. Mm-Hmm. . So there
are certain exceptions.
So often if you do see pasta recipes,

(37:41):
the pasta will still be stated first.
Even though you're not gonna need
that pasta probably till likethe 10th ingredient down,
because you're making your,you're always making your sauce
first for pasta.
Mm-Hmm. . But yeah,
familiarize yourself with that.
If stuff like looks like garbage
and it's comes out likegarbage, it probably is garbage.
And then other, there's otherones that we use as references

(38:03):
for us on how to do things.
People that are like at the top, the top
of the recipe writing game.
And, um, yeah, there's,there's certain things
that are worth emulating andones that aren't for sure.
- Yeah. All right. Whatshould you do with your fat?
- You should save your fat,your fat that's on your body.
You wanna get rid of ,

(38:23):
but you wanna save the factthat you get in the store
because you, you know,you paid money for it.
And I'll give you an example quick,
I'll give two quick examples.
You buy a Chuck roast, we just bought,
how many Chuck roasts did wejust buy from Costco? Four.
- Three.- Yeah. Four packs.
- Yeah. Yeah.- And the packs had like one and a half.
Uh mm-Hmm. roasts in each
- Yeah.
Because they were on sale.

(38:43):
But because we use themfor a lot of recipes,
- Price is so much betterin Costco for those,
for those Chuck roast it'slike $13 in Whole Foods.
It's like four in Costco.
But, um, in the, in a typical Chuck Roast,
typical Chuck Roast will be about two
and a half to three and a half pounds.
There'll always be like a huge chunk
of fat in the middle of it.
Like thick fat that you'renot like you, you know,

(39:06):
even if you're like Cuban your meat,
you're probably gonna cut alot of that out and discard it.
You want. But if you saveit, you can use that fat to
say like in a beef Bergen ya beef Bergen
yawn I know isn't the best example.
'cause it always starts withpan, uh, with bacon, you know,
uh, you know, salt porkor whatever to start it.
And that's the fat thatthat's starting with.
But say, say it doesn't, youcan use the beef fat instead

(39:29):
of using olive oil Yeah.
To do your initial saute. Yeah.
- Or for people who don't eat pork. Yes.
And you wanna make beefburgon. Start it with the
- Lard.
Yeah. Yeah. And then anotherone obviously is bacon.
When you make bacon in a pan
or you do it in the oven, whatever,
pour off all the fat, keep it in a jar.
That's how they did it in the old days.
There's no reason that why we shouldn't

(39:50):
be doing the same thingright now. Yep. It's free.
- The next one is a tip that Ihave, it has to do with eggs.
It's actually a two part tip.
So first of all, anytimeyou're using eggs,
I recommend you crackthe egg into a small bowl
and then you add it to whatever
it is that you're adding it to.

(40:11):
Let's say you're making a frittata
and you have already cracked,let's say the frittata calls
for eight eggs
and you've cracked seveneggs into your bowl.
You crack the eighth egg andyou put it into the bowl,
and that eighth egg is bad.
Well, guess what? You have to get rid
of all eight eggs that you just cracked.
Whereas if you just crackit into a small bowl,

(40:34):
transfer it in, you'llbe so much better off.
Now my second part ofthis is if you are making
a dish, probably a dessert,that you need egg whites
and egg whites alone whereyou need to beat them so
that they come to stiff or medium peaks.
You need to make sure thatthere is absolutely no

(40:56):
fat whatsoever.
Yeah. Otherwise they will never Yeah.
Become stiff or nevereven become medium. Yep.
It will just never happen.
So before you go ahead
and do that, what you wannado is whatever bowl you're
putting the egg whites into,
you wanna make sure it'scompletely clean of any grease.
Sometimes when you, whenyou wash a glass bowl Yeah.

(41:19):
And you stick it in the dishwasher,
there's some grease left over Yes.
In it. Yes. So you wannamake sure it's completely
clean, dry as a bone.
You also wanna make sure
that when you're separatingthe egg from the egg yolk
that there is no egg yolk.
Even the tiniest speck.
And I'm telling you this becauseI learned this the hard way
when I was making a pavlova.
Even the tiniest speck of yolk will not

(41:44):
will render it useless.
Yeah. Basically. So you wannamake sure that you're doing
that when you are using egg whites.
Like I said, pavlovais a reason you do it.
We use egg whites in the almondcookies. Flowerless. Yeah.
The almond cookies. A flowerlesschocolate cake that we use.
- Yeah. They're awesome doing egg whites
and like beating themto medium or stiff peaks
and then using 'em for cookies and stuff.

(42:05):
It's just, it creates this like sticky
like substance that Mm-Hmm.
just everythingjust stick absorbs to it.
It's, yeah. It's actuallya really cool thing.
But that's something thatneeds to, I think be stated
or, yeah.
I don't, in fact, I don'teven know if we do state it in
our, all of our recipes,we might want to look back

(42:26):
- At that.
Yeah. You just, you can't go willy-nilly
and it's not like you're making an egg if
you're making an egg white omelet.
Yeah. Who cares if there'slike a speck of yoke in it,
but no, if you're using itwhere you need to beat it.
Yeah. Make sure it's clear of any fat.
- Do you know what'sfunny? Um, you know, egg,
egg whites when you get'em at, um, a deli or
- Yeah.

(42:46):
- A restaurant, typicallythey're not taken from
- No, I know.
They're just from that contthat egg white container. Yeah.
- Maybe you know that.- All right, the next tip,
I learned this recently.
When you're baking cookies,
let's say you have two baking sheets,
yet you need like four bakingsheets worth of cookies.

(43:06):
You, if you put your cookiedough directly onto the pan
that like was maybe outtathe oven for like 10 minutes,
it's still gonna Yeah.
Cause your cookies to spread.
- Oh no, I know. I'maware of this much. Okay.
I just made a ton of cookies. Yeah.
- So I actually had somebodyask me this question.
Um, I think it was on thelemon ricotta cookies.

(43:28):
It was around Christmas timeand she said hers spread
and I said, you probably put them onto a
hot baking sheet. Yeah.
- Because, or warm. Even warm.
- Or, or warm. Yeah. SoI know it's extra money
and maybe takes up extra space,
but I think a good tip is
to have maybe like atleast four baking sheets.

(43:49):
- Oh, forget four.- Or even, or even even more.
- Tell tell them how many we have. Well,
- We have, we have a foodbusiness we need. No,
- But even, even if we, even if we didn't,
- I mean I think I havefour in just for myself,
but you probably have like eight.
- No, I think combined weprobably have 20. Alright.
And these are half sheets. We also
have about another half sheets.
Probably have another 10,uh, quarter sheets. Yeah.
So quarter sheets are nice too.
- It's a worthwhile investment.

(44:12):
And when you're makingcookies specifically
and you don't want your cookies to spread,
make sure you're putting iton room temperature or cool
- Sheets.
Yeah. They need to be,they need to be cooled.
That's just reallyimportant what Tara said.
I mean, you know, I don'twanna get down a cookie rabbit
hole here, but, uh, youknow, cookies are, they're,

(44:33):
they're simple onceyou get the hang of it.
But just even the, even the aspect
of putting your dough into therefrigerator for 30 minutes
and then, then bawling themwill make it, first of all,
you get a more uniform ball
and the cookie will pre,
it will prevent the cookiefrom spreading as fast.
Mm-Hmm. because it's starting
at a colder temperature.
So Yeah.

(44:53):
And then obviously, likeTara said, using, it's
so tempting when you're pullingyour cookies off the warm
sheet to just put thenext batch on there and
- Don't do it.
- Yeah. And you know, I mean,
another thing, cookie rabbit hole.
It's good to have likesix cookie scoopers,
like a really small one andnext size, next size, next size.

(45:17):
And they go by, um, numbers like a 10,
a 10 size 20, 30, 40, all that. 40.
- They all like meandifferent like table spoon
or two tablespoon scoop.
- Yeah. 30, 40 is um, basicallygive you a medium cookie
that's like the most used one for kind
of the standard home cookie.
Mm-Hmm. that you'd be making.
- All right. Last tip. It's kind of, kind
of an obvious one. Jim, what is it?

(45:39):
- Okay, this is important. Useyour head, use your noggin.
If a recipe from the most, the best
creator in the world,
or the best chef is reallynot going right for you.
And it's like giving disastrous results.

(45:59):
It doesn't mean that creator
or a chef is a bad creator or a chef.
It means that the recipe isprobably written wrong. Mm-Hmm.
. That's whereyour head comes into play.
I'll give you a couple examples.
Really only have one thatcomes to mind quickly.
So li, Lydia, uh, baic,
like all the food I make isbasically the food she makes.
All right. Like it's, she'slike, kind of like the queen

(46:22):
of making like American food.
Um, though,
I guess she would say shemakes more Italian food,
but I, I wouldn't really say that.
It's, it's Italian American,which is everything
that's here in the NewYork, New Jersey area.
Um, in her, one of her cookbooks,she has like 15 of 'em.
I, I don't know whichone. I have a few of 'em.
There is a pesto recipe,

(46:43):
and this was, I was makingthis like 20 years ago
and gave up proportions
and it was like two cups of basil leaves
and, you know, whateveramount of, uh, pecorino,
a little bit of garlic, the pine nuts.
And it was like threetablespoons of olive oil.
And I'm pretty positive about this.
I, I think I still have the book
and three tablespoons of olive oil.

(47:05):
The blender food processorwouldn't even move.
It was just like, might as wellbeen completely dry. Mm-Hmm.
three tablespoonsis essentially nothing.
Mm-Hmm. . Sothen I put in four, then six
and I'm up to like a half a cupand it's still not doing it.
And I'm like taking my wooden spoon
and pushing everything down when it's off.
And, you know, finally
after like three quarter cupof oil finally moved enough.

(47:28):
And that's just a learningexperience for someone like me
who was like a novice cook at the time.
But, you know, that could, like,
if you're not using your head,you're not using your noggin,
you could just thennot get a result there.
And then you just like, it's awaste. Mm-Hmm. .
So you have to, you have tothink so through, you know,

(47:51):
some recipe says 4 25
and what if your oven is very inaccurate
and it's four 60 in the ovenand everything starts burning.
These are things thatyou have to consider.
Maybe your oven needs to be lowered.
Maybe you gotta test your oven
to see the actual real temperature.
Mm-Hmm. maybethe recipe, you know, meant
to do it in conventional.

(48:13):
And then you're, you havethe convection setting on the
convection setting will add about 25
to 30 degrees, essentially.
That's what it adds to,uh, to a recipe. Mm-Hmm.
. 'causeit circulates the air.
- Yeah. So use your head.
- Use your head. Mm-Hmm. .
And I just wanna say like that,
that Lydia recipe was amisprint. That's what it was.

(48:35):
- It had to be, it was a misprint.
There's no way that shewas just adding that little
- Yeah.
And she's, you know, she,
she's not writing her recipe books.
Like maybe that's not clear to all of you.
Okay. She's not all right.She's running an empire.
Like she's got,

(48:55):
- She's probably consulted on her.
She probably has final sayover what's going into it. She
- Might, you don't know the
amount of say she's having in it.
Like Gordon Ramsey's got 28 shows on tv.
You think he, and he's gotlike all his restaurants.
You think he knows everything
that's going on in these things?
No, I mean, it's impossible.No. You know, so Yeah.

(49:15):
You can't blame, you can't blame them.
- All right, let's moveinto questions. Jim.
This question comes from Michelle.
I eat mostly a plant-based diet.
I do live in Wisconsin,
so avoiding cheese completely will never
ha will probably never happen.
And I love that your recipes use whole
and simple ingredients and that many
of the recipes can be made plant-based.
One recipe I'm gonna tryis the Tuscan bean soup.

(49:38):
I was going to use canned beans,
but something I'venoticed when making soup
with canned beans is thatsometimes the skins will start
to fall off and float around the soup.
They are also kind of tough.
Would using dry beanseliminate this problem?
Are there certain beans thathave a more tender skin?
- So Michelle, I assumeyou're using kolini beans

(49:59):
and kolini beans have a thin, a thin
outer shell on them.
But I would, I would guess
that maybe not allbrands are created equal.
There's some might beusing older beans, uh,
if using dried beans will work for you.
Yeah. I mean, as long as youprep your dried beans properly.
If you don't prep yourdried beans properly,

(50:19):
you're gonna have the sameproblems, if not bigger problems.
Uh, we actually just hada question the other day.
We had to, it was, it wasactually for the Tuscan bean soup,
Tara, you created a,you've created a fac uh,
an FAQ on that, on that recipe.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.'cause somebody asked about how
to get dried beans soft.
This is verbatim, but likeI I, I don't have, we don't,

(50:40):
I don't have the recipe, uh,the, our recipe in front of us,
but in order to get beans soft,
and it's fine that I'm doing it this way
because it's gonna bedifferent every time for you,
if you buy a bag of beans that'sa couple years old, really,
no matter how much you cook'em, they just might not work.
That's why I'm more ofa proponent of cans.
But if you buy fresh, likefresher beans that you know,

(51:02):
it says expiration like 2026 or whatnot.
Put 'em in a pot, fill 'em up with water.
Just cover them with water.Put a pinch of salt in there.
Don't believe the, the,
the fake information about salt and beans.
It's wrong. Okay. You put alittle bit of salt in there.
Turn it up to like medium to medium high.
Let it start bubbling. Letit go for like 10 minutes.

(51:25):
Then you could just turnthe heat down to low.
Put the cover on. Even with the cover on,
it's gonna evaporateat about the hour mark.
Check 'em out. If it needsmore water, add more water.
Check for tenderness.
They're probably not gonnabe tender at that point.
Let 'em keep going on low.
Check 'em an hour from that point,
and then continue to dothis until they get soft.

(51:46):
What I like to do, the easiest way I like
to do this when I'm gonnause dried beans is the night
before I start this process.
So maybe I'll be an hour into it,
maybe I'll be two hours intoit once they're kind of soft,
but they're not good enough yet.
I can turn the heat off completely.
Keep the cover on, leave iton the stove top overnight,
that whole entire time,that soaking time overnight,

(52:08):
the next day they will besoft, they will be ready to go.
And ideally they'll holdonto most of their shells.
The shells, um, the skins. The skins.
I mean, the skins can burstwhen you put maybe too much heat
on them for too long of a period of time.
As far as the cans with the skins,
I've never really had an issue with them.
So I, my only guess is it couldbe the brand you were using,

(52:31):
I typically will use, likewhat, what brand do we use?
We use, is it stop and Shop Store brand?
- No, no. We'll sometimes useCheto, sometimes Goya. Goya.
Yeah. And then sometimes the,um, the Whole Foods, the 365.
Yeah. So whatever, whatever store I'm at,
that's what I'm grabbing.
Yeah. And I haven't had that problem with,
with Canelli beans.

(52:52):
I think that's more of aproblem with like chickpeas.
- Chickpeas, definitely.
- Yeah. Where the, the shells separate
- Chickpeas.
Um, maybe I'm, I mean,I'm going on a limb here
and I'm assuming you're using kini beans,
but if maybe, if you're usinglike great white Northern
Beans, is that what they're called?
Maybe they have a thicker one.
I don't know that though, for sure. I
- Just used those for a chill.

(53:13):
Like we used, um, that Chi chicken chili,
I just used the Northern Beans.
They're actually smallerthan Canelli. Okay.
I didn't have that problemwith them. Yeah. But yeah,
- I don't know.
Let us know, Michelle.Um, I hope that helps.
And yeah, I mean the,the cost benefit of going
with dried beans versuscanned, to be honest with you,
I think canned are cheaper because canned,
you're not spending time.

(53:34):
You have to actually spend time
and your time has to beworth more than nothing.
So when you add that up,you're losing, you are losing
to the, to the cost of the canned beans.
Mm-Hmm. , ifyou don't put a value on your
time, you're not valuingyour time properly.
Okay. Right. I mean, I II'm just saying like, it,

(53:55):
it involves like, you have
to either be setting atimer and going downstairs.
Mm-Hmm. yousay you can't go out during
that period of time asyou're checking on them.
Yeah. You know, there's, yeah.
There's a little bit ofwork there. It's true.
- Yep. All right. Nextquestion. This is from Tom.
Jim, can you use non-stick pans
with tomato sauce instructions?
Came with my non-stick pan
and was not recommended to use

(54:16):
with foods high in acid like tomato.
I feel like we've gottenthis question before,
but I think it was about castiron, not about non-stick.
- Yeah. Tom, I never heardthis for non-stick pans.
I'm curious what brand you have.
I know, like, kind of the standard ones.
Um, they're fine to use tomato sauce with.
Uh, you know, I, I've never heard of it.

(54:39):
I mean, normally the, the thing
that people will always recommend is not
to use aluminum with tomato sauce.
Mm-Hmm. , just analuminum bare aluminum, not,
not a coated one, which is a non-stick.
Not most non-stick pans, pots
and pans are essentiallycoated aluminum. But
- Maybe if the manufactureris telling him to not use it,
then maybe there'ssomething in it that, yeah,

(55:01):
maybe you should, you
- Know.
Yeah. If the manufacturer'stelling you that Tom Mm-Hmm.
, I wouldlisten to what the man,
the manufacturer knows.
Yeah. So if
- You wanna write to us
and tell us what brand, we'lltake another look at it.
But I would say you, yeah,
maybe they know something we don't.
And yeah, maybe there's somethingin there that could react
with the, with something acidic.
- We got like this set of pots

(55:22):
and pans from thiscompany, uh, called Maiden.
They're just like an online company,
and they sent us like aneight quart stainless pot.
And then they also had sentus an eight quart stain,
I guess it's stainless with, with the, uh,
non-stick coating on it.
It could be aluminum, though.I, I would've to weigh it.
The, the know for sure.
There's no, no literature there saying
that you can't use thetomato or anything like that.

(55:44):
And I don't think tomatoes areterribly high in acid anyway.
Like, they're not as high as vinegar.
But yeah, I would listen towhat the manufacturer says.
Mm-Hmm. , youcould leave us email questions
to [e-mail],or you can send me an audio
or video, uh, through Instagram is great.
It works really easilybecause you just message,

(56:04):
or you could, uh, also send that
through email too,whichever way you prefer.
If you do send the audio
or video, I'll just,
I just play it righton here, so it's easy.
All right. We'll see younext time. .