How about making this holiday season a tad healthier? Brace yourself for an extraordinary culinary journey with our wonderful guest, Dr. Brooke Bussard, as we walk you through the beauty and benefits of plant-based eating.
Join us as we venture into the art of plant-based holiday cooking, starting with a hearty lentil loaf and stuffing that’s sure to wow your guests. Dr. Busssard shares expert tips on how to incorporate traditional herbs into these recipes for added flavor and health benefits. You'll be surprised by the simplicity and speed of preparing these dishes, perfect for those last-minute holiday dinner plans. And oh, we've got a gravy for the lentil loaf that's pure, savory comfort!
But wait, there's more! As we whet your appetite further, we dive into a range of easy and approachable plant-based Thanksgiving dishes that promise to be a hit. From an authentic Italian flat beans recipe to a plant-based pumpkin pie that’s all sorts of delicious, we’ve got your holiday menu sorted.
Contact Dr. Bussard at https://plantsoveranimals.com/
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Instagram
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on YouTube
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Pinterest
How about making this holiday season a tad healthier? Brace yourself for an extraordinary culinary journey with our wonderful guest, Dr. Brooke Bussard, as we walk you through the beauty and benefits of plant-based eating.
Join us as we venture into the art of plant-based holiday cooking, starting with a hearty lentil loaf and stuffing that’s sure to wow your guests. Dr. Busssard shares expert tips on how to incorporate traditional herbs into these recipes for added flavor and health benefits. You'll be surprised by the simplicity and speed of preparing these dishes, perfect for those last-minute holiday dinner plans. And oh, we've got a gravy for the lentil loaf that's pure, savory comfort!
But wait, there's more! As we whet your appetite further, we dive into a range of easy and approachable plant-based Thanksgiving dishes that promise to be a hit. From an authentic Italian flat beans recipe to a plant-based pumpkin pie that’s all sorts of delicious, we’ve got your holiday menu sorted.
Contact Dr. Bussard at https://plantsoveranimals.com/
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Instagram
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on YouTube
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Pinterest
Welcome everyone you are tuned into. Perfectly Planted. This is the podcast and the YouTube channel that is dedicated to growing together on our journey towards a healthier, happier and more sustainable lifestyle. I'm your co-host, Daphne Bascom. I'm a vegan health and fitness coach and an advocate for all things that are plant-based. I'm perfectly planted. We believe in the power of positivity and the strength of community, and so we're here to empower you, to nurture your growth and to help you bloom into the best version of yourself, and we're not just talking about fitness and nutrition, but also self-love, mental health and fostering a deep respect for our beautiful planet. So good morning Vesame, Good morning Dr Basard. How are you today? Good?
Speaker 2:morning Daphne. Good morning Vesame.
Speaker 3:Good morning. This is an exciting episode. I'm so excited because we decided to do a cooking show for everybody, especially with the holidays coming up, and we invited Dr Brooke Basard, who was on our previous episode, number 40. So if you have not seen that, go check it out, because she was sharing some amazing recipes and that are all loaded on her website, plantsoveranimalscom slash recipes if you want to go direct to the recipes, and so we thought that it would be amazing for us to do a little cooking rendition where plants are really at the forefront and, as Daphne was mentioning earlier, no animals were harmed in this episode, which is amazing, I think.
Speaker 3:So, brooke, welcome back. We are so excited to have you with us today. I just for our viewers, I just want to reintroduce you. You swapped your white physician coat for an apron, your stethoscope for a spatula and really took the initiative to help others around you and others that come to you in trying to help reverse some of the chronic conditions and prevent chronic conditions, really through education and nutrition and taking more of a plant-based approach, and so we are delighted to have you with us again to share some of the recipes that you have. Before we get started, do you want to talk a little bit more about some of the initiatives that you've had recently and most recent activity that you've discovered through various recipes and helping others?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, Bessame, for that nice recap and, yeah, I'm so excited to be back on the show today. My recent efforts have been really marketing the book Chew On this, which we talked about in the last episode. Yeah, and it turns out once you write a book, the book marketing world is enormous. So just trying to get the book out into various channels takes a lot of time and energy. But I think having this information written down and told in the way that I do in the book with these short stories, I think is so valuable as a resource for people. It helps bus myths, it helps explain just the basic physiology of how the body uses food, and so that's really where I'm focusing my efforts right now, along with seeing my clients and teaching some classes, but those are my main areas of focus Wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing. The book I do want to emphasize the book is amazing. We've read it and the short story makes it so relatable and also easy to consume. So thank you for that format. And I know that the holidays are around us. We just next week, in Thursday, is Thanksgiving and then, of course, we have other holidays following that. So can you tell us a little bit more about how you would navigate really holiday eating and what do you share with some of your clients? Not necessarily give us a secret sauce, but how can you share some ideas and tips of how people can navigate the holidays and staying on track?
Speaker 2:Well, that's me. I will always give you the secret sauce. Thank you, I'm going to just share it all.
Speaker 2:You've got some family recipes that I understand you hold tight and that is great, but but as far as the healthy eating, healthy living goes, we got to let everybody know that eating plants is the healthiest way to live our lives.
Speaker 2:And what I work with my clients on is preparation, both mentally and physically.
Speaker 2:So knowing what you're going to prepare, whether or not you're hosting, whether you're going to somebody else's house and maybe you're going to take some of your own dishes being prepared, so planning ahead of time, these are the things that I want to have for this holiday meal making your list, doing your shopping.
Speaker 2:If it's something you can prepare ahead of time, which the recipes I'm showing today, you can prepare ahead of time, and I mean you could make them today or tomorrow and just pull them out of the fridge and reheat them and they're actually, I think, better reheated because the flavors all meld together. That's sort of one of the beauties of plant foods is they just get better and better every day that they're in the fridge. But but I think, I think planning and preparing are the most important things we can do, and just remembering that that we have values that we are sort of holding dear to us, and the significance of Thanksgiving really is about coming together, showing gratitude, showing compassion, and and there's nothing wrong with eating a plant based meal for the holiday You're not breaking a tradition, you're just sort of emphasizing the significance of it and what it means to you.
Speaker 1:The food brings us together, and I mean you can create new traditions with plant based meals. You know, plantifying if that's a word some of the traditional meals that a lot of us have eaten over the holidays. So it's a great way to introduce, especially in a family that may be both plant based and still eating animal products, just to how wonderful these, these foods, can taste.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and today I'll plan to five I like that word. I'll plan to five a gravy recipe and a stuffing recipe, so that you know those two are very simple and they're they're known go-tos for the holiday meal.
Speaker 1:Brooke, why don't we turn it over to you? We'd love to hear about your lovable lentil loaf, and you go ahead. And why don't you share with our viewers the wonderful dishes that you're ready to prepare?
Speaker 2:Okay, so we'll start with the lovable lentil loaf which you can do so many things with. So let's prepare the sort of the essence of it, and then I'll show you how you can either make it into a loaf or stuff it into a squash or a bell pepper or those sorts of things. So you're going to start with brown lentils. You can start with, you know, really any lentil, as long as it's not a red lentil. Red lentils get mushy and we want the texture of the brown or the green lentils. So I usually buy them in bulk and cook them from dried, and so you can do that pretty easily. It's one of the simplest ways to cook lentils. You just put them on the stove, a cup of lentils, three cups of water, bring it to a boil and then simmer it for 18 to 20 minutes. You want to keep an eye on it, though, because you don't want the lentils to get mushy. You need a little bit of texture for the loaf.
Speaker 2:So the other thing is, in some grocery stores you can actually find lentils canned and already cooked. So if this is something that is appealing to you, just to cut out the step of cooking the lentils, just use the cans, like you would do with canned beans. So we've got the lentils and I went ahead and cooked them ahead of time. So I've got two cups of cooked lentils here that we'll use in our base. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to chop and saute some veggies, and for this particular lentil loaf, I chose yellow onions and mushrooms and some garlic. So we've got onions that I've chopped, mushrooms that I've chopped, and then for the garlic, I cheated, and I well, it's not really cheating I used minced garlic right out of this jar. Now, this is just in water. So you want to try to avoid minced garlic that might be in oil, so you want to get it in the water. So those three ingredients I have sauteed together and that's what it?
Speaker 2:comes out to look like. So that takes about five minutes on the stove and I don't put any oil in the bottom. It's a water sautee. So really I just put the onions in, I run it under the water just to get a little bit of moisture in the bottom sautee, throw the mushrooms in, keep sauteing and then it's done. So we've got those that we're going to put together with the, the quinoa, the walnuts and then all of our Moisture ingredients that are going to hold everything together. So I am going to bring the lentils and the mushrooms over to my food processor and I'm going to turn you guys to face me.
Speaker 2:Okay and then we are going to Okay, so we've got the food processor here, so we're going to put our lentils in the bottom of the food processor. Everybody can see this, okay.
Speaker 1:We can see it.
Speaker 2:Let's see, okay, we're going to put those in, okay, and then we've got our veggie mixture. We're going to add that, and when you add to the food processor, make sure you sort of spread everything out so that it's not clumped in one area, okay. So then we've got a quarter cup of walnuts that we're going to add. They add a nice texture and crunch Along with those omega-3s that we all like to try to get in. But if you have somebody with a nut allergy, you can swap that for sunflower seeds or even carrots, so any of those would work. Then we're going to put in a quarter cup of tomato paste and what is the tomato paste?
Speaker 1:do oh.
Speaker 2:It brings out this amazing flavor that I find is almost critical to the lentil loaf. You can really taste the tomato In there and it's just delicious. Then we're going to add two Tablespoons of flaxseed. I'm going to sprinkle that in and and you guys know what we use flaxseed for.
Speaker 1:Yes the binder yeah good binding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's our binder, so that means mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. That's how we replace eggs in our plant-based cooking. Okay, so then, for more of that umami flavor, I like to add tamari, or you can add soy sauce or coconut aminos. So we've got two tablespoons of that, and Then we're going to do two tablespoons of the apple cider vinegar. So these are all just different levels of flavors. Yeah, the acidity is going to layer a different flavor in there, and Then I love Dijon, so you can use other types of mustard if you want. I.
Speaker 3:Love Dijon mustard too. I think, it just has great flavor and a good base for salad dressings too, I think oh, Totally.
Speaker 1:I love it for salad dressings.
Speaker 2:Okay. So now we're going to pulse this. Now, these tops are okay, so I'm just going to pulse this a few times.
Speaker 1:And for people that don't have a food processor, can they get used like a potato masher or something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you need some Elbow grease for that, but yeah, but you totally can. So what really? What you're trying to do and when? I'm going to bring this back over now to our main setup. So I'll meet you back over at my cutting board, okay?
Speaker 3:Sometimes I've actually used. If I didn't have a food processor with me, I would you pulse a blender sometimes and then you could mash. Just breaks it up a little bit more and oftentimes people will have a blender. But you're right, daphne a potato masher.
Speaker 2:You'll need extra elbow grease, but doable yes, and If you don't have a blender or a food processor, I would cook the lentils even a little bit longer so that it's easier to mash Good idea because, yeah, what we're trying to do, so we don't want to forget our quinoa, because that's another Critical part of holding the whole thing together like breadcrumbs, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I'm using those in place of breadcrumbs because we're gonna get. We're gonna get our bread, but we're gonna get it into stuffing, yeah. So here we're gonna get that quinoa when you.
Speaker 3:Is that quinoa cooked or is it dry? I can't tell from my bad. He's caught cooked.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh yeah not. That gives me a chance to tell you a fun little Hack that I learned about cooking quinoa. Have you guys ever cooked it in the insta pot?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I have my god.
Speaker 1:It's much easier in the end.
Speaker 2:So great. Yeah, it's one cup of quinoa to one and a half cups of water. Is that right, daphne? I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1:That's a sound some either water or vegetable broth, whichever one you have available, yep.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then, literally, you set the Instapot for one minute. Don't one minute oh and then I'm gonna get in the time that it takes to do the natural release of the steam. That's what cooks the quinoa.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so can you see I've got my mixture in here, and now I'm just gonna add the quinoa that's cooked, and I cooked that in the insta pot. I actually used like a tri-colored quinoa.
Speaker 1:Yum.
Speaker 2:I think that's kind of fun, mm-hmm and then. So the last thing we need to add into this, particularly for our holiday theme, are gonna be our herbs, right? Okay, so you guys have favorite herbs that you like for Thanksgiving. Things Sage, I love sage yeah.
Speaker 1:In pol. Sometimes poultry seasoning that you can buy has the sage and a little bit of time.
Speaker 2:But I agree, yeah, yeah. So In the recipe I've got oregano, time parsley and sage with some pepper, but if you want to add rosemary, or like Daphne said, the poultry seasoning.
Speaker 2:You know, all of these are great and you can use either dried or fresh. So I just put together a little dish so that you wouldn't have to watch me measure all these things out. I had, you know, just the dried versions that I was gonna add to this, and then I'm gonna show you the fresh versions for the stuffing. So I've added all of those, I'm gonna mix them in and now we have everything we need to make our loaf into whatever shape we want. And if you look at the recipe on the website, you'll notice that I shaped it into a heart for Thanksgiving or Valentine's Day or Somebody's birthday, or. But you can, you can shape it however you want. You can Put it in a loaf pan if you want if you want to really, you know, give it a lot of structure.
Speaker 2:You can cook it in a loaf pan. The other thing you can do with it is you can stuff it into Different squashes. So I'm gonna show you Two that I did. Okay. So this is a spaghetti squash that I've stuffed with the lentil loaf.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, for spaghetti squashes.
Speaker 2:You just cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, place them face down on your baking dish and bake them for, you know, 45 to 60 minutes, depending on how big they are. This one took 60 minutes at 400 degrees, and, and it also depends on how cooked you want your spaghetti squash.
Speaker 1:Some people like it more al dente.
Speaker 2:But squashes are so traditional for Thanksgiving because squashes are what was around back when they had the first Thanksgiving they didn't have potatoes, they weren't harvesting potatoes then. And you know there's, there's things that were around that we sort of forget about and we could bring them back if we, if we use these little. You know fun ways to put our lentil loaf together. So this is a pumpkin.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. Cute yeah. Little personalized servings exactly Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:So, and you could do this with a corn squash, you can do it with a red bell pepper, you could stuff a portobello, all these ways that you can use the, the lentil loaf. But for today, I was going to show you how to shape it. If you wanted to, you know, make it into the lovable lentil loaf. I Just take it and see how. I'm just putting it in my hands and it's almost looking like, you know, a football. Was watching a lot of football. This weekend. Uva won their home game, which was the first home win for the coach, for, for their new coach. So that that was huge. So I'm gonna do that twice, but I'm gonna angle the second one so that we end up with the heart shape and I will show you. I'll move this bowl out of the way in just a second. So move that bowl out of the way. And if we angle it, oh, how cute and easy.
Speaker 1:You don't even need a bold.
Speaker 2:Now can you see that we can yes, yes good.
Speaker 3:It's great.
Speaker 2:And if you want to, you know, give it a little more indentation there you can. So then you'll. You'll bake this at 375, no 350, for 45 minutes, depending on the size, like I have enough here. So I could do two hearts and if I did I'd probably cut my time down. You know, just check on it after about 30 minutes, start to check on it once the edges start to turn brown, it's ready. Pull it out and let it sit, and it's really. It holds together much better If you make it the day before and then reheat it and the flavors actually meld together better. So that's what I recommend for for the lentil lovable lentil oaf.
Speaker 3:Great, that looks delicious, and I love the fact that you could just eat it if you wanted it.
Speaker 1:That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would just take taste to make sure everything was good, and it would be like our show lunch.
Speaker 2:Totally, I'm so with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it's totally what I do, good, okay if you add up the cost of what all those ingredients make, it's almost no. Yeah, it's probably $2 a serving or less.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, absolutely. I actually started to add up the, the stuffing ingredients and I wasn't even to $10 and I was like, wow, and this makes a lot of stuffing. So, but I hadn't gotten to the lentil loaf yet, I was just curious.
Speaker 3:So that's, nothing is my guilty pleasure. It's not the potatoes, it's the stuffing. I am, I can't wait to watch your stuffing recipe.
Speaker 2:No, and I and I love potatoes, but but the stuffing, oh my god stuffing is where it's at, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so let's talk about the stuffing. So I call it the standalone stuffing because it doesn't need to be shoved into anything except our mouth so you can use like a loaf of bread. This is like a loaf of spelt bread from our local bakery. This Is a sliced loaf of sourdough bread from Trader Joe's and I used almost the entire thing when I prepped the stuffing last night. That's sourdough bread, brook, is that what it is? Okay, so you can really go anywhere. Any type of bread, the bread like. You can buy the breads that already have some rosemary infused into them, which is really a cool way to get the rosemary in.
Speaker 2:Some people like the breads that have the olives in them.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, those are all fun ideas, but If the bread's already sliced, you're gonna get thinner Pieces, whereas if you want chunky your stuffing, you'll want to start with an unsliced loaf and then make them the size that you want.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm and the size of the of the pieces is. You know, it really gives a different Flare to the stuffing depending on how you want to do it. But what you want to do is you want to try to cut it the night before and let it sit out and get a little bit stale, because that's gonna give it a heartier texture. So so we've got our stuffing, our bread, all cut and ready from last night. Cutting that and and the first two ingredients on the recipe are onions and apples. So Again, most of our recipes we start with chopping and sauteing. So we're gonna chop our onions, chop our apples and then saute. So I took my onion, chopped it up, took my apple, chopped it up.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm and sauteed for you already, so Bring this over now. Years ago I did learn. I wrote a note to myself Make sure you chop the apples smaller A they'll cook faster and B They'll be more of them all throughout the stuffing. Mm-hmm so do you see how fine I've chopped the ingredients for this recipe?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like them to be small. Okay, so if you use a big enough pan to saute, then you can use this as your mixing bowl. Okay, uh-huh, one less thing to clean. So we've got our Apples, our onions. Then we're gonna add scallions. So three scallions I've already chopped up. We're gonna add those in. Then we're gonna add in our stuffing.
Speaker 1:This is making me hungry.
Speaker 3:I know, I'm just gonna say that.
Speaker 2:And you can sort of think that I use that. I. You know, how big was this loaf of bread Do I want? Like, what ratio do I want between my bread and my other ingredients? So I think I'm gonna stop about there and start to mix this up. The last thing we're gonna add is our veggie broth, because once you add your veggie broth, things might clump together that you need them to spread out. So Okay, so we do need to add our herbs in here, so we've got parsley time. Sage rosemary.
Speaker 2:Mmm and let me show you those. Okay, so For our parsley, you know, store it in the fridge and some water to keep it fresh and alive. Now, with parsley, do you guys eat the stems or not? Eat the stems? I do eat the stems, yeah, yeah. So with parsley, because it's not woody, you know, you can bend it, you can flex it, it's not going to be. You know, something that's really getting in your way and giving you a bad flavor. You can just chop it and add it in and you know, if I have some big stems, I cut them off, but otherwise you guys see me chopping those. Yeah, Okay, so we've got those and all these herbs. If you use fresh herbs in your stuffing, it just makes it really pretty.
Speaker 3:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, the dried herbs are fine if that's what you've got and that's all you have the bandwidth for. One thing about using fresh herbs is if you have somebody a job, if you've got a mother-in-law or a brother-in-law and they're like what can I do to help? And you say, can you take these herbs and prep them for me? That is a perfect job for them, right? And then you can say, okay, whoever preps the you know the rosemary gets first dibs on dinner, you know, whichever herb they- think is the hardest, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you've got your sage right and you just cut those in the you know little tiny pieces.
Speaker 3:I love fresh herbs. I feel like there's I mean, the side is great too, it gives some flavor. But there's something about fresh herbs, especially in a dish, like stuffing, that's really, you know, amazing. I agree, yeah, oh gosh this. You know what, daphne? We should have done this together. Maybe we could have been with in Brooks kitchen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, being the taste testers here. That would have been great, because I definitely am going to try this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you can really just do this to taste. You know, I sort of use two tablespoons as a rough guide, but if and if you know you don't like a particular or leave it out you know, just put in what you like. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we've got this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a question we get sometimes. Is there a particular brand of knives and pots that you like to use?
Speaker 2:There isn't these knives. I got as a gift from a store called New West Knifeworks out in Jackson, wyoming, and they were. They're an amazing gift. I mean absolutely amazing gift. I love this knife and as far as my pots go, I think a lot of them are calf calfalon and I've had them for years. I think the main thing to for me is years ago I used to use calfalon coated pans, yeah, and I was like, oh gosh, like I really just want stainless steel. I thought they would be too hard to clean and turns out they're not. And particularly when you eat plant based and you don't have a bunch of oil and fat that like dunks up your pans like so cleans up well.
Speaker 2:So easy, yeah, okay. So once you've got, can you guys see this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, looks delicious.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is our stuffing that we've now dispersed. Everything you know is mixed well and we're going to add our veggie broth. And I put two cups on the recipe. But you know, it really just depends on how much you need to get the right moisture level for your bread. If it's too dry, you're not going to be happy. So we want to make sure we get it moist enough and I think two cups is going to be the right amount for this recipe, this actual batch that we put together.
Speaker 2:You don't want it drowning, but you don't want it, you don't want it dry. And then for people who you know, want salt and pepper, they can just add it as they dish it onto their plate. That way, you know, you don't have to worry about if somebody need lower sodium or somebody's salt free. Some people don't love pepper as much as I do, yeah, so then you'll just take this and put it into a baking dish. Now, I did learn one year that I didn't line it with parchment paper. It really stuck to the bottom. Yeah, so this one is going to put it in here. I think I'm going to do two different baking dishes because this, this particular dish, I picked out with a little bit on the smaller side. Two batches of that, but I'm going to bring one out of the oven to show you what it looks like when it's done.
Speaker 2:Oh, delicious yeah so good yeah, so I was eating this for lunch yesterday after I made it so good. How long do you bake that for Brooke? So this I bake for 30 minutes, 30 minutes Okay. Yeah, and then about half at 375 and then about halfway through I stirred it up so that more of the pieces would get crispy or crunchy.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that looks delicious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that that is so good. Okay, and then let's see, was there anything else we wanted to talk about with the stuffing?
Speaker 3:No, I think that you could break it up and then add the herbs that you want. It looks delicious.
Speaker 1:It. It looks really good.
Speaker 2:Good, okay. And then the last thing is the gravy. Yeah, so with the lentil loaf, it is really nice to have a gravy to put over top of it. Um, whether it's a standalone loaf or whether you've got it in one of the squashes, the gravy just really takes it up a notch. And this gravy is so simple to make. Um, I'm going to bring this pan over, because what you're going to do is you're going to assemble everything in one pan and then cook it together, and it's done. So it's two cups of veggie broth, so let's put that in the pan. And the next ingredient is oat flour. Now, if you don't have oat flour, how can we make oat flour?
Speaker 1:Take some oatmeal and grind it up.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's exactly what I did yesterday. I got my container of oats, put them in my blender and made oat flour. Okay, so we're just going to add our oat flour right in with our veggie broth. Then we're going to add in nutritional yeast, which gives it such a good flavor.
Speaker 1:And you get your B vitamins there.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:B vitamins and nutritional yeast. Stephanie, okay, I was not aware of that. I just thought it just gave you a more cheesy flavor, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then we're going to add a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of onion powder, one teaspoon of onion powder, and then Vesemay. I'm back to the Dijon.
Speaker 3:Yes, but just a half a teaspoon.
Speaker 2:Okay, just a little bit. Just a little bit for this one. You don't want your gravy to taste like mustard. Yes, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like this gives it a little bit of the added flavor, maybe a little tang, and also creams it up a bit.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, yeah, mustard always is good at making things a little creamier, yeah, and then we've got the oat flour in there to do that, and the nutritional yeast will help with that also.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So we're just going to put that. Can you see this? Okay, yes, okay. So we're going to put that on the stove and whisk it for five minutes. Okay, oh, five minutes went by already. Here we go.
Speaker 3:And here's our rice and you're having fun, oh wow.
Speaker 2:Wow, and it's delicious. It really is. It's perfect. My younger son loves it. Um, my older son does too.
Speaker 3:So could you use that gravy Go?
Speaker 2:ahead, brooke. Oh no, I was just going to say my everyone loves it, but my younger son is the hardest one to please. So if I say that my younger son loves it, it means it's awesome. Oh good, so now do you?
Speaker 3:put the gravy on top of your lentil, though, or do you just have it as a side, like a dipping, or can you use that gravy for other recipes and have you, oh yeah, everything?
Speaker 2:Like yeah, okay, you yeah, if um like my husband he loves things to be saucy, so there's no point in me just giving him the lentil loaf, like I would put the lentil loaf on his plate, you know, drizzle the graze gravy over top and then, and then have the gravy on the table also, so that, as he's eating, I just, I, just I, just, I, just I, just so that as he's eating. I just can picture him spinning the table around.
Speaker 3:We got a lady, susan.
Speaker 2:So yeah, just will be adding more, yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, good yeah.
Speaker 1:Brooke could people add a little bit of the sage and the time and the rosemary into the gravy too? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you could.
Speaker 2:I never have but um, but yeah, I mean, and those herbs, not only do they give a great flavor, but I think it's so important to remember, like how powerful they are as plants.
Speaker 3:Yeah, For their anti-inflammatory properties.
Speaker 2:They're, you know, cancer fighting properties. They're antioxidant properties, like herbs. They just don't get enough recognition for like how beneficial they are.
Speaker 1:So it's it is really nice to uh to include them just for health purposes, let alone how delicious they are and the other amazing thing for anyone listening or watching is you've prepped three dishes pretty much in about 30 plus minutes, aside from the cooking time, the prep time is not hours and hours and hours. It really is very easy and approachable for anyone who has the ingredients handy. Yeah, and there's a lot of shared ingredients.
Speaker 2:So like, if you're, um, if you've got your onions out, just cut all your onions at the same time and then measure the amounts out for the lentil loaf and for the stuffing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's amazing. I think you are ready. I'm coming to your house for Thanksgiving. Don't tell my family. Don't tell my family. That's amazing. Thank you so much, brooke, for sharing those recipes, I think. Daphne, if you're ready, I'm going to share a little bit of mine. I think we are ready for goat to go for dessert and some special family recipes.
Speaker 1:So there's um. The first one I'll start off with is the Italian flat beans that everybody raves my mom to make.
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is my mom's recipe. It's a traditional, the way she grew up cooking almost every meal. So the base, and I went ahead because it does the cooking time it is about an hour, so I went ahead and made it in my um, in my liquor set Dutch oven earlier this morning. But it's Italian flat beans and that's what they look like. Okay, so the ingredients for this so simple and the same base ingredients that you will make everything. So you can either use water or olive oil. So, being from the Mediterranean, we love our olive oil, so use a little bit of light olive oil, but please use water. If you are oil free. And you dice and a medium size onion, add that and then a couple of cloves of garlic and let that saute and simmer for a little bit. Um, from there you, once they sweat out a little, we add just one can of petite dice tomatoes and then you add fill the can up with water because we don't let anything go to waste, and so we just add a little bit of olive oil and then we just let anything go to waste and so we fill it up with water to get the last bits of the tomatoes and pour that in and let it simmer for about five minutes. That is gives you this base sauce that is delicious. You can add your seasonings. So we, our traditional seasonings are a little bit of salt and lemon juice. And then, um, the last is I love frozen vegetables over canned, but you can use one of the two. If it's canned, you cook it last time. If it's frozen fresh, then you cook it a little bit more. But these are the Italian flat beans that we get, so one bag for the proportion that I just showed. And then what we do is we add that in and mix it all around and coat the tomatoes and the tomatoes in the tomato mixture and then just let it simmer and cook on low for about 45 to 50 minutes, constantly checking and stirring, and then you get these delicious beans that we eat as opposed to having the traditional green bean casserole. So they are delicious. You can add any additional herbs that you want, but the base of the tomato sauce onions and garlic is the base for everything. So we also make like navy beans adcan navy beans to that and it's a delicious dish to eat over quinoa you can do. You know, black beans. You could do anything, even lentils too, or a lentil and garbanzo bean mixture is also delicious. So that's that.
Speaker 3:The next is we are going to make a plant based pumpkin pie. So the traditional has a lot of the dairy, so we're cutting the dairy out. This recipe is courtesy of. It doesn't taste like chicken, but I did alter the recipe just slightly. So what we're going to do is we're going I did make one ahead of time, so see how delicious that looks, and it's very easy.
Speaker 3:Now my first concern was how am I going to make a vegan, vegan pie shell? Well, I like to take shortcuts, and what I did was I found in the frozen food section of my grocery store. I found a gluten free vegan pie crust that comes already formed for me. So, being busy mom that I am and running all around and spending half my life on the soccer field, I take those shortcuts, as long as they're the nutritional ones, and so that pie crust is ready to go. So the next thing we're going to do is we're just going to add one can of pumpkin. Now, please make sure that it's not pumpkin pie filling, because that has all of the added flavors, and we're going to add our own flavors and and sweeteners and all. So you put one can of the pumpkin in your bowl and then 14 and a half ounce can, or 16.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is the 15 ounce can of pumpkin. And then this recipe is saying for from the it doesn't taste like chicken says you do need to use a full fat plant based milk, and so you can use oat milk, you can use coconut milk, and so we do have one 13 and a half can of of coconut milk, and so we'll pour that in the bowl and mix this together. I'm actually going to switch over to my my whisk and so mix this together really good, and then from there you add a half a cup of brown sugar. So this recipe calls for brown sugar and maple syrup. I didn't have any more maple syrup in my pantry, so I'm using brown sugar. I tend, I find I tend to find that there's recipes are end up being a little too sweet and so I always cut back the sugar naturally, and so I'm just using it's. The recipe calls for half a cup of brown sugar and a quarter cup of maple syrup. I'm just doing the brown sugar. You can just use the maple syrup. I'm going to leave that up to everybody listening and whatever flavor you could do half and half to. But I found that it was sweet enough when I tasted the batter because, as you know, being plant based, I could taste the batter. There's nothing that's going to be messing me up here. There's no raw ingredients, okay, and then also a quarter cup of corn starch. You can also use tapioca starch if you want, so that goes in.
Speaker 3:This is a really easy pumpkin pie and I find that sometimes the traditional pumpkin pie there I always have to constantly look at the recipe to make sure that I'm doing it right. And and this one was pretty easy, all right, so that's all mixed in like that, and then we're going to add our seasonings, and so I have pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of salt to bring the flavors together. So I mixed that up and that's it. Pour it in your pie shell and bake it 350 for one hour. I will say that when I baked mine last night and the recipe does point this out as well is that it will be cracked on the sides, the jiggly on the inside, and so what you want to do is take it out, let it cool, naturally, and then pop it in your fridge for about four hours. But here we go. So that looks so good.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I did have a couple extra, a little bit, and I put it in a ramekin to be crustless and it was just going to ask you about that, yeah you could do it crustless too.
Speaker 3:I did make it crustless. Now with it, I would just alter the baking time just slightly, just because you don't have the crust to bake either. So this crust was already raw and it says just do it on baked. It's super easy Just pop it in the oven and there we have our pumpkin pie. You can use some whipped coconut cream or whipped plant based cream and enjoy your pumpkin pie in the plant based fashion. So you know what I did forget one thing, and that was a vanilla extract, but that's okay, we'll set that aside. I think it will be fine without it.
Speaker 3:The next recipe that I wanted to share is a fan favorite of the family, and it is pumpkin fluff. And now pumpkin fluff actually has a separate well, it uses cool whip, which is not plant based. It uses cream, but what I did was I found a true whip, brand vegan, which I was excited to find, and so this recipe, the end product, looks like this. So we're going to get there in a second. So this has one 15 ounce can of pumpkin that I've already mixed into my bowl and one five ounce box of pudding, and so it looks like this vanilla pudding or yes.
Speaker 3:Instant vanilla pudding yes. And then I love pumpkin pie spice. The recipe calls for one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. I used to, and so we mix that up and then, once that's mixed, then I take my cool whip and fold it in. Sorry, true whip, vegan, true, true whip. And this is actually super easy and and anybody can make it. I have my kids help me make it also. So two of these, because it would take one. What is each of this? Let me look real quick, guys. I think it's a 15 ounce serving of whip. So that's two of these, all right. And so you put these in and then you just fold in the whipped cream Till it's completely mixed. This is a good arm workout, daphne. Good Right, I mean we?
Speaker 1:got to work out today.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And where did you find that true whip.
Speaker 3:I found that at my Publix and I was really amazed at that. You know what my our grocery stores down here after we check out there, like, did you find everything? And sometimes I tell them yes or no and give them ideas of what more to bring in, because I think what they do is they take that back and then add it in. So sometimes I'll mention and all of a sudden I'll have my plant based stuff. So yeah, the Publix had this and there's an earth fair near me, I think any any place that has more of a. You know, I wonder if your trader Joe's has that, bro.
Speaker 2:So I would have to look.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so, yeah, it's a vegan true whip, and what I'll do is I'll use, reuse this, these containers to put it back in, because then I serve it out of that. So that's how it looks.
Speaker 1:Yum.
Speaker 3:It's so good and you can mix it as much as you can, but I don't mind having chunks of pumpkin I mean, who doesn't like pumpkin? And that's it. The sweetness comes from the whip, and then I have just some ginger snaps. You can also serve it with fruit, and then that's it. We just eat it like this.
Speaker 2:Just never use a handheld mixer for it, or would that do something?
Speaker 3:unwanted. You can use a handheld mixer, absolutely for ease of use, but Daphne has me on this arm workout that I get my workout in, especially today. So so that's it. So I hope these recipes were helpful to everybody. I know that our friends and family are going to be having these specific recipes this week and, brooke, thank you so much. Daphne, do you have any more to add today? I know this was a longer podcast, but I think I hope I'm hopeful everybody enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:No, brooke, thank you, and the vessel may thank you too. I love to share recipes with people because I think one a lot of people feel that having a plant based Thanksgiving meal is extra work, and I think what the two of you have just demonstrated is that you can make a whole meal in less than an hour, baking time excluded, of course. But these are just flavorful recipes with ingredients that, for the most part, you already have in your kitchen, and they are things that everyone's going to love. You know, as we were talking about before we actually went live, you can mix and match if there are things that you like a little bit better, things that you don't like. If you want to use beluga lentils as opposed to green lentils, there's a lot of flexibility, but the fundamentals of the recipes that Brooke has on our website, we would encourage you to try, because vessel may and I have tried them and they're delicious.
Speaker 1:And vessel may were glad that you shared with us some secret family recipes and look forward to spending more time in both of your kitchens and finding out more tips, tricks and being thankful and grateful. I want to be thankful and grateful to both of you for spending time with us today. So thanks to everyone who joined, perfectly planted. We want to wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving if you're in the part of the world that celebrates Thanksgiving. As I said, we are grateful for you and I'm grateful for these two wonderful women who joined me today, and we want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Be well and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.