459: The Weekday Vegetarian Game Is On with Jenny Rosenstrach

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. All the exciting things are happening with plant-based cooking and vegetarian cooking, or at least surprising. Like, I'm never, like, surprised that something that has bacon in it is going to taste good, you know, but, like, Pierce Abernathy, you're like, how did he just make a five-course meal out of, like, a turnip? This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59We are always so happy to hang out with Jenny Rosenstrock, the talented writer and editor behind a highly enjoyable newsletter and a series of cookbooks. On this episode, we talk with Jenny about her terrific new book, Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple. We get into some of the recipes that drive this creative cooking plan and how the challenge to eat less meat is hardly that. It's a fun adventure using spices and crafty plant-forward techniques. We also talk about the upcoming Taste Travels trip to Mexico. Tickets are available now. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:42Jenny Rosenstrock, welcome back to This is Taste. It's great to see you. It's always so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I can't wait to talk about your book. It's out soon. You know, Dinner Love Story, your blog and newsletter, you've been publishing for 15 years. And it's an impressive run. And the output is, it's just like you're so editorial. And as we've discussed on previous episodes, you've had, you have a real magazine eye for the way you do all your books and your writing. But let me just ask you about the home cooking. How has it changed over the past 15 years for you?

2:16Well, to state the obvious, we eat a lot less meat. You know, three years ago when I wrote my first book, The Weekday Vegetarians, I decided that I wanted to dial back on meat without giving it up completely. And when I started Dinner Love Story, it was 2009. Sorry, 2010, 2010. And I mean, the way I thought about dinner and home cooking was just animal protein in the center of the plate. And then I would figure the rest out later. It was kind of an afterthought. And once I started kind of getting into this weekday vegetarian thing, now it's the opposite. It's kind of I look at vegetables and I see what can I do based on that.

2:56And, oh, yeah, I guess I should add a protein. You know, it's like it's kind of the reverse. And so that's a big change. I'm cooking for two now instead of four. My girls are both in college, which is great. You know, I can decide what to make for dinner 15 minutes before we're eating dinner. It doesn't have to feel like, you know, we're on. An event. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to. I mean, it never really felt like an event, but it was just you always had to have a plan or something. And there was always a schedule you had to accommodate or someone going to some late night practice or coming home, you know, or just had to, you know, had homework or a test of study for it.

3:29So, yeah. So that's that's been really nice. I have to say we always joke when our daughters come home for dinner. I'm like, I just completely forget how to cook. Not even just like they eat everything, but the sheer volume of food that we go through is just astonishing to me. I'm like, we did this for 18 years? How did we do that? Yeah, it had those four hungry bodies. Yeah, yeah. And let me ask you, when you're just doing a quick dinner for two, it's like 7.30. You both come back from busy days of working. tell me what's the go-to throw together. I know you've got a lot and this book is simple as in the title.

4:07The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple. So I think I'm alluding to your idea of what dinner is now. But give me like the one you make that you're just like go-to. I mean, the one we make, I'll tell you what we're really into just this time of year is just like a blender gazpacho. And we have, when the tomatoes aren't great, you know, it's July, it's not exactly peak season, but I still try it. And this is sort of something I discuss in the book, too. A quick cheat for when they're not quite as peak as you want them to be is to throw in a couple strawberries. And I just blend that. It's like making a smoothie for dinner.

4:44You know, it's like strawberries, you know, maybe like three or four strawberries with the cubanelle pepper and whatever great tomatoes you can find, an onion and a little ton of olive oil. And that's with maybe like a beautiful green salad. It's cool. The simplest salad and a soup is just like the way I roll this time of year. I mean, a frittata. I mean, I make so many frittatas. It's insane. But and I really have mastered the technique. And there's a great frittata in this. There is. And also the gazpacho. And are you putting a little bit of sherry vinegar too on the gazpacho? Do you add a little at the end?

5:26I do not. Do I add a sugar? I actually don't remember. I think I might add a little red wine vinegar. Red wine, okay. But maybe not sherry vinegar. But yeah, there's definitely some acid in there. But unless the tomatoes are just like already too acidic, I don't know. That's true. And like good point. If the tomatoes don't need a little booster, then you're good. Yeah. I love that about your cooking. And I just love the way the book is laid out. There's just a lot of like cool, there's like flow charts and there's like, you know, the way you build opportunities. to use those eggs up to you. I mean, I was a magazine editor for so long that I can never quite get that out of my system.

6:02I always have to think of different ways to present information. Not always, but I just kind of, I feel like it's a more fun way in to do a chart or a mix and match or when I can, that's just like the old school magazine editor in me. A lot of cookbooks avoid that because I think the authors maybe don't have that skill set and it's fine. There's plenty of books that are traditional head note and recipe and sidebar matter, but you kind of get in there with your designer. It's really cool. I love it. So the Weekday Vegetarians, it's not a vegetarian cookbook. You're implying in the title that you can eat meat at different parts of the week.

6:38But I want to go back to the vegetarian portion. I think some of our listeners, they want to eat less meat, but they get a little bit intimidated about the weekday vegetarian part and get like they revert back to the old habits of eating meat. How do you stay interested in this lifestyle choice? It's a good question. And sometimes I go a couple of days where I'm not interested in it at all. And I think that's the beauty of the philosophy of, you know, just what's convinced me to eat plant-based more often than, you know, a dinner centered around animal protein is that I know I can have the day off or I don't have to be so draconian about it.

7:23And when I'm not as hard on myself, I'll have a couple, like over the weekend I had a burger and this was last weekend. And then I had some chicken. It was just like a very meat heavy weekend. And then it's the yin and yang. So by Monday, now I'm like, I really just feel like I'm craving like a real vegetable forward meal. I just had too much meat. And that's something that I never felt before I started this. So it's definitely like takes a while and you have to get in shape. But yeah, and the opposite. You know, I can only have so many chickpea recipes before. I'm like, I need that steak. So yeah, it's just kind of that's a big reason why I'm able to stay energized.

8:07But I also just feel like most of the exciting things that I'm consuming media-wise these days, like cookbooks and social media, just I feel like all the exciting things are happening with plant-based cooking and vegetarian cooking, or at least surprising. Like I'm never like surprised that something that has bacon in it is going to taste good, you know, but like when you look, I mean, like Pierce Abernathy and Justine Doran, like all these people who are just doing, you're like, how did he just make a five course meal out of like a turnip? You know, like how, that to me is impressive. And I always look at it and think I would definitely eat that.

8:42You know, I just think that's way more exciting just from like a food writing standpoint, just to be like, how do you make that food taste good without the animal fat? I fully agree. I love the sentiment. And Pierce and Justine are great examples of kind of a new wave of cooking where you don't necessarily have to say it, but it is plant-based implied. And it's kind of just the way people are eating. And then keeping it creative. It's a high level of creativity when you're going plant-based, which is shown in your book. Obviously putting a beautiful Dorad on a plate that's been grilled is a way to eat, but you don't have to do it that way.

9:20No, you don't. And it's like the satisfaction I get when I put together a dinner that's vegan by accident is enormous. I'm like, how did I, I didn't even like think to use like an egg or something dairy-based. Like, you know, it's, I love it when that happens, when you just don't miss anything and it's just fully satisfying the way a meat-based dinner would be. How did the recipe development process go for this book? Did you have like a method? I mean, the sub stack and we'll get into the community you've built. That's got to have helped you a little bit. This is the first book you've written with like a really hardcore sub stack audience and and real cadence.

9:59But outside of that, how are you developing these recipes? I always like to hear that. Yeah, I mean, I've never been the kind of recipe developer who goes into a test kitchen and just tinkers. All of my recipes come from cooking for my family, cooking for me, cooking for my husband, cooking for my kids, cooking for people on the weekend, just cooking for people. And if something works and I like it or if I tweak something, I just take notes and that's my recipe. And I hope for the best. I mean, with Substack, Substack feels so much like a workbook. So I generally don't retest before. I've gotten very good at, you know, retroactively writing the recipe after doing it.

10:44But if that recipe ends up in a book somewhere, I will, you know, rigorously retest it. Yeah, but yeah, it was funny. When I was writing this book, Raquel Pelzel, my editor, said, you know, it's weird. You have a whole cookbook full of these simple recipes and there's not a single sheet pan recipe to be found. And I just feel like that's a big – she was very nice about it. But there's a big – that's a void. And I think you should probably like think about some sheet pan recipes. And I said that's a really good point. I just felt so kind of paralyzed. Like, where do I even start with this? And I did come up with a couple that I really like, but there were some, I can't even remember what they were, but I definitely didn't hit it on the first try.

11:30I mean, Jenny, you're an instinctual cook. It's obvious. I mean, I think, yes. Yes. The short answer is yes. But you have something else to say. What are you with the tip of your tip? No, I think, I don't really know how to find it. It is sort of the way – I always think it's so interesting how I used to just never cook with recipes ever and just I would, you know, just tinker. Or if there was some recipe I made, I could remember what it was like. And I was just very good at remembering it and muscle memory, like just how it's supposed to go and just because I've been doing it for so long. But recently, like there are a couple recipes that are so good that I've been following them to the T.

12:08You know, like I just don't want to mess around with them. And like even measuring like salad dressing ingredients, you know, which is so it's a new development. Yeah. But. It's something comforting about having like a four or five part dressing and using your ratios properly. Yeah. I mean, it's real technique and it's always I'm like, oh, my God, this tastes so much better than mine. I wonder why. Like the other one had like way too much oil in it, which is what I always do. So a big part of the sub stack, Food Writer Maloo, is like the product recommendation. I mean, you see it within all, like Justine Cooks is one or in Smitten Kitchen.

12:51And I wanted to get a sense while you're writing this book, you mentioned some products in the book. But let me ask you, are there some product discoveries that you've had? because I think a big part of food media now is not just like doing the recipe. It's actually doing like an interactive version and being like, I bought gratza. I brought, which I'm sorry I bring that one all the ways up because it's like, it's like just like the muscle memory, but there are other olive oils out there. But you kind of know what I mean. I like gratza too. But like there's, we're in this world of we are consuming products in a different way and we're doing it almost as a sport or as a hobby, which I love.

13:30It's like so fun to buy products. And I mean, they're affordable luxuries in many. But what are some products that you've discovered? Part of the reason why I wrote this book was I kept on hearing over and over again how complicated vegetarian cooking was and how, you know, oh, my kids are meat and potatoes eaters. And oh, it's you need there's no flavor. And oh, there's just it takes multi steps. You need a sauce. It's just people were overwhelmed. And one of the sections in the book, I try to address all of these issues. And one of the sections in the book addresses, you know, just the complicated factor.

14:06Like no one is expecting you to make everything from scratch. And so these the products that I think you're probably referring to more like condiments or I'm not sure. But the products that I just found to be so crucial for making sure that you're eating vegetarian every night are pretty typical. I mean, there's like puff pastry and empanada dough and what else? Like even just the kinds of things. I mean, it's kind of different for everyone. For me, for some reason, peeling and cubing a butternut squash was such a deal breaker for me. But I love butternut squash so much, so I didn't want to not make it because of that.

14:47So I buy cubed butternut squash, the pre-cubed. I mean, everyone has their own line in the sand with what conveniences they can live with and live without. But that one for me, you know, I always have cubed butternut squash. I mean, for me, I really hung on the co-sign on buying pre-cooked beets, which is amazing because I've purchased these products or I've gotten them in my Hungry Root box. And it's amazing. You don't have to deal with that bullshit. But beets are so great. Beets are so great. I mean, and I, when I first started seeing them in the little, the little plastic packages, they were so cute.

15:26And my kids loved them when they were little and especially the vinegared ones. Those are so good. And they, they just give so much bang for your buck. And it instantly elevates whatever you're eating somehow, like a salad with just those and cheese and nuts is just like, that's the most perfect lunch I can imagine. And, um, but yeah, beets are a pain in the neck to make. And I make them differently every time. The skin never comes off the way I want them to. The color's not right. They're not sweet enough. It's just it's always a gamble for me. And so I'm glad that you co-sign on that one because that one is I give full permission to go with this.

16:02You give some great permissions in the book. You know, you're talking about jarred marinara sauces that you enjoy. And I think it's a cool part of the book that we are now actually putting proper nouns and products in. It's not like, you know, Food Network in 2005 where it's like everything's blocked off. Right, right. It's so true. You know, it used to be like that way in all cookbooks, but now it's like, yeah, we actually are humans. So we're buying real brands. That's so true. And you have a great, great section in there. I want to talk about a couple of recipes. I really like the spicy feta chickpea wedges.

16:32That looks really cool. And I love cooking with chickpeas, but I haven't thought about doing them in kind of like a soca, like a wedge or fried wedge. It's awesome. Have you ever had chickpea fries? So, yes, I have, but I've never made them. Okay. I mean, geez, I don't know. They're so incredibly easy to make. And this is basically a chickpea fry, but in a wedge shape so that it feels more substantial. You know, a lot of the stuff is optical trickery. But you basically, it couldn't be easier to make. It's basically like making polenta. You just add, it's made with chickpea flour that you just sort of drizzle into maybe three cups of boiling water.

17:13you know just like polenta you whisk it constantly probably like three or five minutes and and then you pull it off the heat mix in this recipe is feta i've mixed in other things but you mix in a little feta and then it'll start to kind of um harden not harden but um solidify almost immediately so you want to you want to pour it onto like a piece of parchment paper a line plate or a cutting board into like whatever shape you're making if i was making fries i would make a rectangle but i'm making wedges so i'm making this time for with this recipe i use i pour it into like a circle and then i chill it and then you cut it into it's so easy to cut after that oh i missed an important part no i didn't miss an important part the spices come in after you fry them in oil you fry each wedge from the fridge you take it from the fridge and then you fry you don't want to overcrowd the pan but you know um maybe four or five wedges at a time um And they're heavy, so you don't need a lot to serve.

18:11So you fry them and they get crispy on each side and then you dust them with like a nice little like paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt. I drizzled it with an arugula pesto in this recipe. But really, like you can have with marinara. You can just have it like with roasted mushrooms on the side. You think of it like baked polenta, but it actually has amazing protein content and is gluten free. I mean, so is polenta, but it's gluten-free, which my gluten-free friends are always so grateful for having a carby, crispy, gluten-free something on the table. It's the crispy part that I just – it takes polenta to a new level when it has that crispiness.

18:47Yes. And then you could dust it with a lot of different spices, I'm sure. Anything. It's very flexible. And I really wanted that to be the cover recipe. I think I might have landed on it because of the photo. I was like, nice. Speaking of pesto, broccoli pesto. That's new to me. listeners may have had it before, but listen, love broccoli. That's my number one. Really? Oh, wow. I love it. Vegetable. I love it. Take us through that broccoli pesto. How does that work? Well, basically, you know, I mean, I'm sure you know this. You can kind of turn any vegetable into pesto if you want. The pesto, I mean, you simmer the broccoli and you blend it with, you don't even need nuts for this, quote, pesto.

19:27It's more like a broccoli sauce, you know, but it's broccoli, olive oil, cheese, garlic yeah until it like just reaches saucy consistency but you have to reserve a few florets before you blend the whole thing together because that's what when you're tossing with pasta that gives it like a nice little textural component as opposed to just like kind of you know super silky like I don't know something about pureeing broccoli and not having those chunks makes just reminds me of baby food yeah it makes it it's like this doesn't even look like any broccoli this could be any green sauce could be anything right so you want to have that reminder So you're adding a little bit of broccoli at the end, blitzing it very roughly and having florets.

20:05Or you could even hand, you could chop it yourself. Yes, totally. I like that a lot. I like the way these recipes come together, the way you talk about them. And your head notes are quite conversational too, which I think it's not too prescriptive. Thank you. Yeah, no, I work hard on those. And that's actually, that's the most fun for me always for recipe writing is just the context of the recipe. Give us one more recipe that may surprise listeners that it can be a main course, but we didn't even realize it. It's just like sitting there. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, that would surprise you.

20:41This is, I think, going to be the breakout star of this book. Love it. I was just going to say it. I feel like I'm talking a lot about tomatoes, but this is another tomato recipe. I went to Sicily last year with a bunch of Substack readers. It was part of a tour. And every day we ate these epic lunches wherever we were visiting, whether it was like a vineyard or an almond farm or a lemon farm, a lemon tree farm. And at every lunch there were platters of room temperature eggplant, just like sauteed very simply in olive oil, thin. And then also there was always some kind of caprese situation going on.

21:19And I started just kind of combining them and eventually like layering it to look almost like a like an eggplant parm. But a summary version because it wasn't all drippy and gooey. And it was so light and flavorful. And it became like just kind of my go to everywhere I went. I would just try to make that or combine it somehow. And I could do it remarkably at many of the lunches. But when I came home, I just kind of set to work to make sure. And it's obviously not a complicated recipe to develop. But it's like a bruschetta topping, and it's super – it has just like the tiniest hint of garlic to it that I don't know why that garlic just makes it – it makes it all come together.

21:58And there's basil and obviously a ton of olive oil. And again, just like back to just rebranding and marketing your food, like that could be just a caprese that you would start with. But it could also be like if you present it nicely, it's an eggplant parm. Like that's what eggplant parm is. And that's considered a main dish for, you know, that most people wouldn't like kind of think twice about. I love that answer. I love the little hint of raw garlic. You got to be careful with that. But having that little astringency goes a long way. Yeah, I'm not a huge, I don't, I know this is like my Italian grandmothers are both just rolling in their graves.

22:32But I'm not a huge garlic person. And so when I use it, I try to use it very strategically and judiciously. You mentioned Substack Readers traveled with you. Let me ask you about your community and how you've embraced Substack early on. And you really offer a cool mix of, you know, like recipes, hardcore head notes, etc. But you also do three things where you're talking about things that are interesting to you in your life. And just like honestly, it's like musings from your life. And it feels like some like 1995 blogging, which I love. That's exactly why I like it. But, yeah, I've simply not evolved since 1995, apparently.

23:14But, yeah, I love it. It's by far my most favorite phase of my career is my sub-stack writing. I just feel like, I mean, you know, when you're first learning how to write in magazines, like people always used to say, just pretend you're writing to a friend. It's like really conversational and really chatty. Like you've got to lose all the academic stuff, like unlearn it, like be chatty, and like you want to be likable and you want to go down easy. Like it was and it's it sounds easy, but it's very hard to do. And and it's funny with Substack, you're literally writing to your friends like it's a it's it's a newsletter, which somehow feels different than a blog post, which is just like, here's an idea and here's how I'm supporting the idea.

23:56You know, it's like I'm writing to people. I'm saying, hi, you know, good morning. Here are a couple of things that I think you would like to know this week. And it feels somehow I do all my writing now in Substack, even if it's not a Substack story. Like if I have an assignment from someone else for an essay or a book for you or whatever, I'm writing it in Substack because it just it just gets those. It feels the template feels. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Very purist. I mean, for anyone who's been on Substack or wants to start a Substack, it's it's very instinctive. And it's a blank screen and simple fonts and not overly designed if you don't want it to be.

24:35But yeah, I still love it. I couldn't love it more. It's cool. And it allows you the delivery method into the inbox. It's so intimate versus like writing for a website or a blog or wherever. Yes. Even like a social media post, which goes into the algorithm. No, these are like handshakes. You guys are, these are your friends. Yeah. I mean, the fact that they've opted in is just so meaningful. And yeah, they don't. Yes, I agree. How do you grow then your community? How does it work? Like right now, I know there's a lot of listeners who maybe have their own sub stacks of media folks listening to the show.

25:12And like, how do you how do you think about like gaining new audience? Well, it's evolved a lot since I started. But I mean, initially, you you just want to get people under the tent first. So your best content and to this day, I feel this you should you should have your best stuff be free. And then if people get to like you, get to know you, then they're more willing to sort of invest in you. I mean, invest, that's a heavy word for$5 a month. Yeah. Tip you. Tip you. I was very afraid to use the paywall function where, you know, like you say, you describe, let's say, a recipe or something else that's intriguing.

25:54And then you, you know, put a paywall before you actually get to the recipe. And, you know, you send it to everybody. not just your paying subscribers obviously and so the idea is that people will say i want the recipe i'm going to pay for the i'm going to i'm going to subscribe it works and i was i definitely lose subscribers when i put it out there but it took me a while to come to this and i wrote a whole thing about this for like a very inside baseball post about writing for sub stack um which i you don't have enough time to go into everything but it's really obviously if you're not valuing your own work no one else is going to value your work so i just sometimes people will complain and say you know i don't why does it you know why why do you have to charge for this we're your loyal readers we buy your books we do this you know um but i don't i don't get very many of no and like your books are different it's a different business and yeah i mean it's this is separate work that that i feel i put a lot into um it's actually i mean i post twice a week and it's it feels like a full-time job and that's another tip i would give people is to treat it like a full-time job because it's hard.