[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We at All Of It, we like food a lot, and it seems you, our listeners, do too. We've decided to make it the radio equivalent of Instagram official and put a day aside each week to talk about food and food-adjacent stories, whether it's, say, a new cookbook, or composting, or a story about food culture like tipping, or the best places in the city for dark chocolate. It's National Dark Chocolate Day, by the way. I plan on celebrating. We are calling the series Food for Thought.

Last Thursday, we spoke with Chef Jamie Oliver about his new Mediterranean-inspired cookbook, and today, we're talking about hearty food that's also healthy. Our guest is a woman who likes salads, specifically what she has dubbed hungry lady salads. Kat Ashmore makes zucchini pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella, and Tuscan kale salad with lemon tahini dressing that features chickpeas and walnuts. By the way, this professionally trained chef sees no problem eating salad with a spoon.

Now, she's put all her years of cooking and recipe development to use for her debut cookbook, which has about 110 recipes, not all salads, and many of them gluten-free. It's called Big Bites: Wholesome, Comforting Recipes That Are Big on Flavor, Nourishment, and Fun. Some breaking news that you just found out last night, Kat, you're a New York Times bestselling author officially. Congratulations.

Kat Ashmore: I am. It's still so surreal. I'm like, "Who is she talking about?" Thank you. Thanks for having me, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to get you in on the conversation. Do you have any cooking questions for Kat? Maybe you have a favorite recipe of Kat's you'd like to shout out, or maybe you want to tell us what's your go-to salad recipe that you'd like to share with fellow listeners and team All Of It. You can call us, join us on air, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call in, talk to us, you can text to us at that number as well, or reach out via our socials, @AllOfIt. WNYC.

Kat, in the book, you say the idea came to you to write this in the month of January, which you call "traditionally the month of deprivation". What made you want to buck that whole, I am going to change my eating habits and I'm going to "be good"?

Kat Ashmore: Well, I found myself looking around in early January thinking to myself that there were all of these places for people to turn to if they had a specific diet that they were following. Everybody's thinking the new year, new you. They want to fit back in their clothes, they want to have more energy, they want to feel more present, happier generally.

I'm thinking, they can go here if they are paleo, they can go here if they're vegan, here if they're keto, but what about all of the people that just want to eat better, that don't want to go on a specific program, but just want to eat better, they want to feel better, they want their families to eat better? I felt like that was my space, that that was a space that I could step into and fill that void for a lot of people like me that eat that way.

Alison Stewart: Let's say someone is thinking, "You know what, I really should get more salads into my diet, into my overall eating patterns." What are some things you can recommend that can help you get started because sometimes salads can feel overwhelming. I got to chop all this. I got to think about dressing. What are a few things people can do? Three things to get on the salad bandwagon.

Kat Ashmore: Three things to get on the salad bandwagon. I think the first thing is to pick a salad that is going to be able to last through the week in the refrigerator. Something like my Tuscan kale salad, for instance, which is one of the most popular recipes. It was the first salad recipe actually in the Hungry Lady Salad Series, and the one that really paved the way for all of the rest of them. That one can stay good in the fridge for five, six days. You have got a salad just ready to go. You make it once, and then you've got your lunches sorted for the rest of the week.

The second thing that you can do is go to a farmer's market. If you can take the time, try to go to a farmer's market. If you can't get to a farmer's market, go to a grocery store that makes you happy. Even if you don't buy anything, just surround yourself with seasonal produce, and let some of the excitement about the seasons and what is available to you now and what is happening outside seep into you. It will change the way that your family eats.

Number three, I think learn how to make a good salad dressing, one that you can always have on hand that you can use as a dip for veggies or for meats, of course, as a salad dressing. In my chapter in Big Bites, the Hungry Lady Salad chapter, there are 18 hungry lady salads and they all have their own salad dressing. I've had so much feedback from people who have said that they've stopped buying salad dressing after making these.

Alison Stewart: All right. I have to go back to something you said in your number one. How does one make a salad last a week?

Kat Ashmore: The way to do that is, number one, you want to take a hearty green. That's going to be super important. You don't want to use a delicate butter leaf lettuce here. You want to use something that is like a Swiss chard or a kale, cabbage, fennel. Think outside of the box a little bit past the traditional salad greens. Those are hearty. They're going to stand up well in the fridge, they're going to hold up well even when dressed oftentimes. That's really the most important element.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Kat Ashmore. She's the author of Big Bites: Wholesome, Comforting Recipes That Are Big on Flavor, Nourishment, and Fun. Before we get into more recipes, I feel like I need to ask you about this. The Tuscan kale salad blew up on TikTok. Then it was as, so as happens on social media, you started getting some flack, mostly sexist flack, about taking big bites, about the way you were eating the salads. Like somebody wrote, "Not eating like a lady." Someone even wrote, "All your eating is going to catch up with you one day." I love that you went ahead and called your book Big Bites because you take big bites. What made you want to go ahead and clap back and address this?

Kat Ashmore: It felt like a conversation that really I wanted to lean into. Anytime that I'm getting a lot of criticism around the same type of thing, it says to me, right or wrong, there's something here. There's something underlying that people are thinking about. Of course, it occurred to me that this type of feedback never goes toward men.

A lot of the criticism that I was getting was sort of these backhanded compliments of, "You're so pretty and you dress so well and you're so well put together, and then you take these big bites of food." I just was like, "Where is this idea that women need to be so precious and so proper around food, where is that coming from?" I really just wanted to come at the whole concept of eating like a lady. From a different point of view, maybe eating like a lady means unapologetically owning pleasure and owning your joy and expressing it. I think that we could all use a little bit more of that as women.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a look at some of the salads as well as some of the other recipes. Warm orzo salad with balsamic mushrooms. What is the key to bringing out a good flavor in a mushroom, using a mushroom properly so it doesn't end up being just like a little spongy thing?

Kat Ashmore: Yes. One of the biggest things is I will just rub my mushrooms with a damp towel to get rid of any grit. Mushrooms have a ton of water in them, so you want to make sure that you are sauteing them in a nice hot skillet with a good amount of fat so that they can get nice and brown on you. If you're salting them right away, it's going to pull out too much moisture. If you're overcrowding the pan, it's going to make them steam. They sound a little bit high maintenance until you do it once and you realize, hot pan, don't overcrowd it, salt it at the end, and you're good.

Alison Stewart: It's a warm salad, as people heard you say, put the mushrooms in a pan. What's important to understand when you're making a warm salad so that it doesn't go south?

Kat Ashmore: If you are going to be storing it in the fridge for the week, you want to make sure that any of your ingredients that you're putting together are at room temperature before you do that. That's going to be the biggest thing because if you've got hot mushrooms and cold lettuce, you and I both know what's going to happen. It's going to end up wilting the lettuce really quickly, and that's just a sad state of affairs. You want to enjoy it right away. If you're going to be storing it for the rest of the week, just store it separately.

Alison Stewart: You use fontina cheese in this warm orzo salad with balsamic mushrooms. What do you like about a fontina cheese and what work is it doing here?

Kat Ashmore: The fontina is that nice, sharp, buttery bite of cheese. I oftentimes, if I'm just adding half a cup of cheese, for instance, I will make sure that it is a really flavorful cheese so that you're getting a lot of punch and a lot of bang for your buck with each bit of cheese, and fontina does it beautifully here. It also has its Italian origin, so it plays really well with the orzo and the balsamic.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Kat Ashmore. She's a chef and author of Big Bites: Wholesome, Comforting Recipes that are Big on Flavor, Nourishment, and Fun. If you have any cooking questions for Kat, give us a call, 212-433-WNYC, 212- 433-9692. You can call in and join us on air, or you can reach out at our socials, @AllofItWNYC. You can also text us at the number 212-433-WNYC, or maybe you have a go-to shared salad recipe you'd like to share with everybody, we'd love to hear it, part of our Food For Thought series. Lentil chopped salad with feta and honey, walnut dressing. In the description, you write, Kat, lentils play well with others. How so?

Kat Ashmore: I often find that lentil salads just taste too much like lentils. I love lentils, but I don't want a whole big bowl of just lentils. I want a lot of other stuff going on. I love to pair lentils with a nice amount of acids, some creaminess. Lentils are a really nice earthy backdrop to so many different flavors.

Alison Stewart: All right. We've been talking about salads, but you do have things in the book for carnivores.

Kat Ashmore: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: We're deep into the gray winter here in our listening area, folks, Upstate New York have some snow, and you have a recipe called snow-day beef and vegetable stew with pasta. What kind of beef do you use here?

Kat Ashmore: I use just a ground beef for this. I really try to make use of affordable cuts of meat that a lot of people can easily find in their grocery stores. I venture out a little bit, but, by and large, these are things that are going to be widely available, and that was important to me as far as regarding the inclusivity of these recipes.

Alison Stewart: All right. In snow day, not only there's beef, there's also bacon. What do beef and bacon bring out when they're used together?

Kat Ashmore: First, the bacon provides the cooking fat. I love to render bacon in this way. Starting it in a cold pan, it renders the fat, which then is used as the cooking fat for the rest of the soup, and it really infuses so much delicious, salty, meaty flavor into the soup. Then, of course, the beef adds that richness. It adds the protein that's going to keep you nice and full and satisfied.

Alison Stewart: Can you freeze this?

Kat Ashmore: You can freeze the soup itself. I wouldn't freeze the pasta. What I would do, simply because once you freeze pasta, it changes the texture, I would freeze it and then I would just boil up some pasta and put a ladle of pasta into a bowl, top it with the soup that you've thawed from the freezer and you're good to go.

Alison Stewart: Now, the book actually doesn't start with salads, although that's what is blown up for you on TikTok. The first chapter is about breakfast food. It's called Morning Person. First of all, is it true that you get up at 4:30 every day?

Kat Ashmore: I'll be honest, the last week or so, I've been sleeping in until 6:00 or so.

Alison Stewart: All the way until 6:00.

Kat Ashmore: I have, because I've been so richly scheduled with the book, which has been amazing, but typically, I do get up around 4:30 or 5:00. I don't even use an alarm, it's just when my body wakes up.

Alison Stewart: We have overnight coconut cream pie oats, might be something you have in the morning. It sounds a little bit like dessert. Where's the nutritional value coming from in this recipe?

Kat Ashmore: You've got a lot of healthy fats from the coconut milk, so we've got a double dose of coconut, both from the coconut milk and from the toasted coconut. Then you've got chia seeds and you've got oats. You've got a good amount of fiber. You've got protein and healthy fats.

Alison Stewart: How do I have successful overnight oats? How does one make sure -- how can you set yourself up for success?

Kat Ashmore: Honestly, this is one of the almost foolproof recipes because, of course, I hate to call anything foolproof because then if it doesn't work for someone, they're like, "Wow, what does that say about me?" The most important thing is just to put it in the fridge for long enough. You really do want to let this hang out in the fridge overnight so that the oats and the chia seeds can thicken up and it'll almost act like a gelatin. It'll turn it into that nice firm consistency that's very scoopable the next day.

Alison Stewart: You see them often, overnight oats in very cute little jam jars, but if someone doesn't have that, what would you recommend?

Kat Ashmore: You can do it in Tupperware. You can even do it in a large Tupperware. If you don't want to portion it out, you can just do it in a large Tupperware. Anything that has a lid and can be refrigerated.

Alison Stewart: Funny you should say that. We got a text about storage and Tupperware. "Hi, Kat. I love a big salad, but I can't stand the preparation, having to assemble all the parts from all these different little Tupperware containers. Are you aware of any container that has multiple separate compartments where I could place all the items at the beginning of the week and then assemble a salad each night? Thank you. Winter from Trenton, New Jersey."

Kat Ashmore: I know that Sistema makes some Tupperware containers that have the different compartments to them, but oftentimes, at least with the salads in my book, you can just mix everything together. We're really trying to make it so that each day, you can just pull it out of the fridge and it's ready to go.

Alison Stewart: Another text says, "My go-to comfort food salad, baby spinach, prosciutto, broiled, and made crispy, freshly shredded parmesan, and thrown together with balsamic vinegarette." That person-

Kat Ashmore: Love it.

Alison Stewart: -knows what's going on.

Kath Ashmore: They definitely do.

Alison Stewart: I do want to note before we run out of time that you have gluten-free recipes in the book. You have a gluten-free bread. You have a New York-style crumb cake that's gluten-free. What are some things to keep in mind when you are cooking without gluten?

Kat Ashmore: The biggest thing is going to be when it comes to baking because gluten-free flour behaves differently than all-purpose gluten-free flour. It is very simple to swap in regular all-purpose flour when I call for gluten-free all-purpose flour, but the opposite is not always true. If you just take any recipe that you find out there that calls for all-purpose flour, you really do need to find something like -- I love the Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 baking flour or the Cup4Cup baking flour. That is usually an even swap, but almond flour, coconut flour, oat flour, they all behave very differently. They don't have any gluten, so they're not going to hold together. I tend to use those types of flours along with an all-purpose flour that has some protein in it.

Alison Stewart: I want to ask you about dark chocolate, Earl Grey mousse. We're talking desserts now. As I mentioned, it is National Dark Chocolate Day. I don't know who made that up, but I like that person.

Kat Ashmore: Love it. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Wait, dark chocolate Earl Grey mousse, and it's vegan. What inspired this one?

Kat Ashmore: This one was inspired by just the concept of using tofu as the base for a pudding. Then, I decided that I was going to turn it up a little bit more. I was going to add some dark chocolate. I first had this concept with -- it was a key lime avocado pie that I had had, and it tasted good, but it was a lot of work. I'm just thinking to myself, "If I'm going to spend this much time on something, I'm going to be making a layer cake."

I decided, "Let's just make this as easy as possible." Tofu provides the perfect texture. It's tasteless. It takes on whatever flavors you put it with. When you've got it with the maple syrup, the dark chocolate, a little bit of Earl Grey tea just for that nice floral background, a pinch of salt, vanilla, it just tastes like a really light and creamy chocolate mousse.

Alison Stewart: What's your favorite recipe in the book?

Kat Ashmore: It would have to be the three-year gluten-free bread because I spent three years of my life perfecting that recipe. It's the one I'm most proud of, but there are so many. The New York crumb cake that you mentioned is very near and dear to my heart because it's based off of those little hunks of saran wrap-enclosed crumb cakes where the crumb is half the size of the actual cake, and it's at every corner store in New York. It's just a healthier version.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Big Bites. It's from Kat Ashmore. Kat, thank you for being with us.

Kat Ashmore: Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: A reminder, listeners, coming up next on Fresh Air, WNYC's own Kai Wright. He joins host Tonya Mosley to talk about the podcast Blind Spot: The Plague in the Shadows. It takes us to New York in the mid-80s and '90s when HIV first took root. That is All of It for today. I'm Alison Stewart, I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time.

[music]

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.