Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is a podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen cookbooks, including the

latest, The Look and Cook Air Fryer Bible.

We're actually working on the three dozen plus one cookbook right now.

We'll talk more about that as it's appropriate in the podcast.

It's kind of a big giant tome we're doing, but I should say before we get

started that, uh, I have had a cold.

upper respiratory grossness, not COVID.

And as far as I know, I'm still a virgin.

I've tested my nose.

Statistics say I'm not.

But anyway, I've had this thing for about a week and I'm on the back end

of it, but I sound all stopped up.

So I apologize for that.

Okay, up in our podcast, we've got our one minute cooking tip.

As always, we're going to be making granola, but an interesting new

kind of granola, a kind that you may not have considered a warm

granola, perfect for the weekends.

And we'll tell you what's making us happy.

in food this week.

So let's get started with our one minute cooking tip.

What is it?

It's about not wasting food when a recipe calls for, say,

one tablespoon of something and you have to open a whole can.

You know, this happens.

It is a thing.

I know.

It used to be a thing with tomato paste and I have to confess that tomato paste

now comes in the toothpaste tubes, but I have to confess that I still,

I'm so old, I still buy the cans.

Yeah.

Most people,

I can't help myself and most people buy the can.

The tubes are usually from Italy and they're very expensive.

I buy the cans too, and it's not just tomato paste.

Chipotle's in adobo with a kind of thing where you'll open it to use one anchovies.

You open those tins, you use one or two, and then what do

you do with the rest of it?

I know,

I, I, I feel this pain because when I write recipes for our books, if you

don't know I'm the one versus the chef, and he'll call for one Chipotle in EDOs.

So it's one can to chipotle and adobo sauce in a recipe.

And I always sit there and write it and think, Oh, well, what

would I do with the rest of them?

It's always a thing with me.

Because the can doesn't stay fresh for more than a few days.

So here's the thing you could freeze them, but not the way they are.

So take the tomato paste, put it in a tiny little snack size Ziploc,

press it flat and freeze it.

And that way, when you need some, just open the bag and break off some.

So you take it out of the

can and put it in the zip.

Sealed bag.

And flatten it.

And then flatten it.

So it freezes flat, so it's easy to break off a piece.

Interesting.

And for the chipotles, puree them first in a little food processor.

Do the same thing.

And anchovies too.

Don't freeze them as a block.

Lay them in a Ziploc bag flat and freeze them flat so you can break off one at a

time.

So this is all about putting them in a small, zipped, sealed bag.

Flattening them a bit.

I mean, you don't want to squish them, but flattening them a bit.

And then freezing it flat so that you can chip off pieces of it.

Yeah,

you just break off a piece when you need it.

Very interesting.

Really great tip.

People always talk about using ice cube trays, but that's First of all,

ice cube trays take up so much space.

And

two?

Who has said ice cube

trays in the modern world?

And also, an ice cube tray is a large amount, right?

So you're going to have like two or three tablespoons per ice cube.

Yeah,

and we have ice cube trays, but they're really Fancy giant ice cubes for

cocktails.

So they fill the whole glass.

Each cube is the size of a baseball.

And we have the spheres and all that kind of stuff.

But, um, who has ice cube trays anymore?

That's such an old food writer tip.

This is a, well, I'm going way beyond one minute.

But I love this bit because we've been in the business so long that we know a lot of

really old school authors who are still in the business and still writing cookbooks.

And I see their posts on social media.

And sometimes I think, are you kidding me?

They'll say something about using, uh, some old gadget and I'll think,

Yeah, right, like, Your egg beater.

Yeah, like an egg beater or a hand crank egg beater or, I prefer to

use a hand beater for this batter.

And I'm like, what?

Chop your garlic with a mezzaluna.

Oh, a mezzaluna.

Yeah, well, I mean, we have one, but okay.

You have everything.

Okay, before we get to the cooking part of this podcast, let me say it'd be great

if you could subscribe to this podcast, if you could rate it, if you could write

us a review, that would be even the best.

As you probably know, this is an unsupported podcast.

We've chosen to keep it that way.

And so the way you could help us support it is by either giving

it a rating or better writing a review, even like great podcasts.

Thank you to.

All of you who have recently done this.

We really appreciate the support in the analytics.

I know it's not your problem.

It's ours, but it's the way that you can help us out.

Okay.

Now let's get in the kitchen because we're going to make a

really unusual warm granola.

This is a skillet.

Granola, or I know it's really weird, or

even a wok granola before you can actually make this in a wok.

I have actually done

it in a wok before.

Now I like to use a non-stick skillet.

So if I'm using a wok, I have multiple W.

Of course, I don't use my stainless steel wok.

I use my well seasoned iron wok because it is non-stick at this point.

If you don't have a non-stick thing, you could do it in a regular, but I like

the way it works better in a non-stick.

So.

All the ingredients we have in front of us are going to get mixed together.

They're going to get tossed in this hot pan to caramelize a bit.

And it's not a lot.

We're just making enough for two.

Let me stop and say, why would you want to do this?

I got two things to say before you get rolling here.

I got two things to say.

Why would you want to do this?

One is because it's very warm and comforting on a winter weekend morning.

And better, I'll give you a tip for this at the end.

You can make part of this ahead.

It's actually super simple, but you can make part of it ahead.

And two, I don't know about your house, but at least in our house, I

can tell you why we're making it is we are definitely a granola family.

I mean, there is always granola in our pantry that we have made.

We have written granola recipes in at least three, maybe.

four or five books, grain maids and vegetarian dinner parties.

This is actually a recipe that is from the Kitchen Shortcut Bible, except I'm

kind of going to change it a bit up today.

But it's from the, our book, the Kitchen Shortcut Bible.

And I just, I love this because on the weekend, this is so comforting.

And as Bruce says, it takes about five minutes, very quick, but

as he says, uh, it only makes enough for about two servings.

And why are we only making enough for two?

Because you're making it in a So for the proper heating and the proper

caramelizing of the sugars, you can't have more in your pan than this.

So what we have is a large glass bowl in front of us and I'm

putting in two cups of rolled oats.

Now, let me say two things about rolled oats before we get rolling here.

Again, I know I keep having to interrupt, but I'm the writer and

I keep having to explain things.

If you don't know and if you have any issues with gluten, rolled

oats are a problem because Oats are milled in the same facility as wheat.

So there can be wheat residue on oats.

You need to look for certified gluten free oats.

And two, while we're using rolled oats, and we really love the

thick cut rolled oats from Bob's Red Mill, shout out to them.

And they're not sponsoring us, but shout out.

We really love them.

Don't use instant oats for this.

Don't use steel cut oats, but you can use any other kind of grain.

Flake, like rolled oats.

So for example, you can use Barley Flakes, you can use Wheat

Flakes, you can use OT Flakes.

I would suggest you use one cup of oats and one cup of some

other kind of spelt flakes.

Mm-Hmm . Any kind of flake, processed, rolled grain you can use in this.

Uh, I actually happen to love Kute and.

belt flakes.

So I would probably use a cup of oats and a cup of those flakes.

Okay, come on.

On top of that, I am dumping one quarter cup of sliced almonds, not

slivered almonds, not whole almonds.

Sliced are the ones that will give you the most surface area.

And then two tablespoons of shredded, unsweetened coconut.

Yeah, now this is not the baking coconut in the baking aisle.

No.

Sometimes it's sold as desiccated

coconut.

And also sometimes as macaroon coconut.

Oh, right.

And look for the tiny little shreds, not the big slivers, not

The pieces that look like you used a vegetable peeler to get them off.

So all this

is just going in a bowl, and then I'm gonna add a tablespoon of maple syrup.

Please don't use a substitute.

Don't offend our New England souls.

Use real maple syrup.

And I'm gonna put a tablespoon of oil in here.

And here's another place where you can kind of Um, mess with the recipe a bit.

I'm just using a neutral flavored oil.

I think I'm using canola oil here, right?

This is canola,

but I love olive oil on this sometimes.

Okay, olive oil is an interesting and aromatic idea, but don't forget

all the nut oils, like pecan oil, uh, walnut oil, almond oil, hazelnut oil.

Don't

forget all of those.

Oh yeah, the ones you have to cash out your IRA for.

You do, especially pecan oil for some reason.

My goodness.

Um, anyway, you don't have to use standard Um, Flavored oil like canola oil.

You can use any oil you want.

Well, one of the things we've said often is that oil and fats have

120 calories per tablespoon, right?

So the reason you're using oil here is for texture but also for flavor.

So.

Maybe you don't want to go with an unflavored.

Get something that's a bang for your buck with your calories.

Okay, and I have to also stop and say, I did something that I hate

every food writer does, and I hate it so much, and I'm guilty of it,

and I said, Use any oil you want.

No, actually don't.

Don't use sesame oil.

Don't use motor oil.

Oh God, no.

Don't use motor oil.

Don't use, I don't know, WD 40.

Don't use, I don't know, don't use any oil you want.

Toasted sesame oil would be icky.

I think unrefined peanut oil, like you can find in Asian markets,

that I think would be icky.

Don't use mustard oil.

Mustard oil would be icky.

So you could use refined peanut oil.

You could use any of the nut oils I mentioned.

Coconut oil would work though, because I love the flavor.

You could use coconut oil, because you're using coconut oil.

Or a neutral oil, corn oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, you

know, all those kind of things.

You can use those.

Okay, now, what's our seasoning?

A half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of salt.

Don't forget

the salt.

The salt is really crucial to

this.

So now, I'm going to put a flame under the pan before we start the

rest, because I want the pan to

heat up.

Okay, so we put all of this in the bowl.

Now, you're going to put on some gloves.

And why are you doing that?

Because we're going to do a prostate exam.

Oh, oh.

We're not.

Do I get dinner before?

Okay, go ahead.

Same surgical gloves we would use for that procedure.

Oh.

I'm putting on to mix this.

Now, you could mix this with a spoon, but I like using the gloves because I can get

my hands in there and really make sure that oil and that syrup is well blended.

It's ground into those oats and on the coconut.

And I want it to just Be as tightly compacted as I can.

And I want to

say that while I would usually use my cleaned and dried hands for this,

this is sticky and messy and you will get it all up between your fingers.

And the gloves help getting it off and they leave more of it in the bowl.

It really adheres to your skin because of the maple syrup.

I use gloves for everything.

I use it when I'm making meatballs.

I know, but you're a chef.

I Gloves and parchment paper are my two favorites.

I know, we always have this

big thing of rubber gloves, not, not cleaning rubber gloves, but

surgical gloves, under the sink, and Bruce uses them all the time.

Okay, so anyway, he's mixed this all together, the skillet is now hot.

Now what we're gonna do, is we're gonna pour this whole mixture and

scrape it so that you get every last drop of spices and everything.

Into that hot skillet and now we're going to toss it and stir it over

the heat for about five minutes You do not have to stir it constantly.

You can stir it a bit So let's talk about granola while we're doing this and talk

about what are the good things to do with

granola Oh, well, first of all milk of the gift, right?

Well, first of all yogurt Granola on yogurt is the best.

And especially this warm granola.

There's something about it that's so fabulous.

Yes,

it's true.

It's true.

It's also great in milk.

And you don't have to just think cow milk.

It's great in oat milk, almond milk.

Almond milk is my favorite.

I, I

know this sounds weird.

It is lately.

Um, I know this sounds weird, but the warm, uh, granola going into the cold

milk, it warms the milk a little bit.

Of course, it takes the heat off the granola.

But it makes it all much more comforting.

It's also really great with all kinds of fruit, berries, strawberries.

You can, uh, slice them up.

You can macerate them.

Oh, there's a fancy term.

And a little sugar if you want to.

Before you add them to granola, blackberries, etc, raspberries, you

do that as you're making this granola and then, you know, just mix it

with the, with that sweetened fruit, uh, as you serve it and it's warm

and it's comforting, make sure you have a fire going in the fireplace.

That's

almost like an instant crisp, right, because you have

this fruit that's all juicy.

You could even take your berries with a little bit of sugar

and put them in the microwave.

For like 30 seconds to warm them, then you put this warm granola on that's

still crunchy and you have instant

crisp.

Yeah, it's all of this is for a great winter weekend morning.

And what you're looking for here as we continue to stir this over the

heat, you're looking for something that's a little brown and toasty.

It should smell very aromatic.

Those oats should start to change from They're kind of gray color.

What is that?

They pale

white, a little

golden, little gold.

You don't take this too far because of the almonds.

You don't want

to singe them.

Also the sugars will burn.

So if you're not sure.

Go a minute or a minute and a half under as opposed to longer,

because you don't want this to burn.

You don't want the coconut to burn.

You don't want that maple syrup to burn.

You just want this to be toasty and aromatic.

And don't forget,

while we're still riffing off this, don't forget all those great yogurts

out there that are not cow yogurt.

There's goat yogurt out there, coconut yogurt, almond yogurt there.

There's all kinds of o yogurts that exist out there, right?

Cashew yogurt.

There are.

I had another really interesting idea for this.

What if you were making a grilled cheese, and you put the cheese on the

bread, and you sprinkled some of this warm granola over the cheese, and then

put the other piece, and then made your grilled cheese with some of this warm

You mean like a breakfast grilled cheese?

Uh huh, and that way you have, like, this sort of sweet granola

inside your grilled cheese.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I think it, uh, it might work.

I don't know.

Uh Uh, it seems a little weird,

but you could even use it as a topping on top of, you know,

warm, mushy cream of wheat cereal.

Oh yes, absolutely.

Any kind of cereal that you make, cream of rice, cream of wheat, this

would be a great warm topping on it.

Okay, so we've gone on here a bit and in the spirit of the podcast.

We're going to take this off.

The heat is a little early to take it off, but we're going to take

it off so that we can taste it.

And let me say that you probably need to let this cool for just a little bit.

We taste a lot of food and our mouths are probably Teflon at this point.

Perhaps I'm telling you too much, but, um, I think our mouths are Teflon at

this point, so we can set this aside and let it cool for a second or two.

And then it'll.

Uh, be able to be tasted, but you might want to add more.

You'll notice that there's no dried fruit in this.

There's just the coconut.

And that's because the dried fruit becomes super hot sugar bombs over the heat.

So we want to keep that out.

If you want to add dried fruit, now would be the time to add some raisins

or dried cherries or dried And let me tell you that if you want to do this a

little bit the night before to get this set up, take those dried ingredients,

the rolled oats, the almonds and the unsweetened coconut, as well as the

spices, the cinnamon and the salt, mix that together in the bowl and then just

set it aside on the counter so that when you get up in the morning, that's all

mixed together and all you have to do is add the maple syrup and the oil and

then you're ready to go in the morning.

So easy to make this really easy get your pan nice and warm You don't

have to get it flaming hot But nice and warm and then dump this in so

that it'll toast as you stir it

and we didn't say the level of heat This was on a medium.

Not a high heat at all.

Yeah, this is a medium heat.

You don't want this to burn This is a slow toast, right?

Exactly.

Um, this recipe by the way lives on our website Bruceandmark.

com.

You can find it there along with this podcast episode

and copy it down if you want.

It also exists in our book, The Kitchen Shortcut Bible.

And in the show notes to this podcast, you can find a link to

buying The Kitchen Shortcut Bible.

So, okay, let's give this thing a taste and we'll see what we

think about the whole thing.

I've got it and it was quite crunchy and we took it off a little too early.

Still

crunchy.

It's still crunchy and it's I love it.

Mm hmm.

It's so warm and it's so comforting I can't tell you what this is like on a

New England cold morning I don't think I want this in the summer on a warm

morning, but mmm, it's a great thing And it's a great, you know make ahead if you

want to if you've got a family and your household guests And you want to make

more of this Let me say that you should probably make four servings, for example,

in two skillets, set them up separately.

And the reason we're saying this again is because you need surface

area to toast oats or whatever grain flakes you're using.

You need surface area in order to make that happen.

It also doesn't take long, right?

It's five minutes.

So if you've prepped everything ahead, you can make.

a couple batches in a row without people feeling that they're

being deprived at the table.

Right.

Bruce would be able to do both skills at once.

I cannot.

I could probably do four skills at once.

Yeah, I can't walk and chew gum.

Or I can't, I don't know, I can't whistle and think at the same time.

So it's, uh, it's a thing with me.

Anyway, uh, we hope you, uh, will try out this warm granola on a

cool or spring morning ahead.

And try it out.

Let us know what you think.

Come to our Facebook group, Cogan, Bruce and Mark, or our TikTok

channel, Cogan, Bruce and Mark, and you can drop your comments there.

Okay, up next, what's making us happy in food this week?

Ukrainian borscht.

Ah, that was mine.

You can't have that.

We've been eating it for days.

Okay, fine.

Let me explain before you tell what it is.

So again, I went down with this respiratory grossness about a week ago.

And, uh, I ran a fever for a day and then it came out.

It got better and better, but it's taking a really long time to get out of me.

This, whatever this thing is that I've got and, um, I wanted

really comfort healing food.

So,

so I had oxtails in the freezer and I had fresh windows and I had.

fresh dill on the counter in a little jar of water, which is how I keep my herbs.

And I thought, well, I'm going to the store.

Why don't I get some beets and I'll make some borscht.

And I decided on the golden beets.

So I used golden beets and cabbage.

Yeah, it's interesting

that golden beets are interesting because this is not the cold

Ukrainian borscht that some people know with the sour cream on it,

although we did put sour cream on it.

This is a hot.

Borscht it's made with cabbage and it's often made with red beets, but

the red beets do give it a lurid color

Yeah going in and coming out.

I don't like that about beets.

This scares

me So fruitious golden beets and they were nice.

They had a potato like quality in the in the borscht But it was super

sweet and I was shocked He only used tomatoes and beets and then he used

a tablespoon of date Date syrup that I had in the refrigerator

and some people use, you know A quarter cup of brown sugar and it turns so

sweet in this beats are so sweet And here's the thing meat is a common

ingredient in Ukrainian borscht and a lot of people use brisket Some

people use flunkin which is the short ribs that are cut the thin way.

I used oxtails.

First of all, I had them in the freezer, and because they take so

long to cook, here's what I did.

I put the oxtails in the Instant Pot, and I covered them with water, and I let them

go an hour, and then a natural release.

And they were not ready to eat yet, but tender enough that I could put

them in the borscht with all that beef water now, that beef broth.

broth.

And Oh, when another two hours and the beets and the cabbage and I

use San Marzano tomatoes that we got in the giant number 10 can at

Costco.

Okay.

It was great.

And that was my thing to the Ukrainian borscht.

We've had it for days.

Um, it's total healing food.

Um, and it's not the cold borscht you might know from delis instead.

It's, uh, well, I guess they serve this in delis too, right?

This hot borscht.

But when I think of borscht, I think of the cold red beet

soup with the sour cream.

Yeah, that's often what it is, but that'll, yeah, I think on

menus that would say cold borscht.

It does.

And if it just says borscht, you kind of have to act, because then

you might get this Ukrainian style.

Yeah, but you're never going

to get with oxtails because they're not kosher.

So you're never going to get them with oxtails.

Okay.

That's the podcast and my throat is clearly giving out.

So that's the podcast.

It's good.

We've come to the end.

Let me say that we have a newsletter.

It is, um, comes out about once or twice a month.

You can sign up for it on our website.

Brucenmark.

com.

I do not collect or sell your email.

I don't even know if you've signed up and you can always unsubscribe at any time.

Sometimes it's related to this podcast like the rest of you

will probably come out on the newsletter, but sometimes it's not.

It's about things that are happening in our life.

Um life in New England, my gardens, sometimes it's even way off kilter

and it's about my podcast about Dante.

So, you know, it just comes out once or twice a month and

again, you can subscribe on.

Uh, form on our website, splash page, bruceandmark.

com.

And every week we tell you what's making us happy in food, so tell

us what's making you happy in food this week on our Facebook group,

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And if it's really fun and exciting, we'll talk about it here on our next episode.