Shadowing Practice: Vegetables Don't Have to Be Boring - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I think so much of what makes good vegetarian cooking great is leaning into the seasons
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and not thinking of recipes so much as a mandate but a suggestion.
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You really just need to think about is this vegetable like this other vegetable?
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And by that I mean is it similarly textured?
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Is it similarly starchy?
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Is it similarly leafy?
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Is it going to take roughly the same amount of time to cook?
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Does it have kind of a similar water content?
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I'm Christine Sierclissette.
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I'm Rosie Guerin, and you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.
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Hey there.
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Before we jump into today's show, I want to let you know about a special offer.
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If you're not already a subscriber to The New York Times, you can now explore The Times for free,
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no paywalls, during your first month in The New York Times app.
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You can find all of your favorite shows like, I don't know, this show, Modern Love, Cannonball, and more on the new shows tab.
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Okay, let's get into it.
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Rosie, hello.
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Hello.
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Hello, hello.
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I am curious.
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I know that you don't really eat meat.
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Are you a strict vegetarian?
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No, I'm not anymore.
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I was a vegetarian beginning in college.
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Actually, it was the first year I was in an apartment having to cook all on my own.
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It occurred to me that I was never going to cook meat.
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I knew I never would prepare it.
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And so I thought, if I'm not going to prepare it, Why don't I just stop eating it?
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And I stopped for about a decade.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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But now you eat like chicken and fish and things like that.
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Now I can be tempted by a piece of chicken.
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Yeah.
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You know, I think a lot of folks are trying to incorporate more vegetables into their diets, but maybe they have trouble knowing how to cook them
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or they feel like they're in a cooking rut or they are working with something specific, like a dietary restriction that is limiting what they can cook.
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And today, we are going to talk with a person who can help.
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Tanya Sachensky is an editor for the food
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and cooking sections at The New York Times and the author of the weekly newsletter, The Veggie.
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She just came out with a new cookbook called Veg Everything.
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She's going to talk with us about the book, the recipes, and her ideas for making vegetables the star of your table.
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I'm so excited for this book.
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I am constantly wanting to incorporate more vegetables into my life, into the kids' lives.
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And I love Tanya.
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We had Tanya on the show last summer to talk about recipes that would be perfect for beach days specifically.
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And today we're going to talk with her about getting back into that cooking groove.
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It's September now.
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Yeah.
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And we're back to school.
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We're busy again.
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And we want to eat vegetables, ideally.
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Yeah.
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And it's also a fun time to experiment with some new recipes.
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There's a lot of stuff that's really, really yummy and in season.
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So Tanya is going to talk us through this amazing new book
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and talk about preparing some really easy and some showstopping vegetarian dishes.
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And she's a delight.
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I cannot wait.
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We'll be back with Tanya after the break.
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Welcome back.
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Today, our guest is Tanya Suchensky.
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She's an editor for the food and cooking sections at The New York Times and the author of The Veggie, which is a weekly vegetarian newsletter.
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She just came out with a new book.
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It's called Veg Everything.
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Tanya, welcome back to the show.
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Good to see you.
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Thank you for having me again.
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Tanya, everybody listening to this podcast knows that you're supposed to eat veggies, that we're all supposed to eat lots of veggies.
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It's kind of foundational to our health and all that good stuff.
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You edit the Veg Newsletter.
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You must get a lot of questions from people about cooking vegetables.
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I want to know, what are people's biggest problems, hang -ups, you know, roadblocks to integrating more vegetables into their meals?
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Complaints.
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Yeah, complaints.
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Oh, okay.
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So I think the kind of big buckets of questions come down to technique limitations.
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Like, I only know how to do this.
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What else do I do with this particular vegetable?
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Another question is always, I have too much of this, and I've made too much zucchini, too much, you know, a winter squash.
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Cabbage is a big one.
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And I've exhausted my Rolodex of options for preparing this.
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What do I do next?
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And then the other kind of bucket of questions is something I often deal with in, I have a kind of recurring series in the newsletter called Recipe Matchmaker.
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And these are sort of hyper -specific questions that often run in either a dietary lane.
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So not only do I need something to be meatless or vegetarian or vegan, whatever, but also gluten -free or I don't like mushrooms
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or I have a soy allergy or something like that or hyper -specific occasion -based questions.
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I'm having 8 to 10 people come over a variety of different dietary limitations.
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I don't know what to do.
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Yeah, that's the tough one.
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Yes.
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So it is, I would say, probably a 50 -50 split between, like, knowledge and skill -based questions.
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Like I need to expand my vegetable cooking expertise or I need ideas.
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I feel like there's sort of a continuum of people who, you know, I have friends, for instance, who were raised in families that ate like canned vegetables and they didn't,
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they never had a fresh vegetable until they were adults.
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On the other end of the spectrum, I grew up in a hippie family with a huge backyard with a garden
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and we were eating like fresh vegetables all the time, you know.
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But even coming from that perspective, I grew up only eating certain vegetables.
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And Brussels sprouts, for instance, I was forever I thought I hated them, you know.
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And then when I figured out that roasting them was amazing, I was like, oh, boom, you know.
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But I do feel like that it can be intimidating.
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Like, there's just so many vegetables, so many ways to prepare them, but it can be intimidating if you don't have much experience.
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I think, and I kind of actually get at expressly what you just described in the intro of the book, my kind of own upbringing and relationship with vegetables.
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So I grew up in kind of a meat -in -three, meat -in -two kind of family.
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My parents are exceptional cooks, but they made a lot of the same vegetables in sort of similar preparations.
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I didn't grow up eating eggplant, really.
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I was eating a lot of zucchini, a lot of green beans, a lot of kind of leafy green salads, tomatoes, corn.
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But it was very simple salads, you know, tomato, avocado, red onion.
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I'm half Cuban, so that was always kind of on the table.
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Frozen vegetables, which I love and everyone should have stocked
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because those are picked at their freshest and oftentimes sometimes better than what you might get at the grocery store, especially out of season.
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But like frozen broccoli with cheese and frozen corn.
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And it's not that there wasn't effort necessarily put toward these dishes because I don't want to shade my mother.
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She's an incredible cook and so, so, so thoughtful.
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But they were focused on making the centerpiece, which was always meat, really exceptional.
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And then it was like, and now we need sides.
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What are the sides going to be?
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You don't know what you don't know.
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And so when I moved to, I moved to DC after college and I, that was my first real experience with these kind of big sprawling farmer's markets.
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And I remember walking around kind of like, I've never seen this vegetable.
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Hicama, what is Romanesco?
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And I'm I'm staying there Googling on my phone like green spiral cauliflower.
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You see these things that are so beautiful
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and you see other people shopping and buying things in an informed way and you're kind of like, where did they learn?
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How did they?
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Why?
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Okay.
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What do I do with this now?
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I don't think it's something to fear.
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I think it is okay to kind of screw up and mess a few things up.
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There are a lot of things to try, I feel like.
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As much as there are a lot of different ways to prepare meats, it's a little bit less, I don't know, exciting to me.
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Meaning that it's more exciting to kind of explore all the range of ways you can make vegetables.
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Yeah, like I mean, a really beautiful steak.
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I'm going to salt and I'm going to put it in a cast iron skillet
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and I'm going to get a really nice sear on it
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and it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be delicious and I know what it's going to taste like.
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Yeah, I could marinate it.
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But I feel like it's kind of like for certain cuts of meat, like you know what you're getting, you have a loose idea of how you're going to prepare it, and you know what it's going to taste like,
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that I can take a green bean and turn it into a saucy casserole for Thanksgiving,
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or I could cut it into one -inch pieces
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and throw it into a Caprao -style stir -fry with tofu and it be kind of still crunchy,
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or that I could— There's a great recipe for this on cooking, actually, that I could do, like, tempura green beans, and you basically get, like, a French fry kind of situation.
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They look like French fries.
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That you can have, like, an entire green bean salad, that you can eat them snappy, that they could be cooked into oblivion, like you would get a canned green bean.
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And there's just, like, I think so much more range, which maybe is part of what is intimidating about it.
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Yeah, when you can do 50 different things, what do you do?
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Right, how do you choose?
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How do you choose? And
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you know not to be a shameless self -promoter
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but how do you choose i will help you right we've got a book full of recipes
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that will help you christine right here we got a book
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right here we can look right in there all right
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so let's talk about recipes a little bit and
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that process of taking a humble veg
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and brainstorming around it what am i going to make with
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this what am i going to do with this i'm curious are there things you keep in your pantry
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that make cooking veg dishes easier or more interesting?
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And that might be a tool, that might be a set of spices, that might be a sauce.
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Are there things that you want to have on hand that you know will help inspire?
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So for me, it's always going to be canned or dried beans.
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I'm really big on, I get a lot of emails about this where people will say, you're always recommending canned beans
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or canned whatever you know you can make dried beans absolutely i know
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that a lot of this is about accessibility not everyone has
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the time to prepare dried beans not everyone has the skill
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set not everyone knows how we have a dried bean recipe in the book we'll help you
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but like if you want to make canned beans you should be equipped to do
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so so one thing
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that i love to have on hand right now is trader
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joe's canned lentils oh yeah lentils don't take a long time to cook
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but i don't always have 10 minutes to bring a pot of water to boil
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and then another 10 to sometimes 30 40 minutes depending on
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how old your lentils are to make a pot of lentils extra dishes extra dishes there is a great recipe
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that i have been kind of fixated on we've made it
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on i have a youtube show on the new york times cooking channel we did an episode on snacks
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and i made k chun's tomato marinated lentils it's a tomato marinated greens
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and beans on toast
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and she uses canned lentils grated tomato swiss chard she kind
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of makes this tomatoey dressing tosses the lentils in stirs it up
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and then scoops it onto toast no cook
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if you don't count toasting as cooking
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which i don't i feel like i've mentioned this before on this um
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but that is something that i can and will have lunch in 10 minutes Canned beans are a must.
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I am going through so much nutritional yeast.
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I love it.
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So that's another one of those things.
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I grew up with my Hippie Crunchy mom, and we always had nutritional yeast.
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I feel like it has entered into a more sophisticated space at this point.
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I mean, not that our moms weren't sophisticated, but just like it was very hippie at one point.
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And now it's more mainstream.
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Yeah, now it's like an alternate for Parmesan.
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I thought we were the only kids who had to put nutritional yeast on our popcorn.
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It is.
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I mean, that is a perfect example of an item that I did not know about growing up.
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I learned about fully as a, like, adult.
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And it has completely changed my life.
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I have a specific blend of nutritional yeast and other seasonings that I put on my popcorn.
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Yes.
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It's my house popcorn.
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I have a lot of fans who come to my house and eat my popcorn.
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I want to know what's in this spice.
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Is this a secret recipe?
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It's not.
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I did it on the YouTube, and it's actually very, very simple.
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But I do all of it in a blender so that it gets really powdery.
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Because you know the flakes, and then you need to use a lot of oil.
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Anyways, tons of nutritional yeast, more salt than you think you need.
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Brown sugar.
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Ooh, yeah cayenne pepper a certain alchemy of those ingredients
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if you do it just right it will make your popcorn taste like the spicy nacho doritos okay
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so nutritional yeast you got canned beans you got the lentils
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yes what else is always stocked for you really good olive oil this is actually not a thing
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that i always have stocked and i was really pissed off
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that i didn't have it the other day because I was craving something with it.
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I always have like peanut butter, but I don't always have tahini, but I need to always have tahini.
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I would count this as a pantry item.
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I love dates.
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I always, always, always have dates.
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I love a sweet and savory dish.
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I love a savory dish that happens to have dates in it.
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I also love using dates as an alternative sweetener if you don't want to use ground sugar.
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If you maybe are making something vegan, you don't want to use honey.
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For whatever reason, you don't have maple syrup.
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Anyways, dates are the best.
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I love a date.
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I'm thinking about my pantry.
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I try to always have a really kind of short, tiny pasta, like an orzo or a diddolini, really quick cooking.
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I kind of love a spoon pasta moment.
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I had orzo last night and I loved it.
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It's so sweet.
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It's so sweet.
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Eating with a spoon.
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Perfect spoon food.
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Yeah.
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What else do I have?
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I have panko always.
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I try to keep some sort of store -bought fried shallot or crispy garlic because I love a crispy, crunchy topping.
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dijon mustard big for me
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that to me is like the anchor point of a lot of dressings
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that i'll make or marinades i didn't even think
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that you could buy pre -crunched shallots and garlic they're great they're
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so great you can usually find them in asian grocery stores yeah
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and you can find them they now um i think this might be newish
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but i just picked them up and i actually have them downstairs at my desk
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because i brought in a recipe test from home they now make crispy the fried shallots, and the garlic at Trader Joe's.
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And they sell them separately.
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That's awesome.
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Hot tip.
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In a bag.
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And actually, hold on, I'm flipping to something in the book.
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Because we have a, there's a chapter in the book called New Comforts.
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Kind of the thesis of this chapter is if you keep a well -stocked pantry, you can make any of these recipes with the addition of like one fresh vegetable.
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So you have a head of cabbage, then you can make one dish from here if everything else is pantry ingredients,
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not including a lemon or maybe like a little herb topping.
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I'm not counting that.
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But, you know, you might be able to leave that out if you're really pressed.
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But like we, I'm looking at this brown butter bucatini with charred cabbage, right?
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So the fresh vegetable, head of cabbage.
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Everything else, dried pasta, butter, you know, other spices, what have you.
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We have a carrot risotto with chili crisps.
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So that's going to have rice and Parmesan, which I'm counting as a pantry ingredient, these kind of things that will hold up in your fridge for a long time.
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Chili crisp.
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What's the one fresh vegetable you need?
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Carrot.
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So I was trying to think of the instances where I'm looking at my fridge being like, God, I only have one thing.
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I love that you did that in this book because I think it's an extension of what you were talking about earlier, like the access we have to this knowledge,
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whether it's the Times Cooking app, YouTube just broadly there's
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so many places we can go versus I'm thinking like you're growing up
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and your parents it's like and
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and my mom too it's like she did what she knew
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and what she had in the rotation
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because she what she was trying to feed us it wasn't
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like oh let me go put a new vegetable recipe in the rotation
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that I can you know what I mean it's great
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that this shorthand exists it's really cool I think we also all go through phases where we're more excited to explore
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the cookbooks or the recipes.
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I know as a mom, I sometimes have to just be on the rotation.
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Like this is all going to be the same every week.
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We're going to take a quick break.
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When we're back, Tanya, we're going to get into your tips for using leftovers.
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This is a big one.
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We'll be right back.
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Welcome back.
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Our guest today is Tanya Sychensky.
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She's an editor for the food and cooking sections at The New York Times and the author of The Veggie, which is the weekly vegetarian newsletter from The Times.
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Tanya also just came out with a new cookbook.
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It's called Veg Everything.
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Before the break, we were chatting about some of her favorite veggie recipes.
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I want to dive into the book a little bit more.
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Sure.
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Because for listeners who haven't looked at the book, seen the book, it's just coming out, you are sort of the curator, right?
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Like, you are the person who is curating all the recipes.
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The recipes are actually from many different New York Times contributors.
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Some of my favorite recipe contributors, there's Semin Nosrat, one of our guests from last year, Eric Kim, Sarah Copeland, Kay Chun.
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I'm just listing all the things that are saved in my New York Times app.
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But so many great recipe developers in this book.
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Tell us a little bit about how the book came together, what people can expect if they pick it up and take it home.
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So the book is in many ways an extension of the
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first question you asked me about what readers have asked me in the newsletter.
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In curating the book, I approached it similarly to curating the newsletter.
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I'm trying to solve a problem, answer a question.
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What are the questions and the problems that come up again
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and again and again when people have expressed an interest in more plant -forward cooking
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but just don't really know where to start?
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And so I kind of wanted to group the chapters in slightly more of a playful sense.
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And it's not just sides, mains, lunch, whatever.
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It is breakfast, right?
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If you want to start cooking vegetables, you can actually start first thing in the morning.
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There are many ways to incorporate them into, I don't know, formats that kind of turn away from the standard American breakfast.
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We have handheld sorts of dishes.
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So that's going to be sandwiches, tacos, skewers, things you want to eat straight from the pan.
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I consider that handheld.
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It's kind of, we call the chapter plate optional.
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Just thinking kind of about how not only I like to cook, but thinking about the way that I determine what I'm going to make, and it's usually circumstantial.
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There is, of course, a soup chapter.
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Sometimes you just want soup.
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But there is also an RSVP -worthy section.
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So that is more impressive, more stately, maybe larger format dishes that you could make for a dinner party for entertaining.
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You could certainly also just make them for yourself or for your family.
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There's no rule to when you have to prepare those dishes.
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But really, it was trying to,
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with each chapter, identify a common problem and present some number of solutions.
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There is a chapter called What is a Salad?
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For anyone who grew up with no touch points for meatless cooking,
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you have a very stereotypical idea of what a vegetarian meal might look like, especially if you grew up in a part of the country where maybe
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your only exposure to meatless cooking is in the vegetarian options at a restaurant, right?
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Or at a fast casual place where it's like you're going to eat some limp salad with cherry tomatoes.
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An afterthought.
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Yeah, an afterthought.
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And there's another kind of pull of this where the salad could sometimes have been perceived as punishment, right?
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Like a diet -based thing.
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And so I wanted to reframe the salad for anyone who had either of those experiences as the salad is not punishment.
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It is not necessarily a health food.
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It can be an expression of abundance.
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It can totally flip the script on what you think a salad is.
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There's a pizza in that chapter, right?
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Like there, what is a salad, right?
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It's a little bit of an existential.
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I mean, what is a sandwich?
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We have this debate at work all the time.
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Exactly.
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Hot dog sandwich.
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Is a salad a pizza?
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I don't know.
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Is a salad a pizza?
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What do you actually need for something to be a salad?
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So let's talk in the morning.
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You wake up and you want some veg.
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Sure.
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You're talking about veggies for breakfast.
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How am I getting my kids to eat more veggies?
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Yeah, what are the options here?
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Okay, so.
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Is it all cloak and dagger?
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Well, so there is that.
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There is a green smoothie in the book because sometimes that's maybe all you have time for.
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I love just a classic green smoothie.
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I actually was just with some girlfriends.
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We went upstate for the weekend and two of the dishes that I made for breakfast, I cooked every meal while we were there.
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And one of them is a more vegetable than an egg frittata that's in the book
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that is from mark britman and
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that is whatever vegetables you have genuinely whatever vegetables you have
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in the pan sauteed fewer eggs than you think you would
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need the recipe calls for two to three you're kind of
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like huh very very quick very simple throw the vegetables
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that the kids actually like in there in this instance i used spinach in there.
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Cherry tomato, regular tomato, mint, basil, just what I had on hand.
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Delicious.
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Maybe a little bit more kid -approved.
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I also made Yawande Komalafe's goat cheese and dill Dutch baby.
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Oh, yum.
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I saw that in the book. So good.
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That sounds so good.
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Eggy, savory pancake moment with tangy goat cheese, a ton of fresh herbs.
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You kind of do a salad in the middle.
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That honestly could have gone in the what is a salad chapter had it not been in the breakfast chapter.
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There is a couple of different baked egg in a pan situation.
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So we have a shakshuka that's green with a lot of Swiss chard and similar format with black beans,
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where you do black beans, eggs baked in.
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You can serve it with cilantro and queso fresco and tortillas and kind of have like a breakfast taco situation, which brings me to the breakfast burrito.
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God, I love a breakfast burrito.
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That is the way, if you're trying to like trick the kid.
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My kids are a bean and tortilla type of breakfast burrito clan.
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That and maybe some cheese.
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I would say, OK, if they like bean and cheese and tortilla, you're going to mash some sweet potato into the bean.
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So much of their aversions are like texture or color based.
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Make everything look brown.
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I love that you have this chapter in the book called RSVP worthy.
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I feel like this is the chapter I need.
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It's about centerpiece dishes, like the wow, impressive vegetarian dishes.
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What is your best advice
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and what are some of the show -stopping recipes you have
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in the book for putting vegetables at the center at a big event?
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I think so much of it lies in presentation.
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Something that has a crispy, crunchy topping and a lot of different colors or something that's jeweled.
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So we have kind of a vegetable biryani that is gorgeous with pomegranate seeds.
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celebratory in that way.
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You want it to feel like a party.
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There's also, clearly I just love the addition of like a little pomegranate seed sprinkle
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because that also is on the Afghan style eggplant and yogurt, which is really beautiful.
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Another kind of, I think, element to elevating the vegetable that you'll see in several of these recipes is layering things.
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So you could do, it depends on how you prepare biryani, but there are some that layer the rice and the vegetables and what have you.
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This one kind of mixes them all together, but you could go that kind of layered style similar with the vegetarian shepherd's pie, right?
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That's like a exercise in layering where you scoop something out
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and you're kind of surprised and delighted by everything that comes after the next thing you just saw.
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The asparagus and goat cheese and tarragon tart, right?
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Ooh, I want to make that one.
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I saw the picture and I was like, yes beautiful people are obsessed with
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that one that's a big spring equinox easter time recipe where people i feel like make it for those
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that time of year always really really well reviewed
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and that's you have layers of puff pastry and delicious tangy goat cheese
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and then your vegetables you could certainly sprinkle over whatever topping over top of
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that you'd like beyond just kind of aesthetics and format i think part of it too is labor right this is Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
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You want things to be a little bit more work.
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You want to know someone spent all day working on that.
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Yeah.
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And listen, not all of the recipes in this chapter are laborious, but they give the perception of labor.
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So the tart, for example, you're buying store -bought puff pastry, but it looks like somebody just—it's very, like, perfect hostess.
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It's like fragrance.
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You want to smell expensive.
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You want to smell expensive.
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That's right.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, it looks like someone spent a lot of time placing those asparagus right next to each other.
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Yes, exactly.
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I think with these dishes, oh, and also there's that whole, so we have this whole roasted squash with tomato, ginger, chickpeas.
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And you're kind of getting these little squash boats
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that have saucy chickpeas nestled in the kind of the concave part of the squash.
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And bringing all of those out on a platter and each person kind of getting their own little squash.
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Impressive.
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I love that.
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It's beautiful.
432
It's fun.
433
That one is actually incredibly, it sounds more labor intensive than it is.
434
It actually is quite low lift.
435
They're not that crazy, but they definitely look like you.
436
Yeah.
437
Toiled in the kitchen.
438
Let's talk leftovers.
439
This is the one that I love talking to cooks.
440
I want to know what your tips are for using up the bibs
441
and bobs and all the little things that are left over after a week of cooking.
442
What do you like to do with leftovers, specifically vegetable leftovers?
443
Well, I'm actually thinking about a leftover in my fridge right now, which happens to be a New York Times cooking recipe.
444
That is not in the book, but frankly, it should be.
445
So I recently made Lex Wibel's zucchini, pecorino, and basil salad with almonds.
446
So I dressed the whole salad, and raw zucchini, once it's salted, is going to go limp pretty quickly.
447
So I have the leftovers of the salad in my fridge right now, and I was thinking like, okay, what can I do with this?
448
It's softened and seasoned zucchini, capers, basil, a ton of cheese, almonds.
449
I'm just going to toss it with pasta.
450
Like that actually is a pasta sauce.
451
It's a salad that over time being marinated can be a pasta sauce.
452
Similarly, I could grill some toast and eat it as kind of a saucy marinated zucchini toast situation.
453
It's not going to have any of the kind of crunch and verve that it did on day one or day two.
454
But there's plenty else that I can do with it.
455
I could also probably make a pancake batter and turn them into zucchini pancakes.
456
Ooh, that'd be good.
457
I love zucchini pancakes.
458
Because you have the herbs in there, you have, you know, it's already seasoned.
459
I'm actually not worried about there being nuts in there.
460
I think that would be yummy and crunchy and delicious.
461
Or I could throw it into the recipe for the more vegetable than egg frittata.
462
Just whisk some eggs and do kind of an omelet style.
463
For me, if I have leftover vegetables
464
that are certainly not going to be in their prime after a couple of days in the fridge, I'm like, what can I cook it into?
465
It's almost like, does it waffle?
466
Like, does it toast?
467
Does it pasta?
468
Does it pancake?
469
That's huge, though.
470
I feel like having those to reach for, like, what's the vessel?
471
That's where I get tripped up, I think.
472
I look in the fridge, and I can't, for some reason, conjure a pancake, like, what this could end up as.
473
And having those, I think, as the building blocks is a really helpful way to think about it.
474
I think there are...
475
Thank you dish formats that exist in the book
476
that I would encourage anybody reading it to take that format and think beyond the recipe as far as ingredients are concerned.
477
What are some examples of that?
478
So the frittata is a good one, right?
479
That is, I think, a perfect example of whatever you've got goes in.
480
There are a handful of different pastas that I think really play well to this.
481
So Ali slagels, lemony orzo with asparagus and breadcrumbs.
482
That is a recipe where whatever vegetable is in season should get swapped in with the asparagus.
483
I would absolutely toss the salad that I have already with the orzo, add a little bit more lemon and cheese on top,
484
and do the breadcrumbs that are in the recipe with just like a quick breadcrumb topping.
485
And then you have kind of a caramelized zucchini orzo.
486
But the structure of the recipe stays the same.
487
I think so much of what makes good vegetarian cooking great is leaning into the seasons
488
and not thinking of recipes so much as a mandate but a suggestion.
489
And the way to think about substitutions and swaps, you really just need to think about, is this vegetable like this other vegetable?
490
And by that I mean, is it similarly textured?
491
Is it similarly starchy?
492
Is it similarly leafy?
493
Is it going to take roughly the same amount of time to cook?
494
Does it have kind of a similar water content?
495
So if you're trying to swap zucchini, which has a lot of water in it, or tomatoes have a lot of water in it,
496
you're not going to swap that maybe for sweet potato in some recipes.
497
This type of vegetable, cook it this long for this type of vegetable, cook it this long.
498
And once you kind of become more comfortable thinking of vegetables as like categories and not, oh, I don't have green beans,
499
so I can't make this green bean recipe.
500
I think it becomes a little bit more easy to then look at recipes as the format.
501
I have an allergy to peanuts, tree nuts.
502
So when I was a vegetarian, that was really challenging for me.
503
I think maybe now, again, there's more resources, There's more access to information on how to swap and substitute and leave stuff out.
504
But how did you think about that when you're approaching the book?
505
Because I think that is a thing that comes up.
506
Nuts or other dietary restrictions.
507
Yeah, I think this is something that I think about a lot, both with the book, but also with the newsletter.
508
Because, and I think a lot of people don't want to hear this, sometimes it's just not the right recipe.
509
Yeah.
510
I often see these kinds of comments on social media where it's like a bean dish and the person is saying, I don't like beans.
511
What do I do?
512
Well, you know what?
513
You actually just don't make this dish.
514
Make pancakes.
515
But there are ways to say, okay, what about this recipe do I like?
516
Is it that it's one pan?
517
Is it that there's chili crisp in it or there's herbs?
518
I'm going to look for that in other recipes.
519
Now, to your point about nut allergies, obviously that is more than preference.
520
And so I think it kind of depends on the dish.
521
But if you're talking about nuts as a garnish,
522
well, what the recipe developer is trying to do is introduce crunch or textural variety.
523
And so I might just look for some other crunchy element, crunchy onions or breadcrumbs.
524
In the instance of butters, nut butters, right, if it's acting as a binder for something,
525
you might want to try blended silken tofu.
526
It's trying to think about, like, what is this ingredient trying to do
527
and what other things exist out there that can maybe do the same thing with some tweaking or seasoning or whatever.
528
And if the answer is nothing, then maybe making something else.
529
Yeah, if the answer is nothing, then maybe make something else.
530
before we wrap we always like to ask our guests one final question
531
which is what is the last thing you bought
532
that you really love
533
so um i just went through a breakup oh i'm sorry sorry no it's
534
so fine and um the guy i was seeing had a pair of pants that i was obsessed with
535
And I would borrow the pants all the time.
536
And they're this Japanese brand called Capital that you can't easily get in the U .S and is also extremely expensive.
537
And I found them on Depop.
538
Long story short, I think he was going to get them for me for my birthday.
539
And I broke up with him the day before my birthday.
540
So he didn't get me the pants.
541
But guess what?
542
As Cher said, Mama, I am a rich man.
543
I bought myself those pants.
544
Yeah, girl.
545
And I'm.. absolutely thrilled to have these fancy schmancy pants this
546
is great next time you're coming in those pants okay absolutely absolutely see you next year in those pants
547
all right well tanya is a delight and we learned so many things i loved everything she had to say Yeah, I am excited to cook from this book.
548
What are you taking away today?
549
I am taking away excitement for the book.
550
And I think also this idea of building a pantry with things that I can reach for for any number of dishes.
551
I think the other thing is adjusting my brain to think about the vessels.
552
You know, you have your leftovers, you have your veg, whatever you have, what could this become?
553
Could I throw it into a pasta?
554
Could I make a pancake?
555
Could I make a frittata?
556
Having an idea of what it could become, I think opens it up for me.
557
Yeah, I loved that.
558
I love how she presented it kind of like frameworks that you could sub in things.
559
And I think that's awesome.
560
And the pantry item that she mentioned that I had completely forgotten about
561
that I am going to run out and get immediately is the fried shallots, the big vat of fried shallots.
562
I had forgotten how awesome those are, and they're great sprinkled over all sorts of things.
563
So I am excited to cook from the book
564
and also just integrate those into salads and pastas and all sorts of things this fall.
565
Love it.
566
That's it for us.
567
Our guest was Tanya Suchensky.
568
She is the author of the newsletter, the veggie and the brand new cookbook, Veg Everything, that's out today.
569
Thank you so much for joining us.
570
Talk to you next time.
571
Bye.
572
The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin, and produced by Abigail Keel.
573
Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello and Nick Pittman.
574
Today's episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson.
575
Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Alicia Bet -Etooth, Rowan Nenisto, Katherine Anderson, and Diane Wong.
576
Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager.
577
Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor -in -chief.
578
I'm Christine Cyr -Clicette.
579
And I'm Rosie Guerin.
580
Thank you for listening.
581
I can't believe I hard -launched my breakup with a pair of pants.
582
No, that's a great story.
583
I love that story it's capital they're yeah capital it's the capital ripstop cargo pants
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 583 sentences and 6522 words to shadow. The speech runs for 37:27. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- vegetable /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ (noun) — A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice…
- recipe /ˈɹɛs.ɪ.pi/ (noun) — Any set of instructions for preparing a mixture of ingredients.
- bean /ˈbi(ː)n/ (noun) — Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods.
- dish /dɪʃ/ (noun) — A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle.
- salad /ˈsæl.əd/ (noun) — A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often…
- vegetarian /vɛ.d͡ʒɪˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/ (noun) — A person who does not eat animal flesh, or, in some cases, use any animal products.
- tomato /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/ (noun) — A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit.
- pants /pænts/ (noun) — An outer garment that covers the body from the waist downwards, covering each leg separately, usually as far as the ankles; trousers.
- newsletter /ˈn(j)uzˌlɛtɚ/ (noun) — A periodically sent publication containing current events or the like, generally on a particular topic or geared toward a limited audience.
- similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/ (adverb) — In a like style or manner.
- pasta /ˈpɑ.stə/ (noun) — Dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating.
- format /ˈfɔːɹ.mæt/ (noun) — The layout of a publication or document.
- yeast /jist/ (noun) — An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
- nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/ (adjective) — Of, pertaining to, or providing nutrition.
- toast /toʊst/ (noun) — Bread that has been toasted (cooked lightly by browning).
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verb) — To ponder.
- do with (verb) — Only used in to do with
- talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
- come out with (verb) — To say (something) unexpectedly.
- come up (verb) — To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.
- get at (verb) — To manage to gain access to.
- get into (verb) — To move into (an object), such that one ends up inside it.
- grow up (verb) — To mature and become an adult.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 123 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, thesis /ˈθisɪs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, squash /skwɔʃ/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/, rotation /ɹoʊˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: vegetarian /vɛ.d͡ʒɪˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/, similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/, nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, incorporate /ɪŋˈkɔɹ.pɚ.eɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like vegetable, recipe, bean.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've made · I've exhausted · I've never seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be tempted · were raised · are picked |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who can · Veggie, which is · centerpiece, which was |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.