Meant to Move Episode #24
Summary:
In this conversation, Vanessa and her partner discuss practical cooking hacks, the importance of understanding recipes and their nutritional value, and how to enhance meals with vegetables and fibre. They emphasize the significance of meal planning to reduce decision fatigue and explore the concept of comfort food, balancing indulgence with nutrition. The discussion also covers practical cooking tips, the value of cookbooks and free resources, and the importance of flavour experimentation in cooking. Personal connections to food and the joy of cooking are highlighted, along with final thoughts on enjoying meals and the cooking process.
Vanessa Leone (00:01.4)
Hello, you wonderful human. Welcome back to Meant to Move. I am Vanessa, your host. This week, I welcome back my husband, now husband, partner, life partner, Michael. And we are going to delve into recipes, healthy recipes, nutrition, and a few free resources that we think are really useful for you. So the idea behind this episode is that I wanted to give you something practical
to change the way that you think about a recipe book or recipes. And there’s a lot of content on social media about food. And I follow a lot of it. Michael follows a lot of it. And we spend a lot of our days going back and forth, tagging each other in various recipes of amazing food ideas. And occasionally we’ll make something that we see off Instagram. But nine times out of 10, what we’re making is a derivative of a physical recipe.
something that we have had either from a magazine or from a cookbook. science shows that our brains take in more information when we have a physical copy of it, not when we’re viewing it on a screen, not when we’re just seeing it. And so we’re really going to delve into these free resources and a couple of people or cookbooks that you can follow if you’re a complete beginner, or even if you’re a seasoned professional and you want to
eat a little bit healthier and you want to understand what to look out for when you’re searching for recipes, how to view if they’re healthy for you or not. And I say healthy for you because we all have different needs and different wants and different desires. So it’s important to make sure that you’re just understanding how to interpret these recipes, these serving suggestions, these macronutrients that they give you. And Michael is just a genius at it. So let’s let him take over.
Vanessa Leone (00:01.586)
hey Mickey husband. Hi. We’re trying something a little different. We won’t get into the technicalities of why we’re trying something different, but here we are. We’re sitting, we’re here, we’re good. We’re podcasting. So today I wanted to bring something a little bit more practical for everybody so that we’ve been talking about fiber. We’ve been talking about protein and good hacks to add in.
let’s talk about some good free resources, ones that we use pretty often that we can bring to people and not only help them with like, you know, good, really easy recipes, but also just things to watch out for and like pros and cons basically. And so do you want to show to the camera and describe what it is mostly we’re to be talking about today? Of course. So we just thought like, this is Cole’s magazine from May, 2025.
So it’s a free resource. obviously full credit to Coles for all the content and recipes and stuff. Um, yeah, I just, thought it’d really good to go through something. Well, Ness actually suggested it, but to go through this, to just show like what’s positive about it and probably what’s a lot less positive about it, to put it mildly. Um, yeah, so we can kind of just, do you want to just get straight into it? Cause I think the, uh,
we’ll talk about maybe the first thing that people might be thinking is, you know, big supermarket, lots of bad press. However, most of us still going to be doing a big chunk about shopping at one of the big supermarkets, right? So I think one of our biggest reasonings is why we use this is because
use what you can get for free. Like there’s actually some pretty good content in here. There’s a lot of good content. And like, so basically like the magazine is more or less like a giant advertisement, which is fine because they, they, they’re making money off this being free to the consumer. a lot of things you pay for, you’re still advertised too heavily. So to me, I think it’s actually a really nice resource. Like they’re usually quite.
Vanessa Leone (02:14.218)
in depth, I find there’s a lot of good variety of recipes as well. So you can just kind of take ideas from it. And a big thing that I have is not, you don’t need to follow recipes to a T at all. There’s no need. So edit things as you go, use your instinct, use your taste, add, take things away, swap things, whatever you need to do. that’s kind of what we’ll go into detail about pretty much with this whole podcast. The other thing that I was going to say about this is
Now that I’ve completely forgotten, I’m going to have to come back to it. So we will come back to that point when I do remember it. You can probably edit that out. So anyway, so first up, so like I’ve just literally had to flick through again yesterday through it, through obviously. Um, and this recipe, you probably can’t see it that well. Ness, you’re going to put some, yeah, cool. So it is, so it’s a Curtis Stone recipe. So that’s usually a good start. He’s an excellent chef, coconut milk braised pork shoulder. So
it’s so they they this the serves the prep time, and then the cooking time, right? So obviously, look at the prep and cooking time, if that matters to you. To me, the timing of it’s irrelevant. I’ll spend as long as I need to in the kitchen. I know it doesn’t apply to everyone. But like so this says it serves six with a two kilo pork shoulder roast right? I boneless pork shoulder roast.
So over six serves, they list the macros down at the bottom. This is just for the pork dish as is with like a few bits of say cucumber and maybe some onion and like coriander, which coriander is just a herb. So I don’t count that for macros personally, it’s just a waste of time. What I would say with this, so per serve it says 621 cal, 66 protein, 36 fat.
eight carb, five sugar dietary fiber, four grams. Right. So, but you’re not just going to eat this by itself. You’re going to eat this with something. it might be a salad. Most people are probably going to eat it with a lot of rice and or bread. Yeah. Or mash or something. So it’s just to remember, take those things into account. A lot of the recipes do kind of try and I think hide that side of it where it’s like this.
Vanessa Leone (04:37.932)
This isn’t like the recipe itself. I think sounds great. I haven’t cooked it. but I think it is very much one of those ones where it’s like, okay, if you split that into six, six, 21 cals by the time you add all the other bits you’re to have with it, you’re probably looking at about minimum, absolute minimum 800 cal dinner. That’s if you’re putting 50 grams of, of dry weight rice with it only, but realistically you’re to want some veggies and stuff with it. So you were really looking upwards of a thousand cals for this meal.
And that’s over six serves. So if you’re for a family of four, you need to remember that’s there’ll be two leftover. But again, six serves is actually quite a small amount of servings for that much meat. Realistically, you divided that by 10, you’d still be having 200 grams raw weight shoulder of pork boneless. So I like, which is more than enough for a serving.
So there’s just more things you can do with it. So you can actually stretch that further. So I think they’ve done themselves a disservice personally with that too. So this is where I think they could actually think things through a bit better. Cause you could be like, wow, feed a family of two for five, for five nights or something. Not that people are necessarily going to eat the same dinner five nights in a row, but they could just make it probably more palatable on the serving sizes. think this
you’re touching on a point here that’s really important for a lot of us because we look at, you know, if we started to look at calories or macros, often the serving sizes are so disproportionate in different recipes and there can be, there’s no standardization basically. They’re extremely variable. They’re extremely variable. And so because your knowledge of macros is super handy, you kind of broke that down really nicely, but let’s go over that. So you said two kilos of
pork shoulder boneless. If you split that over, what was your maths again? you I said 10 serves, so 10 serves with 200 grams each. even look, you could split it over 12 serves to be honest. And you’re still getting upwards of 160 grams of raw weight pork per serve, which is going to give you more than 30 grams of protein. So yeah, well it will cause so if you basically doubled the amount of servings from that, from the same exact recipe that brings it down to like three, 10, 311 cal.
Vanessa Leone (06:57.078)
And then when you add all your veggies and things with it too, you’re getting a lot more, you’re getting a lot more, you can add a lot more fiber and you’re getting a more complete meal. for me, I think it would actually make sense to list that as like a 12 server personally, or one kilo of pork. that would be enough and you can still use the everything else as it was the rest of the recipe. wouldn’t, you could have it, but you wouldn’t have to. I’m just having, sorry. I’m looking at as I’m speaking.
So for me, it would make a lot of sense to either use half the amount of pork or just spread the recipe twice as far. This is a really interesting point. And I think that when you look at a recipe, you find, you, you find ones that you can kind of visualizing go, this is quite heavy or this is, this is a pretty good one for macros. But this is really what we’re going to go into today is how you can start to dissect these recipes and understand if they’re useful.
And so that’s a really good first tip. So to, to get a serve of protein, which you’re saying is about 30 grams of them up for a meal. get about 30 grams in per meal ballpark. Raw weight. is about a hundred grams. No for pork, it would be about a hundred, a hundred grams would be about 20 to 22 grams. So you’re looking at about one 50 grams for most meat chicken breasts. You’re looking at a hundred grams raw weight. Amazing. Cool. So that’s a really good starting point there. And I think that.
What you said here is so important. that like, sounds like a great recipe. Coconut milk braised pork shoulder. I’m all for it, but there are no vegetables in there. Not really. There’s one cucumber over the whole thing. Yeah. And that’s about it. And there’s a bit of red onion, right? So no, there’s no, and like, okay. And again, this isn’t hating on the recipe. I still say that. I actually think it’s really good. It’s just not giving you a realistic scope of what you got, what you’re going to eat or probably going to want to eat as well. Yeah.
So for me, I think this is where they could do themselves a bit of service with this. like, look, honestly, like I think, sorry, gone. I was just going to say like, from that recipe, what veggies would you, would you add veggies into the recipe or would you just say make like a veggie side? You can make a veggie side, or if you wanted to add veggies into it, just to make your life easier, you could just hack up a couple of big eggplants into big chunks because it’s been.
Vanessa Leone (09:18.762)
cooked for like three hours or something. So that will just go nice and soft and they’ll just suck up all that good flavor from everything else there. You could chuck potatoes in it as well. Mushrooms. Yeah. Mushrooms, anything like that. If you wanted to do a veggie side, you could do it like a nice big salad with it. Although if it’s more a wintery recipes, mean, salad, I’ll still eat, but if people aren’t thinking about that, even just grilled vegetables next to it. yeah. And rice if you wanted it to, right.
I’m not saying don’t have rice with it. It’s just more I’m always trying to look at ways to add more vegetables and fiber to my diet as I think everyone’s probably got by now. No, but what you’re saying then is that that recipe, which sounds amazing and something that probably a lot of people would be like, yeah, I’d want to make that. Now you’ve just made that a healthier weeknight meal that has a really good distribution of veggies, fiber, protein, and fat and
you will be full and satisfied from it. And not because you had to have four serves out of the 12, you know, because you were hungry because you weren’t getting all that other stuff on the side, basically. Correct. And like, this is a good one, like for leftovers to like take to work for lunch as well. if you want it to get like, not just like a small roll to have with it, and then you take a bunch of veggies and make it into always like a burger kind of vibe. mean, you’d take less of the sauce with it then, but the point is you can do a lot with it.
So yeah, look, I mean, that just, I mean, that was the first recipe that kind of sprung out to me in the magazine. And I think there’s a lot of good about it, but I don’t think they give a full picture of exactly what you can be getting from it. like this. So I like this. This is, this is one thing. It is a weekly meal planner and. I think we give you a shopping list. Yeah. Yeah. Which obviously again, like this is a sell and I don’t take that. I don’t say that in a bad way.
But like, um, yeah, sorry, go on. mean, I’ve had a look in detail at this because sometimes they give what they would call like a base recipe and sometimes they don’t. Yeah. Yeah. So the base recipe for the meal planner, though, you can use that base recipe across two or three of the meals, which is super convenient if you don’t like cooking every night, because what that does is that allows you then to have like kind of a, a subtle base and then
Vanessa Leone (11:46.114)
different nights of the week, kind of like add in different flavors or different bits and pieces and it creates a completely different meal. And that’s really useful. I think if you struggle to eat the same thing again and again, which we can talk about down the track, but I highly recommend base recipes because that’s super useful. think something relatively neutral that then you can move across different cuisines. If you’re attached to a cuisine taking a certain tasting a certain way. I think that’s super useful. Yes.
But it’s also what the weekly meal planner does. And we try to do a, at least a list of recipes that you’re going to make during the week. It takes away a bit of decision fatigue. Yeah, absolutely. Especially with food, like, cause we’ve got so much good access. We have incredible access to food, whether it be, at the supermarket, local shops and also like, then you add in shit like Deliveroo, which, yeah. Yeah. mean, anyway, I won’t get into that.
But I mean, like, honestly, like the food environment and the food landscape is actually so complex as in like the amount of decisions you have to you can make in a day don’t have to, suppose, but can make in a day and I struggle with it a lot of the time to like, more about if I don’t have an idea about what I’m going to cook, I can get really lost and bogged down and I can spend way too long thinking about it, which is why I prefer to have at least a basic plan. Yeah, and which is why we also
you know, I would say maybe even 50 weeks out of 52 have some kind of meal prep Yeah, because it completely removes that decision fatigue from at least one of your meals. I have a day if I’m home, I have it like this might take a week or two off during the year while we’re home. If I’m away overseas, I don’t care. I’m going to go and eat all the good things and like try new things. But like at home, even when this doesn’t necessarily want it, I always have some degree of it.
just cause it makes my life a little bit easier. Yeah. And that’s, that’s what we’re talking about is that plan. Yeah. What do you got here? So next one, this is one of the recipes I think is not great. I mean, it sounds delicious, cheesy, rare bit pasta. So rare bit Welsh, rare bit is like basically toast with a load of cheese and like beer and stuff. Like I’m not actually explaining it that well, but it’s delicious, cheesy, hearty, like I guess comfort.
Vanessa Leone (14:09.304)
Classic comfort food. we can go into comfort food later. but basically, so this says it serves four people and it’s trying to tell me it’s a meal. So for four people, they’ve got 180 grams of raw weight pasta. okay. That’s not a lot. No, which is like a, whilst I think that’s actually a good idea for the amount of pasta for a lot of people, 45 grams per serve, but it’s not a huge amount. And then it’s the other ingredients are butter, flour, cream.
Beer Worcestershire sauce, mustard, cheese, then it says mixed salad, they serve, and then it’s got crispy breadcrumbs on top, which are butter bread crumbs, parsley and salt. So basically this is going to be a very small dish. Like it’s not going to be voluminous. That’s if you like it like that, that’s okay. But for me, that’s a problem. I prefer to have more volume. I think we’ve discussed before.
And then you look at it. per serve, assuming the macros, right? This is another caveat. The macros aren’t always that accurate in here. Most of the time they’re pretty accurate. Um, I check some of them sometimes, or I just do like, when I say for macroing, just add it up real quick in my calculator thing. Um, my fitness pal would be a better description. And, uh, what’s 742 Cal 18 protein, 18 protein, 52 fat. And then you got 48 carb and two dietary fiber.
So realistically you’re getting like fats, not evil, blah, blah, blah, but like you’re just getting a shit ton of fat. You’re getting a little bit of protein and not much of it is actual complete protein because you’re only getting any good protein that you’re getting really is only coming from the cheese. and then you’re getting two grams of fiber, which is not enough. So, you might feel full after it, but it’s just not a complete meal. And I think this is one of those things like.
I’d actually say put that as eight serves and have a tiny bit of it next to a few other things. I know that doesn’t, maybe it sound that exciting, but, this is just a, maybe a once off thing. It’s not like, this is not a weeknight dinner to me. And they kind of sell it as like a prep thing. Cause there is an advertisement for their like, they’ve got like a Curtis Stone range of glass containers at the moment. So it’s fine. Like I said, the advertisement side of it’s fine. I’m not criticizing that.
Vanessa Leone (16:30.732)
But what I do think is the recipe really isn’t like a meal prep one that’s great to take to work or something for a lunch. Personally, this is more like a treat meal. And if you’re to have one this small, okay, if it’s that small, that’s probably okay, but you’re still going to need to get a ton more fiber and protein through your other meals throughout the day then and more important vegetables probably. like, I think this is an important one to bring up is that
We’re not disregarding the fact that you can have a meal like that during the week, but if you’re trying to be balanced, if you’re trying to eat well, you will need to then stack your other meals full of vegetables, full of fiber, full of protein, because you’re not getting enough from that. And that serving would be quite small, but it would be very dense.
in macros basically it’s just it’s a super heavy meal. It would be filling I think to be quite honest as well because of the cream because it’s so fatty. But I also just I just not getting enough from it unless you’re eating around it for the rest of the day. And again, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. So if you’re going to have a really, really vegetable heavy breakfast and dinner with enough protein, and you want that for lunch, or doesn’t matter what the breakdown of your meals is.
As long as you’re getting it throughout the day, it’s actually not a bad thing, but it’s again, it’s just to be aware of it. So like, I’m not trying to demonize people like eat pasta, eat fucking cream if you want to like, but just be conscious of what’s going into it, like macro wise and just sort of your overall daily diet. Yeah. But sorry, no, I just, because I wanted to touch on the one next to it. So firstly, it’s a curry recipe. I’m in, I mean, I’d make.
different curry recipe, but this is a really easy one. So it’s chicken masala. You can see the picture of it there. Uh, looks yummy on rice cause chicken masala is yummy. Basically it is it’s four serves that they’ve put it as this doesn’t include include rice. will say the macros don’t include rice. do not, but it’s 301 cals, 30 grams of protein, 17 fat, seven carb, three fiber. outside of the fiber, it’s an excellent like
Vanessa Leone (18:42.306)
But like it’s basically just chicken, right? With a few other bits. So you don’t expect to have a load of fiber. But what I’m saying is like, that is really good to that. If you have that with a load of like, if you have that with like some sweet potato mash, like mix the sweet potato mat, like when you mash sweet potato, instead of adding say tons of butter, maybe add yogurt to it and a little bit of butter. If you really want the butter in there.
And then you’re going to get a lot of fiber from the sweet potato as well. And it’s going to be a really delicious meal. mean, serve it on rice. Just don’t have a huge amount, but then I would say have vegetables next to it. Could you add, like a can of beans or something into the actual. Yeah. And there’s a third of a cup of thickened cream in it. cream’s not the devil, but it’s just extremely heavy. So if you want it to actually lighten the macros of it a bit to have other things in the meal.
You could get rid of the cream, so 80 mil of it and just put 80 mil of yogurt in there instead. And it’ll actually kind add a tiny bit, that’ll add a little bit more protein as well. And it’ll also, in my opinion, tastes better. like the sourness added to dishes like that. And then it gives you room so you could then maybe put like a handful of cashews on top to replace those fats.
And you’re to get more nutritional value out of it as well. But again, like if you want to make that like 80 mil of cream over four servings, 20 mil each, that’s actually very low. But I was just, it’s just always like, there’s just practical ways you can move things around. Then we’re always thinking about this from like a waste perspective as well as a nutrition perspective. So the additional reason that we wouldn’t add cream is because cream tubs never come in.
size that’s useful. so for us and for anyone who wants to be less waste and to actually utilize their ingredients really well over a week, if you’re going to be using cream in a meal like that, where you’re only using 80 mils of it, this is where a little bit of forward planning works really well. Cause you can find another recipe that’s, you know, a little bit different.
Vanessa Leone (20:47.95)
that also has a small amount of cream. And now, now you’ve used much more of that. It’s not going to go to waste. It’s not sitting there in your fridge, just spoiling because you haven’t figured out what to use it for. Then you don’t just dump it. Um, whip it up and just have it for the sake of having it. Yeah, exactly. Which is worse. Yeah. Yeah. So basically like, again, like this is like, it’s just another easy example of like, that was like the chicken masala. think is a good recipe to start with. And then you add
things to go in like you said, you can even just chuck a of beans in with it and then serve it on rice. That’s a good start. You could just chuck veggies in with chicken masala as well or on the side. Yes. So next up, there’s this, this is just like a whole page of like recipes. And what stuck out to me here was I thought they were all actually pretty.
decent because they’re all fairly macro friendly. Some of them you need to add things to. So like cheat’s French onion soup with cheesy croissant toast. Okay. Probably not the healthiest thing, like, let’s say, so it serves for 343 cal, 14 protein, 19 fat, 26 carb, dietary five or six. Not terrible, right? So, um, if you just add, if you just had some protein, something a bit more protein rich with that probably
fiber as well, a bit more fiber. That’s a decent meal like croissants, okay, not the best thing, but that’s a fun meal and it’s still not terrible. So I think that’s a really good way to look at it. Cause like every meal doesn’t have to be perfect. Cause I think that’s silly to try and eat. I don’t eat like that and I’m sitting here preaching. So I don’t, I don’t think it’s reasonable. So I think that’s actually not a bad little meal. If you then just want to have some other sort of protein with before after it next to it. I think this is important. And again,
Like you said before, you could have that meal, choose to have that meal for dinner, but then ensure that you had lots of fiber, lots of protein in the meals previous, because you know that by the time you get to dinner time, you want something that’s a little bit more comfort food. And we’re to talk about this now. and I think that this is where a lot of people have trouble when it comes to eating a little bit healthier.
Vanessa Leone (23:09.314)
because they think that a recipe like that, know, croissants or what was it? Croissants and onions French onion soup with cheesy croissant toast. That sounds decadent. Yeah, it does. And that’s the whole point. This is what I mean. This is what makes that a great resource because it sounds decadent and it’s not the healthiest meal you can eat, but it’s not terrible either. Yeah. And this is where we think that the word comfort
or comfort food traditionally would be like a full blown French onion soup. That’s really creamy, really heavy, like very fatty. And then you’re dipping a croissant into it. And they’re mini croissants in that recipe. and I think the point that you want to make is that comfort is really about what makes you feel good. Not necessarily about.
That has to be this decadent thing. So comfort food, is really just food that gives you comfort and people often associate it with certain things. They associate it with like cake, pastries, stewed foods, curries, things like that. And always really rich and decadent. Whereas like for somebody like myself, my main comfort food would be a curry, an Indian curry.
made from scratch and generally they’re relatively healthy. and the reason it is a comfort food for me is because, I mean, I’ll just put it out. Basically I grew up in an unsafe household and so I don’t have many happy memories of it and we didn’t eat much Indian food at home ever. So I taught myself how to cook Indian food because I love spices. Like, so I make them all from scratch. I think I mentioned before, you can see the India cookbook just behind me there. That’s not the only one. Yeah. But the one that’s a thousand Indian recipes and there’s about four there.
so, but my point being is like that brings me comfort because it’s something that I’ve given myself since leaving a home like that now in a safe home. So therefore it brings me comfort to make food like that because I have no negative associations with it. And it’s something that, the way I look at it is like I’ve gifted myself to be able to cook like that because it’s such a, like, it’s my favorite Indian food is my favorite food. And so therefore that becomes comfort.
Vanessa Leone (25:33.12)
Now, if it’s a big decadent Indian feast, that’s also comfort. But I have curry, like if anyone sees my Instagram, like this morning, I had an egg curry for breakfast. I had, and I had it yesterday as well. And like it’s quite actually simple recipe. It’s fucking fantastic though. And like, it’s very healthy. yeah, anyway. I think this is a super important thing because comfort for me is nostalgia and quite literally the opposite reason.
food was a way to show love in our household. And I grew up in a family of excellent cooks around me from my mother to my grandmother to my Zia and you as well and your sister, myself, my sister. there was always an abundance of food. And so for us, like, I’ll use an example on the weekend, we went to the farmer’s market and we found kind of wild broccoli. It’s, it’s a very similar type to an Italian Roman style.
broccoli called rabe. And, and it’s awesome. Like, all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, this is really cool, because my grandmother used to cook with it. And my Zia cooks with it. so he is an aunt, by the way, thank you. And so for me, this week, I’ve just taken a couple of stalks and put it into a couple of meals. And every time I eat it, it’s like, ah, this reminds me
I think I said it to you the other day on the smell of it cooking. was like, this smells like Zia’s house. Yeah. No, actually said this smells like Zia when you had it yesterday on your omelet. I was like, Oh, that’s good. Um, yeah, that if, you know, that’s comfort and that’s not necessarily potentially what a lot of people would associate with comfort, but it’s because that brings back a memory of someone giving you a meal that, that you really enjoy, that you really loved.
that meal for me ended up being pasta and broccoli, was this Italian type of broccoli. But the flavor of it is really what, what brought back those memories. And it makes me happy eating it. so there’s, there’s definite ways that you can create your favorite meals, your most comforting meals and turn them into something that you can have week to week. If you follow these kinds of rules or.
Vanessa Leone (27:53.23)
Nothing but rules. Just, just kind of, just like a structure, like a structure to work around and just to consider. again, it doesn’t have to be perfect every time. So like, just, like, just, don’t be like, the biggest thing for me is don’t be afraid to go off recipe. So many people are so afraid to go off recipe. When I first started cooking, when I was a teenager, I would not go off recipe. And then
But it is a good way to learn though. So if you, if you are worried about going into recipes, like staying onto the recipe, exactly how it is. My advice would be to get like a cuisine specific cookbook, say like an Indian, Japanese, doesn’t matter, whatever it is and cook the shit out of it. Cook like 30, 40, 50 recipes out of it and cook a broad range of recipes and try and start to understand like how the flavors work together. Cause once you understand how the flavors work together,
Then you can go like, like, I don’t know. This might go really nicely with like when you’re eating pasta or something, you might be like, this is like a certain spice might go really nicely with this. And then you can kind of try it. And if it doesn’t work, it’s okay. Try it a different way if you want to again. And like, that’s how I’ve learned how to like, can free cook curries, still to be Indian flavored, but I can free cook them without a recipe. like using recipes. So I used them a lot.
And when I kind of just make random recipes, they often turn out really well. There’s once in a while they don’t, but like, think I’m very capable at combining different cuisines and flavors. And once you start to understand, but it’s about understanding flavor. Once you understand what flavors work together and also challenge what flavors work together, as in if you think they work together, then they work together. If someone else doesn’t, they’re wrong and you’re right.
you know you are like if you like it you’re right if they don’t then okay they’re right they’re not wrong but to you yeah it’s still correct even if they say if someone says you’re wrong that doesn’t work together well I like it it does yeah for sure like the other day you were dying for spaghetti meatballs you’re making the sauce and you made it relatively traditional initially and then you’re like this needs miso and brewers yeast and brewers yeast
Vanessa Leone (30:07.842)
Brewers yeast is a great hack by the way, everybody for like umami intense flavor. Really, really great. But you just, you threw them in and for all the Italians listening, do not cringe. It’s excellent. It’s so good. And honestly, it was the best spaghetti meatballs. And that was a, that was a Monday night meal for us. was a Sunday. Sunday night. It was Sunday. was a Sunday lunch. anyway, Nessie.
but yeah, no, point is right. And like, that’s not groundbreaking either. I’m fully aware of it. So many people would be like, but it’s not Japanese. Cause like there’s a whole Japanese, cuisine called Wafu cuisine, which is like Japanese Western fusion. Yeah. so this is where people miss that you can just add something and don’t be afraid to like, just, try it. Specifically, if you’re worried about other people think if you’re cooking it just for yourself, that’s the best time to try. do a lot. I do most of my.
heavy experimentation when I’m cooking for myself. And then if it works, Ness usually gets a text saying something like, holy fuck, I need to make this for you. We’re making it like you need to tell me when you want it because I need to make it for you. Yes. Very true. I really liked your comment about get a cookbook that like encompasses a cuisine. And I think that that’s really useful because I would never have really thought of that before.
And I’ve seen you go through like your stages of going through like different, almost like cultures of, of cuisine basically. And I think it kind of started with Ottolenghi and then some like Middle Eastern, like we had like a bit of a Middle Eastern flair there for a while. started for me when I first started cooking, it was more an Italian food because I wanted to learn how to make.
Not from scratch, but just how to make, but I’d like I’d buy pasta itself, but I want to tell them how to make pasta sauces from scratch better. like the original way I started cooking was I used to like, I think I mentioned this before, but a master foods four cheese mix and I didn’t get it made often enough for me. So that’s how I taught myself how to cook. He had like butter, water and like milk. And I just used to want it cooked down for ages too. So the sauce basically became almost dry and like stuck to it. That was how I really liked it because it was really intense.
Vanessa Leone (32:27.98)
And I used to cook that a lot and then it just blew out from there basically. But yeah, yeah, like I’ve done a lot of like middle Eastern cooking. have to turn back around and say that one again. I’m I’ve done a lot of middle Eastern cooking, a ton of like Indian, British Sri Lankan, a lot of Italian, a fair bit of Japanese. I’d say a bit of Chinese, Korean, a little bit Korean, fair bit. quite like there’s tons basically,
few African recipes, African groundnut stew, look that recipe up. It is fucking banging. It’s basically like peanut butter curry. It is a great time. That’s on the heavier end of things. So have that as more like a treat. It’s not unhealthy. It’s just, you got to be down at about a thousand cals, men, I think with that one, what you have to serve. I think a lot of people, if you’re, if you’re not big cooks, if you’re, if you’re a bit nervous, we really, really think one of the best people to start.
cooking with is actually, uh, Jamie Oliver shout out Jamie Oliver. We love you. honestly, not endorsed, willingly would be. Like he’s, he is a food God. the negative press he gets is complete bullshit. Look, and I held up his cookbook there, which is five ingredients. And the reason I held that one up specifically is I think that’s his most simple, easy to follow. Like.
That’s his, I think that’s a Bible for simple, quick cooking, for people want healthy meals. And funnily enough, we talked about this the other day. I actually read the introduction and like the behind the scenes stuff because I hadn’t read it before. And his ethos around food is, is so good. It’s about, you know,
healthy most of the time, moderation, getting lots of different ingredients, being seasonal, enjoying your food, and then treating yourself when you can. But then also, he really switches his treats around so that they actually become healthier at the same time. He’s really good at sneaking in ingredients that are slightly better for you so that your treats or your comfort food become a little bit better for you.
Vanessa Leone (34:46.858)
And the ethos with the five ingredient book is that it’s so easy to sub in different ingredients and add in different ones as well. He’s big on like Jamie, a of his big on like, you don’t need to follow recipes to a T as well. like the biggest thing I’ve learned through my own experience with cooking is that follow your instinct. If you instinctually think that you want to add something to it, just or not put something in there, just do it. do it because every time I don’t do it and afterwards I’m
I should have done that. But the five ingredient Jamie Oliver book is really good because it’s five literally five ingredients. All right. caveat is salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, things like that don’t count as an ingredient because you if you don’t have them in your cupboard, well, get them in your cupboard there is super important. But the point is, they are very, very accessible recipes. They’re low maintenance. And like, honestly, everything I’ve cooked out of there has been amazing.
And they’re really good bases. I’ll look at a recipe in there. I’ll try it usually the first time as per recipe. And now I want to add all these things to it. Because again, like time in the kitchen to me is irrelevant. But if it is relevant to you and you don’t want to have too many ingredients, that is a great, great cookbook. And it’s a great cookbook even if you’re very experienced, I think. Because he’s got, it’s got a really wide range of cuisines and it’s just friendly.
the way it’s written, the way it’s laid out. We can’t show you pictures because unfortunately there’d be copyright issues with that. Um, and also like, I don’t want to upset Jamie because he’s the man, but, uh, yeah, just, just a bit, just that is a really, really excellent resource. If you want to chuck like 20 or 30 bucks at something like that, I’d highly recommend it. Yeah. I second that wholeheartedly. think that it’s a.
That’s definitely one of the go-tos among his other books, but that one, I think some of his most recent ones are probably really, really easy to follow. To finish up, because you had a couple more things in here. If people are looking at a recipe and they are unsure whether it’s a complete meal or…
Vanessa Leone (37:07.424)
you know, they’re not, they’re not entirely sure if the macros are useful or how it’s split up. What are some of the things that like that you’re looking for that help that recipe to stand out as like a good healthy meal? Firstly, I would just look at that you are getting enough protein in it. So if you understand where your proteins coming from, which I know can be difficult, but obviously meat, dairy,
green peas, legumes, things like that, you’re gonna get decent amounts of protein will meet a lot and obviously fish I put in that same category. So I’d look to make sure that it has protein in it. I would think is there fiber dense things in there, I fruit, vegetables, legumes quickest way to figure that out. And like as well if it’s got things like nuts in there, tend like nuts are very healthy. It’s just really, know, if it’s got like 200 grams of nuts, that’s a lot, but like.
That’s kind where I look and that’s actually like you segue that very well. Not, on purpose, by the way, because there’s a recipe here that I really thought was useful. So you might not be able to see it properly, but it is lamb with P and avocado hummus. So first it’s not actually hummus. so before anyone gets mad at me, Coles wrote that not me, hummus is absolutely not that, but it’s, it’s the idea. So it’s like, it’s, it’s lamb with.
pea avocado puree dippy thing under it. Right. So basically the macros of this per serve is 617 Cal, but it’s 41 protein, 39 fat, seven saturated. So if anyone’s interested in saturated fat, it’s very low saturated. it’s 19 carb, six sugar and 15 fiber. So 15 fiber for me would be about a, just over a
the just under a third of what I’m sorry, just over a third of what I would minimally want a day, which is 40 grams, but that’s minimum for me. And I think that’s a really, really great thing because this is the ingredients for example, lamb leg steaks, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cherry tomatoes, Lebanese cucumber, coriander, mint, lemon, the peon avo hummus is peas, so frozen peas as well. Super cheap, super accessible, super affordable.
Vanessa Leone (39:28.758)
avocado, chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil. So like there is not one ingredient there that I could sit here and pick an issue with personally, as in to say like, it’s bad for you or like not one not that healthy. It’s dairy free and gluten free.
So that means it’s accessible for most people. Obviously, if you’re vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian, it’s not accessible for you. That’s fine. You would have known that straight away when I said lamb, but it’s quite like, I find this a very accessible meal for the amount of, for most people. And you’re going to get, it’s going to be really delicious one. It’s going to be really filling. And like, you’re just getting a great amount of like vegetables and legumes just by default.
really good fats from like from your olive oil and from your avocado. That’s what I’m looking for. And then you’re getting a couple of herbs in there too. So like, it’s just like to me, that sounds like a delicious meal. And I look at that and I’m like, it’s it’s really for like a better way to put it piss easy meal to make. You basically blitz a few things up together, chop a couple of bits up, see your lamb chuck it on a plate and you’re done. Like this says 15 minutes prep and plus standing and resting time, but it’s fine.
10 minutes cooking. you realistically looking at 25 minutes active work for this to get something that’s super healthy. It looks really nice because you got that vibrant green, like green hummus, not hummus. Yeah, I just think it’s, I I can’t say I just can’t say anything wrong with that meal. And if you really, really were worried that it was too high calorie, like which I personally don’t think it is.
You could have the amount of olive oil, which is 60 mil in the hummus and then just add water or more water or lemon juice to it. So yeah, there’s ways around it. And the actual segment itself that, that this falls under is full of veg. I didn’t even say that. Yeah. And so basically each recipe that it comes under is actually telling you how many serves of veg is in that. So I think that that.
Vanessa Leone (41:43.646)
recipes that are plant based, vegetarian based, whatever you want to call them. When, when Coles and, and Woolies have segments like this, this is actually the money. you know what mean? This is where stuff like this is super useful for everyday households because now like they’re actually telling you what you’re getting out of it as well. what’s useful about this, isn’t a plant based segment because plant based suggests no meat, no dairy. so this is actually
I’m not vegan, which I think is handy because most of the population is not no head on veganism, blah, blah, blah. But like, this I think is really useful for that reason, because it’s really actually showing that you can still have enough meat in your meal, and then still get a ton of veggies because like there’s four recipes here, there’s bolognese zucchini boats on top of the first one I mentioned, chicken meatball, ratatouille, and easy chicken and vegetable curry.
they all have three or five serves of your veggies for the day. Right. it varies what people tell you how many serves of veg slash fruit you should aim for in a day. I personally look for minimum 10, which is 800 grams of raw fruit or veg. So 80 grams per serve is a good way to start to look at it. that’s that no, is attainable for everyone, but people may not see it that way. Look for five as a minimum.
Like you need, means if you’re having three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner, you need one at one meal and two at the other two. And then if you go, well, I can just get two at every meal. You’re getting six serves. Great. And you’re going to get more fiber by default by that. And again, you guys know how much I’m going to tell you how good fiber is and how important it is specifically for men. Big, big thing. and as well, I’ll just quickly mention it is men’s mental awareness.
men’s mental health awareness month in June, and there’s not much said about it. So I just want to really point out that that is a thing. So physical health is part of your mental health and vice versa. And so if you know you’re eating well, you actually, I, I personally tend to feel better emotionally. So, I just thought I’d chuck that in as a side note, but yeah, like, like I said, I didn’t actually notice the name of the segment. I just was thinking of the recipes.
Vanessa Leone (44:01.678)
full of veg so I think super useful and it’s written up by a dietitian as well or a nutritionist. She’s a dietitian. Yeah, she’s got a couple of segments now, I think, consistently within the magazine and you can kind of tell what her content is actually from all intents and purposes is really good. Julia Parvizov, she’s Cole’s dietitian is what she’s listed as. So like honestly, these are recipes that I really think generally are
very, very healthy. She’s a dietitian. Fine. know, but sometimes I don’t necessarily put out recipes that are all that healthy when they’re in advertised magazines. Yes. Um, or, uh, the dietitian recipes don’t often sound as exciting. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. think is w which is the issue that a lot of people have is that, you know, you get
You know, it’s a pretty substantial magazine in terms of like how many pages there are. recipes, it’s not just pages. Exactly. There’s recipes in there. And I, and again, like I have my issues with big supermarkets, so I’m not sitting here. This is not paid by Coles or Woolworths or Jamie Oliver or anyone. Yeah. We’re just pointing out this is a great free resource and it’s usually quite stacked with lots of recipes. And I think it’s worth.
utilizing things like this and I really think that having a diverse repertoire of food is really important. Not only because you’re gonna get bored with the food that you cook and you can kind of cook it to death essentially and then you end up hating that meal for forever, but you talked about gut biodiversity and mental health. They’re so linked and I’m really glad that you brought that up because
The better diversity that you get, the more fiber that you have, the more vegetables that you’re eating, the better you will feel. we’ve talked about it before. If you’re on a low fiber diet at the moment, don’t go ahead and just start adding beans to everything in an entire week because you’ll probably not feel great. And you’re not going to be liked at work if stuff, if you’re in the office. So do it gradually, you know, find a meal to add in each week.
Vanessa Leone (46:20.792)
where you can add more veg. the day every day. even if it means like, so if you’re eating say two or three serves of veg a day, if you go up to four, you can just go to your by default, adding a little bit more fiber and then you can aim for five and six. And if you want to go higher, go for it. Like I said, like, cause eight to 10 is a lot more recommendations are coming out around that from different medical like resources around the world. I think in Australia it is five. It’s five, but yeah, I think it’s five veg.
two or three fruit or whatever, something like that. Yeah. But I think, I mean, when I’ve, when we’ve bumped up to eight or 10 of veg, I definitely noticed the difference and it’s, it’s significantly better. It’s significantly better. He’s, he’s laughing cause he keeps telling me to do it and I’ve finally listened. Okay. Everybody. All right. Any last.
advice or words that you want to give about people utilizing cookbooks or free resources with lots of recipes and stuff in there. Don’t be afraid if they don’t have macros in there. Again, you can kind of pick and choose if you really want to track that kind of stuff. I always just talk about macros because it’s something that I’ve used for a long time and I find very useful, but most recipes aren’t going to have macros and that’s okay. And if they’re on the internet too, they’re just using a random like calculator they plug it into and they’re not fact checking it probably. that’s just, just to note.
If you get macros, the recipe, they’re not always accurate. And it’s not the be all and end all. Like I keep saying, there are times where you should just fucking eat whatever you want for short periods of time. I certainly do it. Nest certainly does it as well. Like, this weekend we’ll probably go out for a meal. We’ll eat way too much. did law a couple of Sundays ago too. So, you know, just enjoy the food and when you’re looking at recipes.
Just look for things that you resonate with and if it resonates with you, try it, even if it’s different and don’t be afraid to try something new and don’t be afraid to fail with cooking. It sucks when you do and it’s fucking annoying to be honest, especially when you really enjoy food. But I find I learn a lot from it. Like it’s like anything you’ve learned from failure more than from victory. think a lot of the time. For sure. For sure. You do. And, we’ve definitely both of us have definitely had some fun.
Vanessa Leone (48:42.476)
fun and random failures, like just attempting to try and do things. I have definitely attempted a few Instagram recipes of like fritters and things like that, and it’s taken me a while to perfect it. But I got really stubborn about these vegetable fritters that I make gluten-free. I wanted to make them high fiber. I wanted to make them high protein. And I f-
I figured it out. Like it took me, I think a good solid three or four goes before I actually got to a point where I was happy with it and now can consistently deliver like really good quality. They’re actually delicious too. Like, they’re kind of, they’re almost like really fat pikelets that are full of veggies and tofu and stuff usually, which, okay, that might not sound that sexy on the outside, but they’re really delicious, savory meal. got like miso and stuff in them and then
dump a little bit cheese and other things on top and they become very, very delicious. Yeah. Sorry. My advice would be don’t give up, stick with it, try it. You know, yeah. Failure isn’t a failure. It’s just a learning curve and enjoy your food. Cause if you enjoy your food and if you take your time to enjoy your food rather than sit and rush it all the time, you will notice that eating
getting Uber Eats or Deliveroo or whatever all the time is just lackluster. And turn off the TV, turn off your screens, just sit and be conscious with your meal. Have a chat to whoever’s with you, obviously, but just try and consciously eat your meal and you actually will enjoy it more. Especially if it’s something that you’ve taken like time to cook. Took me a long time to convince Vanessa of that when I was like, I’m spending an hour and a half in the kitchen making dinner and then you want to sit there and stare at the TV and that’s all you want to do. And
And after she, I eventually finally talked her into it and she tried it. She actually admitted it was better. So now honestly, it’s, it’s, just think really concentrate on your food. And if it’s a social occasion, concentrate on the social side of it as well. If you’re sitting at home, even by yourself, just try and concentrate on the food, put your phone away from you and you would generally enjoy it more. I’m still guilty of picking up my phone or putting on a TV sometimes.
Vanessa Leone (50:59.372)
Sometimes I think whatever once in a while is okay. And then other times I just pick, get my phone, I put it on flight mode and I throw it over on the couch and then I’m like, okay, can’t get it now. So, no, just think just be prepared to try things and you don’t have to follow a recipe exactly to a T, just enjoy it. Enjoy the food, enjoy the process of cooking. Like anything, if you hate the process, you’re probably not gonna enjoy the end result as much. Any questions? Hit us up. Thanks for listening.
Vanessa Leone Movement Therapist 