No Recipe Required with Lesley Taylor

Welcome to Season 4 of the No Recipe Required Podcast! We're taking a 90 degree turn, but not too far off what the podcast is about since we'll be talking about wine for the next several months. I've started a free Wine Tasting Club (free to join, you just have to buy the wine yourself) so that we can try new things and compare notes. If you want to be a guest on the podcast to talk about this month's wine, please reach out to me.

Join the FB Group to discuss this month's wine: https://www.facebook.com/groups/956452831576049

Link to the LCBO site for this month's wine: https://www.lcbo.com/en/stoneleigh-latitude-sauvignon-blanc-324228

Follow me on Instagram, my DMs are open: https://www.instagram.com/noreciperequired.ca/

And you can also reach me by e-mail at [email protected]

In this episode, Arlene and I start by talking about how she came to be cast in the Degrassi series of kids' shows back in the '80s/'90s and then how her love and talent for Graphic Design helped her create a side gig baking artful cakes and pies. She also shares her secrets and tips for perfect pie decorating and baking, so be sure to have a pen/paper handy to take notes.

You can (and should!) follow Arlene on Instagram @Arlodesigns, or check our her web site. She also suggested we follow another pie artist, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin (@thepieous on IG) and one more artists - whose name she blanked on during our chat - Julie Jones (@julie_jonesuk on IG.)

If anyone tries their hand at making an artful pie, be sure to tag me and Arlene on IG.

In this episode, Jano and I start off talking about childhood cereals, and then move into memories about beverages - both non-alcoholic and alcoholic. Hope you enjoy this gastronomical trip down memory lane.

My cousin and I went on a trip down memory lane a while ago, talking about the comfort foods of our childhood. We were both born in the mid-'60s and grew up in the '70s. Some of the things we talk about are recipes made with canned soup (always Campbell's), things with cheese (lots and lots of cheese) and why certain foods evoke such strong memories.

This is part 1 of our conversation, which focuses on those main course dishes of our childhood like Swedish meatballs, Mac & Cheese, Cheese Fondue, Turkey Tetrazini, Creamed onions, canned peas, and a few other things.

Hope you enjoy this trip down our comfort food memory lane.

My guest this week is an old friend (we met back in 2001!) who started as a driver for a wine agency, and then went on to become a sommelier. James Oatway works for Halpern Wine Enterprises in Toronto. He posts on Instagram under his new account, @rockandgrapes, as well as @Somm_Thing_To_Talk_About, which is the title of his upcoming podcast about wine - and he tells me a story about the origins of the logo for the podcast involving a broken bottle of wine. He's a busy guy, as he also has a music industry podcast called Tales from the Turntable.

In this episode, James shares a ton of insider information on the wine industry, how wines are priced for sale (a lot of our talk is very Ontario-specific, since that's where we both live and work,) how to choose a wine in a restaurant, the most expensive wine he's ever tasted, how (and why!) to start a wine tasting club, and so much more. He also gave me a suggestion of a wine we could taste together (details below) and he walks me though how to taste that wine and what to look for.

Majella The Musician, Cabernet/Shiraz, 2019, Coonawara, South Australia, $19.95 at LCBO/Vintages. 14.5% alcohol.

The basis of "no-recipe" cooking is knowing how to make a sauce. Think about it - a meal is often a piece of protein with some veggies and/or starch and a sauce over top, so if you know how to make a sauce, dinner is a snap!

Guidelines:

Roux: 1 part fat (oil, butter, etc.) 1 part flour, 16 parts liquid (broth, milk, etc.) e.g., 1 Tbsp pan drippings, 1 Tbsp flour, 1 Cup broth to make a roast gravy, or 1 Tbsp butter, 1 Tbsp flour, 1 cup Milk to make a Bechamel sauce (then add 1/2 - 1 cup of grated/shredded cheese to make a Mornay sauce.)

Cornstarch slurry: mix 1 Tbsp of cornstarch with 1 cup of seasoned liquid, pour over sauteed meat/veg in a frying pan/wok, then bring up to a boil until it thickens.

Reduction: in a wide shallow pan (e.g., frying pan) reduce the cooking liquid/juices until thick. You can also add wine, vermouth, Balsamic vinegar, cream, evaporated milk, or broth/stock to the pan and then reduce. Reduction time will depend on the amount of liquid and how thick you want the sauce.

In this episode I chat with Dr. Robby Cooper, (@RealDrRobby on Twitter) a professor at Washington State University, about his love for BBQ (bar-b-que barbecue?), particularly Kansas City Style. It's a fun chat about different styles of BBQ, how to build your own smoker (or convert your gas BBQ into a smoker,) his love of Letterkenny, and the Bills vs. Chiefs.  Here are Robby's recipes for the rub, the sauce, and the cheesy corn bake:

Bobcat BBQ Rub

Betelgeuse BBQ Sauce

Jack Stack Barbecue Cheesy Corn Bake

Preparation: In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, then stir in the flour (this makes a roux!) and the garlic powder. Add the milk, and whisk/stir over low heat until the mixture thickens. Add the cheddar and cream chesses, and stir until melted. Add the corn (and ham, if using,) then transfer the entire mixture to a 2-qt, oven-safe baking dish. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes.

I kept calling these "food delivery boxes" in the episode because I drew a blank on what to call them, but I guess the best name for them is Meal Prep Boxes. Anyway, regardless of what you call them, I've never been a fan, so I asked my friend and fellow podcaster, Al Grego, to come on to convince me on why I should give them a try. Did he convince me? You'll have to listen to find out!

You can follow Al on Twitter @pftw. His podcasts are Yes We Are Open (profiling small businesses,) Shop Talk (latest news and trends in the payments industry,) and The Produce Stand (a Letterkenny podcast.) All links are to Google Podcasts, but you can find Al's podcasts on every platform.

If you've had good or bad experiences with Meal Prep Boxes, I'd love to hear about them! You can DM me on Instagram, or e-mail me at [email protected].

My friend and fellow podcaster, Susie Miles and I have swapped episodes for a week. I'm sharing one of her episodes with you, and she will be sharing one of my episodes with her listeners.

This episode is about Seafood - shrimp and halibut to be exact. Hope you enjoy it!

You can follow Susie on Instagram and listen to her podcast on the usual platforms.

If there is a theme to Season 3 of the podcast it's "experimentation." I've done a few solo episodes, I have a cross-over episode coming up next week, and this episode is one I recorded live on my phone with my friend Leo Troy where we made Pad Thai together. I like the idea of experimentation rather than following a recipe - whether it be for cooking or podcasting.

Here's a list of the ingredients we used in this dish:

Feel free to add whatever other ingredients you like or have on hand: chicken, shrimp, other veggies, etc.