I have to share this recipe for the Homemade Cinnamon Honey Peanut Butter from Uncle Will. He is a bit of a health champion and swears this is a great protein-heavy snack. It’s easy to make, tastes amazing, and is a delicious dip for fruit or vegetables, or spread on bread. I’ll admit, I’m not usually one for making homemade peanut butter but this is truly amazing!

When I first was given Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals by Lindsay-Jean Hard, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I like to think I’m good about not wasting too many food scraps. But did I want to start making banana bread with the peels? It turns out, YES! After making a couple of recipes and given this a thorough read through I can honestly say this is a wonderful book for even the most unsure. I promise, it really is about using those scraps we all find ourselves hold after a good vegetable chopping session. Things like beet greens, banana peels, apple cores and more are simply reused to flavorful results.

I’m super excited that Lindsay-Jean stopped by today to chat with us and giveaway a copy of her book!

TNC) This book is so inspired! What first interested you in work with food scraps?

LJH) Thank you! It started on some level when my husband and I were living in Japan. We joined a CSA for the first time, and it was really a period of discovery for me—leaning about new-to-me produce and how to cook it—and it also got me thinking more about where my food was coming from. Knowing that local farmers had grown all of the items in my box made me want to make sure I was honoring that time and effort by putting it all to good use.

Years later, when I was working at Food52.com, the editorial team was brainstorming new columns, and someone suggested one based on the “Garbage” chapter within Gabrielle Hamilton’s cookbook Prune. It struck a chord in me, and I all but insisted that I had to have that column—it was called, you guessed it, Cooking with Scraps. I would hunt through the recipe archives on Food52 for recipes making smart use of underutilized produce parts and other odds and ends, and feature those community members’ recipes (and a few of my own). I learned so much from fellow Food52-ers from that column that I really wanted to share that knowledge with a larger audience, and Cooking with Scraps, the cookbook, was born!

TNC) The banana peel cake is sooo interesting… whatever made you think to use the peels?

LJH) I don’t remember how I first learned that they are edible, but once I figured that out, it was enough for me to assume that they could be cooked, blended, and used like any other fruit purée in a baked good. My first thought was to use the peels in “banana” bread, but I didn’t already have a favorite banana bread recipe to use as a jumping off point, I did, however, know that my grandmother’s banana cake is perfection, so I decided to start there instead, and lo and behold, using banana skin purée in her recipe in place of bananas was an easy (and delicious) substitution.

TNC) Can you advise a cozy winter menu of recipes from the book?

LJH) Right now I’d love to warm up with a bowl of Brothy Beans with Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Rind with a Crispy Breadcrumb Fried Egg on top, and a Vanilla Pod Brandy Hot Toddy to sip on.

TNC) What food scrap do you think will surprise people the most as being flavorful and fun?

LJH) I think banana peels are definitely the most surprising, but second place might go to spent coffee grounds. They still hold a lot of flavor, more than enough to lend their roasty goodness to dishes savory and sweet. In the book, I used them to add texture and flavor to a nut butter, and on Food52, I use them in a French Silk Pie, both directly in the crust with chocolate cookie crumbs, and also to infuse flavor into the whipped cream topping.

TNC) What’s next for your food scrap recipes? There is so much more to do with this and the food sustainability movement!

LJH) Great question! So far I’ve had suggestions for follow up books—Scrappy Cocktails (self-explanatory) and Cooking with Scrappy (scrap-focused recipes for dogs, the person who suggested it has a dog named Scrappy). Both good options, but I’m still open to other ideas. 🙂

Today I’m sharing a great interview with the amazing Ysanne Spevack the author of Vegetable Cakes: The Most Fun Way to Five a Day! Scrumptious Sweets Where Veggie is the Star. If there was ever a more inventive way to bake with vegetables I have never, ever seen it. Between the stunning photography and playful, unique recipes I was blown out of the water. Ysanne is incredibly talented and has had a fascinating career in the food world so far. I am so glad to share this interview with you, I highly recommend picking it up if you are looking for a new, fun way to enjoy vegetables!

TNC) Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this is the most unique baking book I’ve ever seen. What first inspired you to dive deep into the world of inventive vegetable baking?

YS) Thank you! My friend Joanna Lorenz suggested we explore this extraordinary idea, and I was inspired to run with it! I am so grateful to her for her suggestion, as the concept of baking sweet cakes with vegetables as the star has sparked so many ideas and enjoyable conversations. I’m very proud of our book, and feel so lucky that I was given the inspiration for this wonderful cookbook, and turned the concept around in my own creativity. Many an evening was spent developing ideas in my head, and then taking these ideas and playing with them in the kitchen. One recipe I tested every night for a month until it was perfect – that recipe is Radish Pavlova. Also, I am grateful to the photographer, Nicki Dowey, for her beautiful photography.

TNC) Did you specify how much of each vegetable you would use in the recipes? Because your recipes don’t just include a sprinkle, they are very vegetable inclusive.

YS)Absolutely – the 46 recipes are all tried and tested, and include specific quantities for every ingredient. The veggies are the star in each and every recipe – take a look at my website for three free recipes from the book!

http://tastecolors.com/vegetablecakes/

TNC) What would you consider one of your most unique recipes and how did you arrive at it?

YS) Probably the first one on my website, Radish Pavlova. It’s a pavlova made without eggs, which is pretty innovative when you consider the main ingredient in pavlova is usually egg whites! The radishes are marinated in rose water, so their peppery bite is presented with a beautiful floral note. The texture is the most important feature of the radishes, bringing a wonderful crispness to the crunchy meringuge base, alongside a creamy coconut topping.

TNC) These recipes don’t squarely fall into any one category of health/vegan/dessert? How do you recommend approaching them when incorporating them into a balanced diet.

YS) This is a baking and dessert cookbook, pure and simple. It’s a modern book, so there’s a lot less refined sugar than more traditional cookbooks, but at its heart, this is a baking book with recipe for cakes, cookies, cheesecakes and pies. People who enjoy Carrot Cake, Pumpkin Pie and Zuchinni Bread will probably enjoy these recipes, it really is a cookbook with mainstream appeal. That said, a lot of vegetarians have picked up on my book, probably because plant-based cuisine is on trend right now.

TNC) What’s next for you? This work is so inspired – we’d love to see more!

YS) Thank you so much! I am in the early stages of writing a non-fiction book based on my recent breast cancer journey. It’s not a cookbook, and isn’t a memoir, but will be a guide for others who are navigating this disease. For this reason, Vegetable Cakes will probably be my last cookbook for a while, although probably not the last one ever, as I’ve been writing cookbooks for so long now. My first cookbook was published by the same publisher, as Vegetable Cakes – Lorenz Books – in 2001, so I’ve been writing cookbooks for nearly 18 years now. It’s nice to be taking a little break from writing recipes for a moment, and reflecting on another aspect of health in a more detailed way for now. But if you’re curious about my cookbooks, there are a lot to discover, so please enjoy the treasure trove while I’m writing my next book, as I’ll no doubt return to writing recipes sometime in the next year or two!

The Enter to Win a Copy of Vegetable Cakes:

1. Leave a comment of a vegetable you’d like to try in dessert!
2. Contest runs from 2/9/19 at 8:30pm to 2/20/19 at 7:00am. Continental US entries only please. Contest winner will be notified via email and have 48 hours to respond before another winner is chosen.