Welcome to taste buds. Today I'm talking with my friend, my bud Samantha Ferraro. Sam is the author author weeknight mediterranean kitchen food and also the upcoming one pot Mediterranean cookbook. Sam is the founder of the Little Ferraro Kitchen Food Blog, and her recipes have been featured in PBS Food, Huffington Post, La. Times, Washington Post. You get the idea. She is an awesome foodie. And first of all, welcome Sam. So excited to talk to you
Thank you for having me on. My favorite foods are Mediterranean, but specifically, my favorite food are tomatoes. I absolutely love tomatoes. There are so many different varieties. They're fresh, they're sweet. There are so many different flavors. We use them in a variety of different Mediterranean foods, like salads or stews. I can pick tomatoes off the tree or my my tomato plants and just, like, eat them as a snack
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:31
I love tomatoes, too. I just had them, like a few minutes ago on my lunch. I made a homemade pizza. Margarita pizza in the air fryer. Anyway, I digress. So tomatoes are awesome. Mediterranean is awesome. But what brought you to that specialty? I mean, you've got almost two cookbooks on it. So what was it that brought you to being a chef and to the specialty in Mediterranean?
Like, if you came to my house and I made you dinner there, I would pull out spices, I would pull out citrus, I would pull out lean proteins. I would have lots of herbs and just, like, really fresh, bright vegetables
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:25
Okay, so now I'm hungry. You know, I just ate, but now I'm just hungry listening to you. This is amazing. Will you share, like, a really simple recipe that anybody can make, that yeah, that's all a simple recipe anyone can make. So they can, I guess, pretend like they're in your kitchen and really enjoying those days and those aromas
The herbs kind of act as, like, a little envelope, so to speak. So it just keeps the fish, like, really, really tender. It's super fresh. And if you want to add some, like, more fresh lemon juice after it's cooked, go for it. But super delicious, super easy, fresh. Everyone loves it
Okay, so there's a few things you can serve it with. Well, I will say you can serve roasted salmon with anything that you like. If you like potatoes, whatever, like, you do you. But if you were to come to my house and I was making this roasted salmon dish, I would probably do, like, roasted zucchini. So I would cut Zucchini. Oh, actually, okay. I would do either roasted zucchini or roasted broccolini. Broccoli is a baby broccoli
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:18
This has been so wonderful. I really appreciate all this great, great food that you're sharing. Before we wrap, I just have one other question. What is one thing you know now that you wish you knew? When you started cooking?
And then my second tip is we're wrapping it up with tomatoes again. And do not put fresh tomatoes in the fridge. It totally changes the cell structure of the tomatoes and even the flavor profile. It makes them less sweet. It kind of changes their texture to a mealy texture. When you have like, let's say like a cheap sandwich, and you have a tomato slice and you take it out and you're like, oh, it was kind of mealy
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:13
Thank you so much, Samantha Ferraro, for sharing your love of food with us today. We are pleased to tell people where they can find you and learn more about you and your cookbooks and the little Ferraro kitchen
You can find a slew of recipes, especially Mediterranean recipes, on my food blog called Littleferokitchen.com. And I'm also all over social media. I share a lot of cooking videos and recipes on there as well. So on Instagram, I'm at Ferraro Kitchen. On Facebook, I'm at the little Ferraro Kitchen. I'm on TikTok at Ferraro Kitchen. And you can also find my cookbooks on Amazon. Well, the first one is on Amazon. It's called Author author weeknight
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:20
This has been an episode of Taste Buds. I'm Deborah Eckerling, writer. Foodie. Goal. Strategist. You can learn more about me@thedebmethod.com and follow me at the Dev method everywhere. And if you have any more foodie questions for Sam, please reply on the thread. Until next time, keep beating
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:11
This was so amazing. What an incredible back and forth. I just love it. I just want to thank you both for being here. And I have a big smile on my face, and I'm kind of hungry
Debra Eckerling
@thedebmethod · 0:15
Thanks so much for listening, Deborah, and for your comment. We had so much fun chatting, so I'm really glad that it's shown through. So the big question is, you're hungry? What are you cooking, eating this weekend?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:03
Hey, Deb, I'm walking this morning, so excuse a little bit of the noise around me, but that's what's so cool about swell. Good question. I had a Shabbat dinner on Friday night, and I was cooking for a couple of people, and I made a vegetable tajin and salmon and some beautiful white jasmine rice accompanied by my friend who made cauliflower soup vegan with, like, beautiful almond milk that had bits of almond. It was gorgeous